How should Australia respond to the new world disorder? ⬇️

Recently former Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull convened a ‘Sovereignty and Security‘ forum, bringing together around a hundred National Security and Defence experts including Beaten Zone Venture Partners advisor Mick Ryan, AM. The day’s proceedings are being featured in the ‘Defending Democracy’ podcast that we recommend you add to your listen list

It was the session that asked ‘Does Australia need to scale up to Survive?’ that caught our attention. It is clear that Australia needs to make prudent decisions to enhance our sovereign Defence, National Security and Industrial capability and capacity. As Dr Alan Dupont’s remarked:

“Australia desperately needs a world class Defence Industry capable of exporting to the world. We are already competitive in many areas of design, innovation, advanced manufacturing and research & development. But pockets of excellence and niche capabilities aren’t enough. We still import most of our major defence equipment. Australian companies unfortunately are bit players in a Defence Industry universe dominated by big largely American Prime contractors. And we have no Defence Industry Strategic Plan or a funding model that meets our needs and provides a pathway to greater Defence self reliance.”

Turnbull’s ‘Sovereignty and Security’ forum coincided with an emerging trade war between the US and China, a turbulent start to the second Trump administration and of course an Australian election campaign. Apart from a spicy Janes report of Russia requesting access to an Indonesian airbase in Irian Jaya, Defence and National Security has not overly featured in the campaign to date. Let’s see if that changes in the final two weeks and around ANZAC Day.

Meanwhile the Trump initiated Trade War continues. The fog of war seems to feature in Trade Wars as well – while the world waits and watches as actions and counteractions between the two economic titans unfold, it appears that we are entering a period of trading blocs and fragmentation of the unipolar moment economic order. While much of the focus in Australia has been the impact here and in the US, Yahoo News is reporting many Chinese analysts are expecting a significant impact to China as well:

“Goldman Sachs predicted last week that US tariffs would result in a 1.7 percentage point hit to GDP this year, dragging growth below 3pc for 2025 in the absence of any government stimulus measures. Capital Economics believes China’s shipments to the US will more than halve over the coming years, reducing China’s GDP ‘by somewhere between 1pc and 1.5pc depending on the extent of re-routing’.”

We certainly live in interesting times!

📷 via Yahoo News