The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, La Trobe University Press, Melbourne, 2023
The Echidna Strategy overturns the conventional wisdom about Australia’s security. Australia will need to defend itself without American help, but this doesn’t need to cost more. The truth, which no Australian political leader is willing to confront, is that America’s security is not threatened by China’s rise. Once we accept that conclusion, the entire edifice on which our security has been built crumbles, and we need to start afresh.
Yet, despite the rapid growth of China’s military, defending Australia need not be particularly difficult. Our leaders insist on making it expensive and hard. Even worse, in the name of the US alliance, they expose our country to more danger. The Echidna Strategy sheds new light on the contest for leadership in Asia and the strategy Australia needs to thrive. This includes a radically different approach to defence. Above all, it means a bolder Australian foreign policy, with three goals: leadership in the Pacific; a much stronger relationship with Indonesia; and a regional order centred on a gathering of its great powers. (blurb)
The book is reviewed for Honest History by Richard Broinowski. Another review in the Sydney Morning Herald. The author on ABC Late Night Live. The author in Australian Foreign Affairs.
