Nicholas Stuart | An intimate alliance that locks Australia into war

Horner examines the critical role of the prime minister in this process. Detailed analysis insists the very structure of our national decision-making creates a bias towards war. He tilted towards peace. It's not some sort of conspiracy - it's baked in to the way policy is formulated. Take an example.

Australia has twice declared war on Iraq: first under Bob Hawke in 1990, and John Howard in 2003. On both occasions Parliament later ratified the intervention, but that was a formulaic, reflex action taken after military operations had already begun. Defeating the PM on the floor of the House would have been unthinkable and this process was effectively little more than a rubber stamp legitimising decisions already taken. So what's wrong with this? Nothing. The point Horner makes is specifically in relation to the critical role of the prime minister in this process.

In every case it is the PM - surrounded by the security establishment - who has decided on war and delineated the boundaries of the commitment. With one exception (the war against Japan in 1941) all of these decisions have been the result of choice and balance: sending part of the country to war (as expeditionary forces) while the rest of the country is at 'peace'.

The question is, particularly as the enormous financial and human cost of war rapidly escalates to existential levels, if this is really the best way to decide on such a vital question of life and death?

By definition, political leaders have a bias towards action. They don't rise to power by being timid. It's the same with the heads of agencies that surround the PM in the National Security Committee of cabinet. These aren't shy people. It's stacked with 'can do' people who have, for their entire lives, envisaged a world where their particular institution - be it Army, Navy, or Air Force, intelligence agency or foreign affairs - holds the answers to the world's problems. When asked for options such people will instinctively press the button to 'go' and wonder why they weren't asked earlier.

The other issue, today, is the increasing integration of our forces with those of the US. Labor's John Curtin was the first PM to look to Washington back in 1941: since then Australia has increasingly identified its interests with those of the US. Canberra's current strategic architecture is now so deeply aligned to that of Washington that divorce has become impossible.

Examine the past quarter-century and the one factor that keeps recurring is the central failure of the NSC. While this country has continually seemingly embarked on wars and interventions for the best reasons and with noble objectives, the results have been a litany of disaster and failure.

In East Timor? What made the intervention a success had little to do with the deployment: its success was achieved primarily because Indonesia didn't resist the UN. Then ASIS thought it could permanently bug the new nation's cabinet. Result; spying discovered and permanent distrust results. In the Solomon Islands? Operation helpem fren (helping friends) was a success that wasn't followed up as this country became engaged in the Middle East. Today the islands have a prime minister who hates Australia and turns, instead, to China. Iraq? Years of destruction and sectarian violence have created a residue of instability and resentment. Afghanistan? All that money; all those lives: a complete failure.

It's a litany of hubris.

Put what are supposedly our best minds together and ask them to direct Australia's foreign and defence policy and what results is an almost total inability to achieve anything matching the overweening ambition present at the conception. Instead there's a bias towards active intervention that has the seeds of failure baked-in from the start. It's a process of endorsement that empowers individual organisations to act in a way that bolsters their role while effectively working against the national interest.

We can see the same dynamic at work today.

The (only) real crisis the world faces is climate change and what does the NSC offer us? AUKUS. The ANU's Professor Mark Howden, vice-chair of the IPCC, says concisely the reported budget of the new alliance is between two to three times the cost of reducing emissions to meet Australia's Paris commitments. Instead of concentrating on this vital strategic need we're spending money to build submarines that may be completely irrelevant by the time they arrive.

This is a perfect demonstration of institutional capture.

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Labor's stunning victory in Aston this weekend will simply reinforce Anthony Albanese's instinctive belief he's got the AUKUS decision right. He's half-right. Last May, every electorate where there were large numbers of people with Chinese ancestry turned emphatically against Scott Morrison. Two days ago the people of Aston (14 per cent ethnically Chinese) similarly rejected Peter Dutton, who talked up the China threat even more vehemently than his predecessor. Dutton only being capable of beating the drums of war can now be dismissed as nothing more than a Potemkin leader, an empty facade waiting to be cut down by the next ambitious Liberal wannabe.

Labor saw the election as a litmus test for the AUKUS deal. But while Albanese passed the test and firmly established his credentials locking Australia into the alliance with Washington, the next steps will be far more difficult.

Accepting the invitation to dance with the US didn't require much thought. We share, basically, a similar view of the world together with the same values. This doesn't mean the countries are identical and against another opponent, Chinese Australians might have easily turned elsewhere. It might be time for Albanese to begin distinguishing his positions from those of his "good friend" Biden. Putting some intellectual ballast into the NSC might be a good start.