 I'm Hervé Lameau, the director of research here at the Institute, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the book launch of my colleague and friend, Sam Rogovine. I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which the Institute stands, the Gadigal of the Euronation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, especially so at a time when we face a very consequential decision in less than a month on the voice to Parliament. It's fantastic to see such a turnout, and let me particularly acknowledge the Honourable Malcolm Turnbull, a former Prime Minister of Australia in the audience here this evening, along with a number of other long-standing colleagues, friends, imminent journalists and the like. Ladies and gentlemen, the Lowy Institute is special for many reasons, but first and foremost, it's unquestionably down to the people that work here. We've had many world leaders address this event hall, but it's always particularly satisfying when we get the opportunity to showcase our homegrown talent. And it can be hard to define what we do, what the model think tanker should be or look like. It's often said rather vaguely that we should be part academic, part journalist, part policy entrepreneur. That's a tough balancing act. But there are some among us that by dint of personality, of intellectual drive, of longevity, have come to embody those sensibilities and that spirit more than most. Sam Rogavine is precisely one such colleague. Through his early involvement with the Institute, first as founding editor of the Interpreter, and in latter years as a member of the Executive and the Director of our International Security Program, Sam deserves huge credit for helping set the intellectual tone and the climate of the Institute as a broad church dedicated to the contest of ideas. He's also a man of contradictions, in all the best ways I would add. He writes beautifully, but he also writes matter-of-factly. He's a theorist as well as a former policy practitioner. He's a conservative and a contrarian. So, I mean, I should add some of his interests are a little esoteric. Don't get him started on urban planning, for example. But on this, he has a knack for timing. And again, I think it serves to illustrate one key attribute of Sam, which is that he has guts. He goes after the biggest questions, and he isn't afraid to follow through on his logic to their conclusion, even if that pushes against the established wisdom. So, you don't have to be an orcus skeptic to admire Sam Rogavine. He seeks to prize open the Overton window, as it's called in policy speak, with all the daring and subtlety of a Dutchman. And I say that as a Belgian, which is to say the subtlety of a sledgehammer. But he reminds us that contestability is the vital work of think tanks like ours. So, I'm delighted I can partake in Sam's breakthrough moment, as I believe was recently referenced in one of the many articles that have cited his book. And to launch his second book, The Echidna Strategy, Australia's Search for Power and Peace, by inviting the man of the hour to the lectern. Thank you, mate. That's great. Thank you, Herve. That's really kind and generous. I appreciate it deeply. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being here. As you can imagine, it's quite a thrill to be standing up here tonight launching this book. In fact, I confess, it all feels slightly improbable, given where I've come from. It's not that I have a Frank Lowy-like story of coming to Australia with nothing. I am an immigrant, but my family was firmly middle-class when we arrived in Australia in 1980. And I grew up in the comfortable outer suburbs of Melbourne. Still, my dad was a carpenter, my mum, a shop assistant. I went to state schools and concrete universities, not Sandstone. My parents didn't always understand my job here at the Lowy Institute, but they used to love seeing me on TV. I can only imagine what they would think of my book being endorsed by a former prime minister. Thank you, Malcolm, for being here. All of this is just to say that I do maintain a sense of wonder that I'm even standing up here tonight. There aren't many countries in the world where it would even be possible. And for that matter, there aren't many institutions where it's possible either. I've been at the Lowy Institute a long time now. I started here roughly around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Well, it's 16 years, but that's still, you know, that's more than you get for armed robbery. In that time, I've worked along countless wonderful colleagues and with some notable exceptions, like me, the Institute keeps renewing itself with talent. In my time, we've never had as big a cohort of young researchers as we do today, and they are wonderful to be around. If there's one message I'd like to give them to take from tonight and to take from this book, it's a very simple one. Have a go. If you have an idea or an argument to make, don't wait, get to work. This place will support you as it has supported me. I got my start under our first executive director, Alan Gingel, who brought me to the Lowy Institute. And then years later, encouraged me to write this book. We lost Alan earlier this year. And like so many people in the foreign policy world who he touched with his generosity and his wisdom, I miss him. Our current executive director, Michael Fully Love has given me countless opportunities, not least the time and space to write this book. Michael's views differ from mine, but that was never a consideration. I'm lucky in two ways. First, that he's committed to the founding spirit of the Lowy Institute, which is that it hosts the widest range of opinion, but is the advocate of none. And second, I'm lucky because Michael's a bit of a romantic when it comes to books. He believes, as I do, in the power and the stature of books. Since the Echidna strategy hit the shelves about three weeks ago, it's received more attention that I had any right to expect. I'm grateful for all of it, but I have observed a subtext in some of the media coverage. And in the questions I've been asked, which I'd like to briefly address before Herve and I sit down to discuss some of the arguments in the book. And the subtext I'm referring to is that of radicalism, that I'm something of an outsider or a contrarian in the national debate. The thing is, it's hard to claim outsider status when you work at Australia's most influential think tank. And, well, just look at me. Here I stand in a tasteful, mid-price suit, sporting roughly the same haircut that I had, that I've had since I was three years old. I'm nobody's idea of a campus radical. So if anything, in this book, I'm playing the role of a counter-revolutionary. The American SAS William F. Buckley once said that the role of the conservative is to stand a thwart history yelling stop. And that's what the echidna strategy tries to do. And I'm in this in two ways. First, on Australian security, which has taken on a more radical turn under this government and the last, we shouldn't lose sight of how unusual Orcus is. Nuclear-powered attack submarines are Apex predators, the great white sharks of the naval world. Nuclear-powered submarines, not aircraft carriers, are the true capital ships of modern naval warfare. And Australia is getting eight of them, more than France or the UK. It's an unprecedented level of ambition which will vault us to the global high table of naval power. And it's not just Orcus, we've also committed to hosting US bombers at RWAF Tindall Air Base in Northern Australia and American attack submarines at HMAS Sterling in Western Australia. If America goes to war, US forces will refuel, rearm and resupply at those bases. We haven't hosted US combat forces on our soil since World War II. Again, I would argue that to question these new arrangements is hardly the act of a radical. The radicalism, I submit, is all on the other side. The second respect in which this book stands a thwart history, yelling stop, is in regard to America's place in Asia, which is historically quite unusual right now. The argument of the book is simply that the wide scope of America's security ambitions in Asia is a luxury item and that there will be a correction. The US says that continued American leadership in Asia is a necessity. It says America cannot be secure unless Asia is secure. But I argue in the book that this simply isn't true and indeed the Americans themselves may no longer believe it. No nation in history has ever sought as wide a margin of security as the US currently seeks, but it is far in excess of its real requirements. America and China are separated by a vast ocean. The US has a strong economy, the biggest military in the world and thousands of nuclear weapons. China is by far the biggest adversary that the US has ever faced, yet it is no threat to the US or to its economy. If you're going to take on a contest as big as the one against China promises to be, you need a really good reason, an existential reason. The US doesn't have one. Now, I'm not making a moral argument about the use or misuse of American power. I don't say Asia will be a better place if American power is more circumscribed. I merely argue that it's highly likely to become more circumscribed, that Australia needs to plan on that contingency and that resisting the tide of history isn't just a waste of energy, but threatens to make us less safe. The simple argument of the book is that in these circumstances, Australia should follow the example of the echidna, deter without provoking, build an impermeable armor against your enemies, but never be the aggressor and always let your enemies come to you rather than you going in search of them. Thank you all for being here with me. I look forward to the conversation and to your questions. Thank you. So you all have a signed copy in front of you and if not, there'll be further opportunities after this conversation. But let me begin with the heart of your argument. I mean, it's a multi-layered argument. There are many, many facets to this book, but it seems to be the core of your arguments is the importance of distance for Australia at least. Are you mounting an isolationist argument? Thank you. The short answer here is that in military terms, I would like Australia to be less ambitious. In terms of its foreign policy and its statecraft, I'd like Australia to be much more ambitious. So it's certainly not isolationist in military terms because, and we can get onto this later, but I think we will, I want Australia to have a much more intimate and ambitious strategic partnership with Indonesia, for instance. But nevertheless, I think the weight of ambition in Australian strategic policy is misplaced at the moment. It's more towards the military side. I'd like to see it much more weighted towards the foreign policy side. So no, it's by no means an isolationist argument. I don't want Australia to hide away in a corner. Every metaphor has its limits. And I suppose the Echidna metaphor lends itself to the idea that Australia is, I mean, the Echidna is a lone animal. It doesn't congregate in groups, but I want Australia to have a much more ambitious foreign policy and the middle chapter of the book essentially lays out three arguments, three projects for Australian foreign policy in that regard. One is for Australia to really secure its position as the leading power in the Pacific Islands region. The good news is we've made a lot of progress in that regard already, and it started under the Turnbull government and has continued since. In future, there's even further that we could go and I propose in the book the idea that eventually as a long-term ambition, Australia could create something akin to a Pacific Union, an idea that I think you're also attracted to. In fact, you kind of led me to this argument that the EU was in really an attempt to solve a security problem through economics, through an economic partnership. So the Europeans decided at the end of the Second World War that this would never happen again. They would never go through that turmoil and tragedy again. And the way to secure the peace in Europe indefinitely was to form an economic union amongst all of them. And in broad conceptual terms, I would eventually recommend that Australia seeks a similar arrangement. That's not an original argument on my part. The Rudd government proposed that others have done so as well. And as well as the Pacific Islands, as I said, a much more intimate and ambitious strategic partnership with Indonesia. So I think when China looks around the region and considers its own ambitions for regional leadership, I think what it sees is other great powers that will always put up some resistance to China's greatest ambitions. So India and the Indian Ocean, Russia in Central Asia, Japan in North Asia, the United States in North Asia. The one exception, however, is Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia doesn't have a resident great power. And that means that on its face at least, it's gonna be harder to resist China's ambitions in this part of the world. So I argue that really one part of securing Australia's security in the future is that we should encourage Indonesia on that path. And Indonesia is on track to become a great power by the middle of the century. It might be one of the top five economies in the world. And that's very much to the good for Australia so long as we're in their good books. I mean, the nightmare scenario for Australia is that Indonesia is both rich and hostile to Australia. We want Indonesia to be rich, but friendly towards Australia. And so that's the kind of strategic partnership I'd want to establish with Indonesia is very much to head off that darker future. The argument at least, I think implicitly because there hasn't really been a robust defense of the strategic rationale by any government behind or backing AUKUS. But I think implicitly the argument that's being advanced is that everything you've outlined can be done whilst also investing in AUKUS that you can walk and chew gum at the same time that these are not mutually exclusive avenues for Australian foreign and defense policy. Why do you believe that they're mutually exclusive? Well, maybe mutually exclusive is too strong, but there is a huge opportunity cost from going down the path that we've taken. So, you know, $368 billion is, you know, pretty serious money and it may well go north of that. And there are lots of other things we could be doing with that money. But I also think that there's a more fundamental tension there, which is that AUKUS, I think, implicitly ties us to a security agenda, which is inconsistent with the kind of ambitions and the kind of plans that I laid out just a moment ago. And the thing I'm most worried about is that we build a military force structure which it doesn't formally close off options for Australia. It doesn't make it impossible for Australia to say no to the United States if the United States should call on Australia. But it does make it an awful lot harder. So if we build a fleet that, you know, let's over a span of 30 years, we're proposing to build a fleet of submarines that will tie us to the United States, you know, in terms of R&D, industrial capacity, nuclear safety, tactics and strategy, and effectively building a naval fleet for Australia, a submarine fleet, which becomes an adjunct of the US Pacific fleet. In those circumstances, on the day that the balloon goes up, it is much harder for Australia to say, no, sorry, we're out. You know, having spent decades building a fleet that is actually more or less designed for that exact purpose, you make it much harder for yourself to say no when the time comes. I think, and this is where we agree that, and perhaps it's again borrowing from the European analogy, that functional integration is the backdoor to further political integration. I mean, that's how the entire European project was set up and it's not entirely analogous, but I think there is something more than just a functional agreement at work here. Nevertheless, and this is perhaps where we disagree, is there is an argument or a counter-argument that you could try to seize the moment as Australia as historically the junior partner in the equation. Now that the US Alliance Spaceship has firmly landed in the Pacific, whereas before it was always something further removed, it was an insurance policy we paid and got involved in the Middle East and further theaters, but didn't really impinge on our Asian focused foreign policy. Now that those two worlds are colliding, there's an opportunity here not just to keep America anchored to this region, which I think is one of the logics, one of the rationales behind AUKUS, but also to be the tale that wags the dog, to shape the sort of role that the US can play, could play in our region, to rethink the Alliance, perhaps more along to be a bit provocative, Israeli lines whereby we actually have an enormous amount of leverage. There are very few countries who have our degree of access in DC who could exert that level of influence on thinking when it comes to US in the Pacific strategy and AUKUS may be a means to try to produce a different sort of US policy in our region. Well I'll confess I've never considered the Israeli analogy before, so that is gonna take some more thinking on my part, but it seems to me on its face that the proposition that we tie the Americans down to our security objectives in this region by buying military kit from them doesn't withstand an awful lot of scrutiny. Alliances are not agreements, they are not a welfare scheme for the junior partner. I mean this after all is what Trump has been so upset about for so many years. He thinks Americans taxpayers are being built by their allies, that Americans are sacrificing their wealth and potentially their troops in order to defend allies who refuse to defend themselves. And so what the United States is not actually making what economists would call a costly signal here. The risks and the costs all fall on Australia. So if we were to be reassured, if we wanted to be reassured that the United States was truly committed to Australian security and Australian defense, then I think we would wanna see many, much more evidence that the United States is ramping up its military presence in this region. That's not what we're seeing. What we're seeing is a lot more distribution of American forces around the region, new basing agreements with the Philippines, new facilities on Guam, of course Australia, I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks. But those really are defensive responses to Chinese missile capabilities. The Americans need to distribute their forces more widely because they're under greater threat. What we haven't seen is many more American forces committed to the region. In fact, since the end of the Cold War, American force structure in Asia has basically remained static. And that's in the face of China launching the biggest, the most dramatic military modernization of any nation since World War II. So you'd think more dramatic gestures would have been called for by now. If the United States really felt that it had to resist this tide, then we should have seen more by now. And that is, I think, the single biggest piece of evidence that reinforces my doubts, the ones I've voiced at the beginning, that the United States may not be as committed as it claims. And buying submarines won't change that, sorry. Now, just on the, so turning to the other side of the equation, which is China and the sort of level of threat that may be posed by China's rise. So you've already alluded to, of course, it's huge military modernization program. But you're also, and in that sense, it is a bit similar to arguments previously advanced by Hugh White, but you also take a sort of different line that you don't think the China threat is necessarily existential to Australia, or that Lisa may be overplayed. Can you go into that? Yeah, well, I owe a lot to Hugh White, and I've mentioned it in the book. So the argument that I've made about American staying power in the region is very similar to Hugh's. I differ with him in some important respects. And one is the one you allude to, which is that he argues that Australia, in the environment he describes, that defense spending will have to rise dramatically. And I'm not sure the situation is quite that desperate that we need to spend a lot more on defense. We certainly need to spend our defense dollars very differently, but we don't need to spend radically more. And at the core of that argument is really the point about distance. Australia's single biggest defense asset is distance. We are far away from China. Beijing is closer to Berlin than it is to Sydney. And that gives us a tremendous advantage because projecting military power over long distances is extremely difficult and very expensive. Landing a 500 kilogram warhead over the next hill costs barely nothing. Landing a 500 kilogram warhead 4,000 kilometers away costs tens of millions of dollars. In fact, that's understating it because the missile itself might cost tens of millions of dollars, but the whole infrastructure of research and development and rocketry and so forth that's behind it costs hundreds of millions of dollars and takes decades to achieve. Distance is our friend. And the odd element, the quixotic element of Australian defense policy at the moment is that we are now pursuing a defense strategy which seeks to compress the distance between us and China. When what I argue is that we should be exploiting it. And what I mean by compress, of course, is that we're proposing to build long range submarines which are designed to operate thousands of kilometers from Australian shores in concert with the US Navy when Australia could be much more affordably defended from its own bites along its own shores. And in fact, the Chinese themselves have created the model here. So they developed early on in the air military modernization period, they developed this concept which came to be known as A2AD, anti-access area denial. And it's really a very simple proposition that you build lots of anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft missiles and you mount them on various platforms to make it basically impossible for any enemy force to operate within several hundred kilometers of your coastline. We're now at the point where that force has expanded so that no enemy force can operate safely within one and a half thousand kilometers of the Chinese coastline. And Australia in its own small way can do something similar. In fact, the defense strategic review that the government launched in March uses the phrase A2AD, which has only ever previously been used in association with China. But now this government has adopted it. And I think that's very welcome. The problem is, AUKUS is actually, I think in direct tension with that objective. If you were, I mean, from the standpoint where we have geography on our side, I don't expect you've given much thought to this, but if you were, let's say, an East Asian US ally, and for example, Japan or South Korea is still far more embedded within and dependent on the US alliance than we are, would you then say the argument wouldn't apply? The same argument wouldn't apply because they're far more proximate to China. Therefore, the threat is different. The calculus is different. And basically, is your recommendation tailored and specific and unique to Australia? Or is it something that you think other countries could also seek to replicate, should seek to replicate? You use Indonesia an example. I mean, Indonesia is also famously neutral on questions of defense alignments, but also more widely on foreign policy. Is that sort of the template that you think is required from more than just Australia? Well, the template is somewhat unique to Australia because of our geography. However, I argue that in fact, Indonesia more or less shares that geography, shares that strategic geography, and we have a common objective, I think, in maritime Southeast Asia, which is that we both want maritime Southeast Asia to never be dominated by China. And that's why I think that that would be at the heart of a much more ambitious security agreement with Indonesia that we need to pursue that objective together and we can do it much more efficiently together than separately. But having said that, I think the A2AD template, which is essentially defensive in nature, it's a denial doctrine. I think that actually is applicable everywhere. I think it would be to the benefit of strategic stability in our region if all countries adopted it. I wish China only adopted an A2AD strategy and didn't adopt a more assertive defense doctrine and build a massive fleet of aircraft carriers as it's currently doing. And I do think there are early signs of that. The evidence that a maritime denial strategy is effective and highly efficient is now overwhelming. Ukraine is just the latest example. It is, I was reflecting on this earlier today. It is an extraordinary fact about the Ukraine war that of the two countries involved in that war, the one that doesn't have a navy is winning the naval war, right? It's quite extraordinary. I mean, just reflect on that for a moment. It was reinforced again last week when the Ukrainians sank or didn't sink, but destroyed a Russian submarine and a Russian landing ship, which were both in dry dock. And at the moment, the naval war is not even close. The Ukrainians also sank a major Russian fleet unit last year. The cruiser Moskva, something like 25,000 ton capital ship. So, the evidence is accumulating that it is almost impossible in our modern world for surface ships and even aircraft to operate safely at long distances over water because they get shot down. And it's much cheaper and much more efficient to be the country economically efficient, to be the country that pings at these targets with missiles than to be the country which is sitting out there trying to block all those missiles. So this is an affordable doctrine, I think, for any Asian government and I encourage them all to adopt it. So, I mean, you basically identify the risk of entanglement in a contingency that we would not want to be potentially involved in. So that's the sort of the political risk here in engaging through AUKUS. But you also don't think nuclear powered submarines are required. I mean, what if you could get nuclear powered submarines outside of the US Alliance? I mean, what if it was provided through the French, for example? I mean, is that something that you think, I mean, just Parasar? But you think that is just a necessary luxury or would you still be tempted? No, I wouldn't be tempted because it is a luxury item and there's an opportunity cost for every nuclear powered submarine you get and I'm agnostic where they come from. For every nuclear powered submarine you can get, you could probably buy four diesel powered submarines. And remember the point for Australia is not to have submarines as such. What we want is the capabilities that submarines have and what is the capability? Well, what submarines are really good at is sinking other submarines and sinking ships. But of course, there are a lot of ways to do that. And as the Ukrainians are now demonstrating, again, they have no navy and they're winning the naval war. So submarines are a useful capability for Australia but become somewhat fetishised in our national debate. The point is that we want the capability to make sure that our air and naval approaches to our north are kept secure and that no foreign power can intrude on those. There are many ways to do that. Submarines are just one. All right, look, I'm mindful of the time as well. What we might do, I've got a few more questions but I thought we would mix things up a little bit. Invite the audience to ask some questions as well and then we can play by ear and see how we go. But there's a lot of interested participants here tonight. Let me begin with the gentleman. Thanks very much. Richard Brunoski. Sam, what do you think? You mentioned Chinese ambitions in the region. What do you think they are? Thank you. This gives me an opportunity to say that although my sense since the book has been launched is that the argument is popular on the left, I am not myself on the left and I don't take particularly soft or apologetic views about China's behaviour on the world stage. I think we have every right to be concerned about China's ambitions and its behaviour is extremely worrying, not least for Australia with its economic coercion campaign of the last three years and its attempts to intrude on Australian politics and Chinese language media here, profoundly worrying and Australian governments past and present have been right in taking that very, very seriously. So my starting point is that China would like to have a sphere of influence in Asia, wants to be the leading power in Asia and wants to push the United States out. It's not prepared to go to war to pursue that ambition but it does want to be the leading power and I think eventually to become the dominant power in Asia. My argument would be that it's probably beyond our powers to stop China being the leading power in this region and I think China will develop a sphere of influence at the very least in continental Southeast Asia. In fact, there's already real evidence that that is happening, Laos and Cambodia for instance. But we can certainly stop China being the dominant power. That ought to be our ambition and that's the ambition that I referred to earlier with regard to a security treaty with Indonesia. We can certainly stop that ambition and that is within the power of other major economies and major nations within the region, including Japan and South Korea. They can all, even separately if not together, stop China from becoming the dominant power in Asia and thereby we establish a kind of balance, a regional balance of powers. But yes, I do think China has expansive ambitions. I also think that the reports that we read a few years ago of China approaching governments in the Pacific Islands region to set up military, Chinese military facilities in our part of the world, I think those reports were credible. So, and we have evidence that China is developing a naval facility in Cambodia. It's very much in our interest to prevent China from ever achieving that ambition, particularly in the Pacific Islands region. A few more questions. There's a hand closest to the air conditioning unit. There we go. Thanks, John Harvey, formerly of Defence. One of the concerns I have is the Kidner strategy. It seems to equate security with not being invaded as opposed to a much broader concept of security, such as trade and economic security. Can you expand on that, please? Well, I think when it comes to the defence of Australia, that's a useful starting point. I mean, I don't think Australia is at risk of being invaded. In fact, I spend a bit of time in the book, essentially dismissing that idea. Not entirely dismissing it. I mean, it's worth sort of lingering on the fact that in our time, there are two examples of major powers invading and attempting to occupy middle powers. One is the US invasion of Iraq. The other is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And it's useful to think about the circumstances in which that happened and why they did what they did. And it had a little bit to do, I think in Russia's case in particular, with Russia's sense that its sphere of influence was being impeded. And so if China was ever to establish a sphere of influence as far down into the Pacific as the Pacific Islands region, then Australia would be in radically different security circumstances. I do think it's important to think about that high end, the high end of warfare and of military operations, first and foremost, because everything else follows. If you can't put up a credible deterrent against those high end threats, it makes it very much harder to tackle the lower end threats of the kind that you're referring to. For instance, the Philippines can put up a bit of a show against China in the South China Sea, but always with the knowledge that the Chinese Coast Guard and then the Chinese Navy is somewhere over the horizon. So even if it wins or it can resist China at a localized level, if China chooses to escalate, the Philippines will lose. So Australia always needs to have the capabilities to ensure that China would be deterred from escalating or that any adversary would be deterred from escalating. So it all starts from the high end, even if the actual chances of it happening are pretty remote. Sam, I mean, you've spoken a lot about the strategic, the big strategic picture and that's what the book is about. There's another camp of skeptics, which isn't necessarily one that shares your views on the overarching strategic order and the fact that they might even believe that this is a good idea on paper, that their skepticism is born more out of the fact that they just think it's almost gonna be impossible to realize this, it's far too ambitious for Australia. Can you describe a little bit about your thoughts of just the feasibility of executing on a project of the scale? Have you done much thinking on that? Look, a little bit. And in fact, there's always been a worrying thought underlying the process of writing this book and preparing this book, is that the kind of strategic arguments that you've heard me make tonight and that I'm making the book may turn out to be redundant because the project is so ambitious that we could end up with having no nuclear-powered submarines at all and that AUKUS turns out to be a fissure. I mean, we've been here twice before in recent years. I mean, we had a handshake agreement with the Japanese for them to build our submarines and we reneged on that. We had a contract with the French to build submarines and we canceled that. It shouldn't shock anyone if we're back here in a few years time discussing all this again. And in fact, you're absolutely right. There is, I mean, I belong, I think, to a minority view within the Australian strategic debate which says that AUKUS is a bad idea for strategic reasons. But the other school of skeptics is the practical, the pragmatic skeptics. And in fact, there were two excellent examples of it just today and yesterday. One, Michael Shubridge, who was formerly of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote a column in the financial review today which I think is very much of that school. He's in favor of AUKUS, but he's saying, boy, we haven't got very far in the first two years and the big challenges are still ahead of us and there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical that this will ever get done. And yesterday, Greg Sheridan wrote roughly the same column in the Australian along very similar lines. So what more ad hominem I think as well? A bit more, a bit more ad hominem than Michael, yeah. Yes. Oh, okay, thank you Malcolm Turnbull. Look, just on the Japanese, there was no agreement with Japan to build submarines. I know that is the popular myth. Abbott had given Abe every encouragement to believe that that was where he was, he at least was heading, but there was never an agreement signed or anything like that. It never went to cabinet. This is, there's a myth that's developed thereby and just because this is such a scholarly institution, I hope you don't mind sticking to the facts and the historical fact. I use the phrase handshake agreement. Is that too strong? Totally, it's untrue. Well, I mean, you either have an agreement or you don't. I'm sitting next to a Supreme Court judge here. So you can have a, if you've got, you can have an agreement which is written by a bunch of law firms which is 500 pages long or you can shake hands, but you've got to have an agreement. There was no agreement. There was every impression, every encouragement created by Tony and he did so without the endorsement of his cabinet or any public disclosure thereby, but it was not, there was no agreement. So it's just really important. Australia did not renege on an agreement with Japan because there was no agreement. And people who say that are really undermining Australian-Japanese relations because people in Japan may believe it and think that we ratted on an agreement with them in the way that Mr. Morrison did shamefully with France. Thank you. We'll take one more question. Thank you. Andrew Kaldor, thank you. Could you talk about Taiwan, please? How you... What's the probability within my lifetime, say 10 years or 15 years, that there will be a conflict? And if there is one, how should we react given the Echidna approach? It's a very good question. Yeah, thank you. Well, the first thing I'd say about offering a prediction or a forecast about the likelihood of war over the Taiwan Strait, across the Taiwan Strait, is to never rely on people like me for making such predictions. So I would point everyone to an American political scientist by the name of Philip Tetlock, who wrote a wonderful book called Expert Political Judgment, which demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that political experts are absolutely terrible at making predictions in their area of expertise. And I'm not having a go at experts. I pretend to be one, and experts are useful in many different ways. They can help you explain the world, but at making predictions, their record is no better than throwing a dart at a board. So don't rely on us for accurate predictions, even though the market for them is extremely strong and we keep being rewarded for offering confident predictions, but you shouldn't be swayed by them. What Australia should do in light of the Echidna strategy? Well, the final chapter of the book is actually devoted to that question. So really what I say in the final chapter of the book is, well, what if I'm wrong about America? What if instead of what I said at the lectern before about America's declining resolve to defend its interests in Asia, that America finds that resolve and that it does redouble its efforts here and it does, should the balloon go up, it does choose to defend Taiwan and potentially, by doing that, launching World War III, because the stakes really are that high. So if that happens, then I think Australia should stay up. That is my simple proposition. I think Australia has interests in Taiwan and I think personally, I, and I think the most Australians would argue that it would be far better if Taiwan remained democratic and that it never succumbed to Chinese military power. If nothing else, I mean, Taiwan, Taiwanese democracy is great for the Taiwanese people, but if nothing else, the fact of Taiwanese democracy is a powerful standing rebuke to the Chinese Communist Party because the Chinese Communist Party insists that the Chinese people can't have democracy. They're not ready for freedom and democracy. And there's an example just across the street saying actually you're wrong about that. And I think that's a wonderful example that is made to the Chinese people and to the Chinese Communist Party. However, does that mean that the defense of Taiwan is a vital interest for Australia, one we should be prepared to make major military sacrifices for and potentially could lead to World War III? No, I argue not. Our interest is not so closely aligned that we should want that. I'll put it in a slightly controversial way just to close that off. Up until a few years ago, Hong Kong was a thriving democracy. It no longer is. Has that materially affected Australia's vital interests? No. I would much prefer that Hong Kong was a democracy, but for Australia, I would argue that's not worth going to war over. Yeah, but I mean, there's still a huge difference in terms of an island of 25 million people with de facto territorial integrity in Hong Kong, which was ceded in 1997, et cetera, et cetera. But there's also a broader argument here, which is I mean, a lot of the critics will level at you, which is it's a slippery slope, right? I mean, okay, so Taiwan, we don't get involved in, but you say we don't want China to be dominant in maritime Southeast Asia. So what about a contingency in the South China Sea? Now, I'm not saying predict whether that will happen. Of course, we're not here to predict, but it is a distinct possibility nevertheless. Does Australia then get involved? Are there any circumstances in which Australia would or should get involved in the kinetic conflict with China? It sounds a little like the domino theory. We've been there before. It didn't work out that well the first time around. And look, just to reiterate, I know romantic about China's ambitions and Chinese power, but you cannot resist Chinese military power and you cannot deter Chinese strategic ambitions unless China knows that you are serious, that you have vital interests at stake, right? And you can't fake that. You have to demonstrate that your vital interests are engaged. And if they're not, then there's every chance that your bluff will be called. So Australia and every country around the region that has interests that are contrary to China's needs to be absolutely clear about where our nice to haves end and our vital interests begin. And that's the point where we defend ourselves. And that's, yeah, that's exactly. So you're calling for a clear delineation of our core interests. But part of your core interests goes as far as, in your phrasing goes as far as ensuring China's not dominant in maritime South Asia. Presumably therefore, you would have a different approach to a outbreak of war in Southeast Asia or the South China Sea than you would when it comes to Taiwan. Yeah, certainly if we were in a very close security partnership with Indonesia, I think implicit in that would be that we would fight alongside of each other. I mean, of course, we hope it never comes to that. And I think the largest, the weight of Australian action to ensure that it never comes to that is not military at all, it's in statecraft. So it's in that effort to secure our sphere of influence in the Pacific Islands region. It's in that effort to develop a stronger security partnership with Indonesia. And the third proposition in the book is that Australia ought to be fighting, working extremely hard to bring together what is something like a concert of powers in the Asian region. So that the major powers in our region all come together to manage their differences peacefully and to ensure that there is never war amongst them. I think it's an important project for Australia to actually bring such an arrangement together. We've got a question here by Geraldine Duke. Thank you, Geraldine Duke. So does that sort of mean can an echidna be a semi-great power? I mean, you're alluding there to something that I think is very interesting and we don't tilt at enough, but I wonder quite temperamentally whether this fits with your ease or comfort with the echidna, with pulling back, pulling back and moving out. How do we do that? Yeah, I don't think it's all inconsistent for Australia to be both very defensive in our military force structure and our military force posture, but also to be quite forward-leaning in our foreign policy. No, I don't see any contradiction there and nor would I be uncomfortable. In fact, I endorse the idea of Australia having a relationship with Indonesia that might even include basing Australian forces on Indonesian soil. I mean, we're a long way away from that, I stress. If there's a point where critics have said that I'm being far too ambitious, in fact, a bit, perhaps crazily ambitious, it's in this idea that Australia and Indonesia could ever come to that kind of arrangement. I don't think it's as distant as all that, but I admit it is a very far off at the moment. But no, I don't see those two things as being inconsistent because it's largely a question of, you signal a defensive intent through your force structure and through your strategy. So even if Australia and Indonesia are allied together in this way, you can easily signal that the intent of that arrangement is purely defensive. So you don't develop long range weapons that are able to hit land targets, for instance. And you focus your training and your force structure purely at being able to keep the oceans, to make the oceans in Southeast Asia, the seas in Southeast Asia, too dangerous for any adversary to operate in. Yes, I think we're a while away from that. I mean, the idea of a concert of powers is anathema to a lot of Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia. So they don't speak our language when it comes to a balance of power. I always keep rattling on about the differences between hedgers and balancers among middle powers in Asia. Indonesia sees US China competition as the problem. We are more inclined, even you are more inclined to view the rise of China as the root cause of instability within the balance of power and distribution of power in Asia. And I think from that stems very different policy prescriptions, very hard divide to bridge. And I think we've tried Indonesia relationship before, but that's more of an interjection. No, not at all. In fact, look, I freely admit, and I've said in the book that this is a distant ambition, the one bit of console, I mean, there are a number of reasons I list in the book as to why this could happen, but I'll just offer one little sort of anecdote here, which is that, you know, policy can change very quickly when circumstances change radically. So when just before Russia invaded Ukraine, the 20 year period before that, Germany had the most accommodationist policy towards Russia of any power, of any great power in the world. Well, sorry, of any great power in Europe, I should say. So, you know, the energy relationship, German governments were much more accommodating towards Vladimir Putin, reluctant to criticize. Then Russia invades Ukraine on a Thursday, and on the following Sunday, the German chancellor gives a speech which essentially overturns the previous 20 years of German policy. So now they're gonna sell weapons to Ukraine, which they've never done before. They're gonna wean themselves off Russian energy supplies, and they announce implacable opposition to Russian military aims in Ukraine, and declare that Ukraine must remain free and whole. So things can change very quickly when circumstances changed. I'm not saying that the Chinese will be quite as aggressive in their policy as the Russians were over Ukraine, but over time, China's ambitions are gonna butt up much more strongly against Indonesian interests. And at that point, Indonesia will need to make a choice. Interesting. There were, yeah, there was a number of hands. Yes, all the way at the back there, our very esteemed colleague. Oh, sorry, I actually meant. Thank you very much. If I could return briefly to Orcas, and I was one of the, explore some of the political ramifications games, if you would, and with due difference to our former PM sitting in the front row. There was a peace last night on Sky After Dark with three marksmen. I was very curious. She was trying to give a critique of Caroline Kennedy's role as ambassador. And there was some suggestion that her return back to the US was trying to control maybe people in the Freedom Caucus, or other people who weren't fully supporting the notion of Orcas and allocating limited submarine resources on their production line to their own fleet. Surely if you could convince people like a Trump or other people of the similar mind that we are paying for the submarines through them initially, and then a much further extravagant development, we will base them in HMS Sterling, pay for that ourselves, possibly develop Paul Kembler and other places. Isn't that a coach and political argument to say that's all to the good for them? And therefore they shouldn't be concerned about us taking resources away from their own program. However stupid we might all think that is, but politically, isn't that a powerful argument? It's not just because of time. I think I'm gonna allow for a second question and then you can, and I'm gonna go to the a very tall man at the back there. Michael Fully Love from the Lowey Institute. First of all, congratulations Sam on the publication of this book. Thank you for your kind words. You're right, you and I do disagree about everything in your book, but I'm very proud. I'm very proud that the Institute is such a broad church that it can accommodate such different parishioners. So congratulations on making your argument very strongly. Can I ask you this? You've mentioned Ukraine and Russia's brutal, unprovoked, unjustified, illegal invasion of Ukraine several times. And this happened in the middle of you writing this book. Did this give you pause? Because as you say, the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been for countries such as Sweden and Finland to set aside decades or centuries of non-alignment in order to invest in alliances and in particular NATO. And of course the critique that most, when most of the West is self-critical now about Ukraine, we go back to Russia's activities seven or eight years ago when we neglected to stand up to Russian aggression in the Donbass and Crimea. And we refused to deter Russia from this much more forceful action. And given that Orcus is ultimately about deterrence, it's about putting question marks in China's, in the minds of Xi Jinpings and Chinese leaders. Did Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the fruits of non-deterrence, did that give you any pause about your argument, which is really to retreat to Australia and not engage in that kind of extended deterrence? Okay, thank you. Well, let me quickly just address the first question. I'm clearly not consuming enough sky after dark. But I would actually defer to the gentleman in the front row on this question because I've been trying for some time to imagine the situation when Trump takes office in 2025, it wouldn't be January 2025, when Orcus lands on his desk. I doubt he would even know what it is at the moment. But when a paper lands on his desk that says that the United States is about to lose three or maybe five nuclear-powered submarines, I mean, I remember the phone call that Malcolm Turnbull had with Donald Trump about the relative, I don't mean to diminish the issue at all, but the relatively trivial matter of a refugee exchange. Imagine, he's gonna lose it when he hears that the United States is about to sell, it's most important military assets to Australia. So I have my doubts about that proposition. Well, no, I don't have much time, so I'd better address Michael's question. So did it give me pause? Did it force me to adjust my priors, if you like, as some economists say? I must admit, I'm still somewhat baffled by the reaction of the Swedes and the Finns, for instance. I mean, if they could see out the entire Cold War as neutral countries, then why now? Why choose to join NATO now when actually within several months of the Ukraine invasion beginning, it became clear that Russian power was even weaker, much weaker than we had thought before the war started. I would also add that despite the kind of aid that the Western powers are now offering Ukraine, it is clear that deterrents, nuclear deterrents, is working, is operating in that theater because there are obvious limits to the amount of help that NATO countries are prepared to offer. And so to me, it demonstrates that while American interests and while the interests of European great powers are clearly engaged in the Ukraine war, those are not vital interests. If Ukraine was a vital interest of Germany and France and the rest of NATO, then Ukraine would have been a NATO member already, but it wasn't, and it still isn't, and it probably never will be. For the reason that Ukraine's security, while important for those countries, is not a vital interest for those powers. And I think that same sobering judgment or to actually govern our own ideas about how we defend ourselves. I mean, some would argue that sanctity of sovereignty and territorial integrity is a vital interest to maintain and uphold for the European security order, but we won't go there. Look, I mean, we're basically out of time. I love the fact that you brought up Philip Tedlock. He also brings up the analogy that Isaiah Berlin, that famous philosopher 20th century, often spoke about the distinction between the Hedgehog and the Fox. And it strikes me that you're probably more of a Hedgehog, given that the kid knows somewhat similar, in that a lot of the arguments you're advancing are, in fact, is logic that precedes the creation of occurs. It's not like you suddenly came to this conclusion overnight. So there's an interesting experiment here, which is what would it take for you to say my argument is definitely refuted? And what would it take to say my argument is definitely vindicated? I mean, what sorts of global events would need to unfold or in the bilateral relationship with the US in either direction? Great question. And if you can answer that in 20 seconds. Great question. You should have asked it an hour ago, but... Sorry. No, that's too good, actually. That's a really good question, and I had to reflect on that more, but I won't do it again. We can reflect on that over canapes and a drink. I should, by the way, just because this is such dry and serious stuff, I do have a lighted note on which to end. So the books are for sale outside, and I'm happy to sign them afterwards, and I hope you all buy a copy if you haven't already. But I just... A colleague of ours, Herve, at the Lowey Institute, bought a copy of the book for his dad a couple of weeks ago as a Father's Day gift, which was very nice to hear that he had done that. And he told me that his dad pulled one of the great dad moves of all time. So he took this book home to his parents. His dad unwraps it, takes a look at it, and his son says, Dad, one of my colleagues at the Lowey Institute wrote this book, and his dad says, Do you mean to tell me that your colleague gave you this book for free, and now you're passing it off as my Father's Day present? And he goes, He goes, No, no, Dad, Dad, I went to the bookshop and I bought you one, especially. And his dad goes, You mean to tell me your colleague wrote a book and you couldn't even get in to give you one for free? It's even worse. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Well, be sure to actually get a signed copy and preferably buy a copy as well. I'm sure for Sam, it's always a great vindication of the author's hard work. I think you've gotten a flavor of just how multi-layered Sam's argument is. It goes in so many directions you couldn't possibly cover everything in one hour. So we really just touched the surface here. You also got a sense of just how Sam can provoke a good argument within the wider public national debate, but also within the Lowy Institute, and that's a very healthy thing. And so thank you, Sam, for keeping us thinking about a really current, lively issue, something that actually has not been debated, that I would argue, as much as it should have been in Australia, and you've started to correct that. So thanks for all that you've done at the Lowy Institute, but in particular for advancing this debate. Really fascinating insights. Please join me in thanking Sam, and we can pursue this conversation over drinks. Thank you.