Hugh White
Hugh White is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at Australian National University. He served for many years as a senior defence and intelligence official with the Australian government.
Hugh's recent articles
Doubts about AUKUS
Eighteen months ago, when Australians first learned of the AUKUS proposal for their country to build nuclear-powered submarines, it came as a stunning shock. So great was the shock, in fact, that for a time it eclipsed any serious debate about this revolutionary and quite unprecedented idea. An initiative of such scale and audacity seemed almost to defy critique and analysis.
Is Australia in the firing line of a new Chinese campaign against the US?
How can Australia navigate the tough and dangerous strategic environment in Asia today with America and China competing to be the leading regional power? The consensus in Canberra on both sides of politics is that we should stick as close as we can to America, in the hope it will win the contest.
If growing US-China rivalry leads to the worst war ever, what should Australia do?
Should Australia join the United States in a war against China to prevent China taking the USs place as the dominant power in East Asia? Until a few years ago the question would have seemed merely hypothetical, but not anymore.
The price of primacy: Can the United States stop China becoming the dominant regional power?
In this episode of Democracy Sausage, eminent strategic studies expert Hugh White joins Mark Kenny to examine Australias strategy for dealing with rising tensions between the United States and China and the prospects for armed conflict in the region.
China threatens the Wests primacy, not its democratic systems
Some Western leaders, includingScott Morrison, have begun to describe the contest with China in starkly ideological terms, as a defence of democracy against authoritarianism. They say China threatens to replace the democratically-based liberal international order with a new order founded on the principles and practices of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which would endanger democratic societies everywhere. It is all very reminiscent of the old Cold War.
The right reasons for saying no to nuclear first use
Washington is once again debating whether to declare that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. There are good reasons why it should. But it would not be right tosuggest that a no-first-use policy would cost the United States nothing strategically.
American overreach in Anchorage points to conflict with China
Its fantasy to think that the US can still lay down the law as it attempted to in Alaska. Avoiding a Pacific war will take hard statecraft instead.
Australia in a no-win situation if Taiwan crisis escalates
Tensions are escalating between the US and China and the recent provocation over Taiwan on the part of both powers could well be a tipping point. Joe Biden will face an agonising choice if Beijing does poke the bear and call America's bluff.
Why China has been exceptionally harsh on Australia (AFR Dec 17, 2020)
This is not a schoolyard, China is not a schoolboy, it hasnt slunk away, and nothing about our predicament is as easy as the government would like us to believe.
Morrison has misread China
The Prime Minister thinks he can set the terms with Beijing. But hard choices and compromises are required to manage our region's ruthless great power.
Whoever wins, Australia cant rely on its great and powerful ally (AFR, Nov 4)
Geopolitics Donald Trump has done little to counter China, and Joe Biden would do no better. We must face up to a future of fading US power in our region.
Payne sensibly says no to Pompeo's coalition of the willing (AFR 29 July, 2020)
Australia has avoided joining the Trump administration's new cold war. But big questions about handling the escalating US-China rivalry remain unanswered.
Australia-China relations affected by COVID-19 crisis (RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly )
China has hit back at Australian calls for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Guest: Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies, ANU.
Why Australia's strategic situation is far worse than we think (AFR 6.7.20)
For all the dire warnings in last week's defence review, its chief fault lies in being far too optimistic.
HUGH WHITE.- Australia's Attack- class submarines need competition.(The Strategist 18.3.2020)
Australias strategic circumstances over the next few decades will mean we cannot afford to be without a submarine capability.
HUGH WHITE.-Why India isnt going to save Australia from Chinas power(EAF 15.3.2020)
Will India save us from China?
HUGH WHITE. Australia needs to give up its South Pacific dream (AFR 13-14.7.2019)
What can Australia do to restore and preserve our sphere of influence in the South Pacific, and deny it to China?
HUGH WHITE. Why Pacific nations would host a Chinese military base (AFR 13-14.7.2019)
Our neighbours commitment to values and interests shared with Australia might prove feeble in the face of Chinese persuasion.
HUGH WHITE. With Chinas swift rise as naval power, Australia needs to rethink how it defendsitself (The Conversation, 2 July 2019)
Visiting Wellington in April 1996, I fell into conversation with a very wise and experienced New Zealand government official. We talked about the still-unfolding Taiwan Straits crisis, during which Washington had deployed a formidable array of naval power, including two aircraft carrier battle groups, to the waters around Taiwan. The aim was to compel China to abandon a series of missile firings near Taiwan intended to intimidate voters in forthcoming presidential elections.
We must not join Trump's cold war (AFR 25.6.2019)
Scott Morrison should spell out Australia's opposition to Washington's futile attempts to contain China.
HUGH WHITE. Canberras growing silence on US leadership in Asia
Sometimes what is left out of a major policy speech is as important as what is said. This was certainly true late in January when Australias Defence Minister Christopher Pyne spoke about regional security in a keynote address to a prestigious audience in Singapore.
HUGH WHITE. The US shouldnt go to war with China over Taiwanand nor should Australia (ASPI: THE STRATEGIST, 13 Feb 2019)
Paul Dibb, in hisrecentStrategistpost, writes that Americas strategic position in Asia would be fatally undermined if it didnt go to war with China if China attacked Taiwan, and that Australias alliance with America would be fatally undermined if we didnt then go to war with China too. The conclusion he draws is that, in the event of an unprovoked Chinese attack on Taiwan, America should go to war with China, and so should Australia.
HUGH WHITE. The Costs of Containing China (East Asia Forum)
Washingtons policymakers at last understand that China is a serious strategic rival. For the first time since the Soviet collapse, they recognise that a major country is trying to expand its power and influence at the expense of US global leadership.
Hugh White: The New East Asian Jigsaw (The Straits Times (Singapore), Caixin Global (Beijing), 18.12.2018)
If 2018 was the year of unscrambling, the next year will offer a clearer picture of how the U.S.-China power struggle has reshaped the region, with Taiwan being a potential flashpoint In 2018 all the big pieces in the East Asian international order were thrown up in the air. The U.S.-China economic relationship was transformed by a trade war, their strategic relationship became one of open and declared rivalry; Korean affairs took off on a new and quite unpredictable trajectory; Taiwan edged back towards a central place in regional geopolitics; and countries throughout Asia found themselves facing tougher and...
Australia must position itself in Asia (ABC radio interview with Hugh White)
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/australia-must-position-itself-in-asia-expert-says/9794492
HUGH WHITE. The White Paper's grand strategic fix: Can Australia achieve an Indo-Pacific pivot?
By far the most important and sobering part of the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper is Figure 2.4. It offers the Treasurys estimates of the sizes of the regions key economies in 2030. They are calculated in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, which adjusts for differences in prices and exchange rates to give a more accurate picture of the relative weight of different economies. The choice of PPP measures is deliberate: it gives the strategists view of GDP.
HUGH WHITE. Choosing between the US and China.
As strategic tensions have mounted in Asia this year, it has become steadily clearer that small and middle powers in the region countries like Singapore and Australia face a stark choice. But it isnt, as some people suggest, a simple choice between accommodating Chinas growing power or resisting it. It is a much more complex choice about how far to support the United States as it pushes back against Chinas increasingly assertive regional conduct, or whether to step back and leave the United States to confront Chinas challenge alone.
Hugh White, Australias Defence White Paper and the China threat- a hidebound view of Asias future'
Any defence policy is ultimately based on a view of the international system and how it is expected to evolve over coming decades. These are the judgments that most fundamentally influence the nature and scale of armed conflict that a countrys forces must be prepared to fight. Australias new Defence White Paper makes two central judgments about this. First, that the post-Cold War, US-led international orderwill be maintained; and second, that it must be maintained. Are these judgments correct? Lets take them one at a time. First, will the rules-based global order as the White Paper calls it...
Hugh White on Australians and War from Honest History.
In my blog of 20 October 'It is becoming much easier to go to war' I highlighted the reasons and the background to developments since the Vietnam War that are making it much more likely that we will commit ourselves to war. In an earlier posting of March 23 - see below - I carried an interview with Hugh White. We are venturing into very dangerous territory. John Menadue Repost In this interview in November 2013and related articles, Dr David Stephens of Honest History has drawn together comments by Hugh White on Australians and war....