It turns out the worst enemy of Australia’s most important ally, the United States, is itself, and the invasion across their southern border is the biggest national security disaster since both Japan’s raid on Pearl Harbour during the second world war and the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda. It’s hard to take a country seriously that has so blatantly failed to protect its own sovereignty and allows foreign adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran to work by, with and through elements of the Mexican government and the drug cartels to sow the seeds of America’s long-term decline. What happens in the US still sends a message to the world. Right now, that message is intelligent enemies are better than foolish friends.

The invasion on the US southern border of people, drugs and weapons is an example of the collaboration between states and non-state actors in what US author and former soldier Sean McFate calls, ‘The New Rules of War’. Many will reject this as crazy talk. A far-right conspiracy. Xenophobic. Or as with Nato, remain fixated on big pieces of military hardware and battlefield manoeuvres. If this is the West’s view of war, while it might take time, we will lose. Our first world will become third world.

Since Biden came to office it is estimated over 8 million people have illegally crossed the southern border. And that’s only those they know about. The US southern border looks like World War Z. In the words of US Senator John Kennedy, ‘it is an open, bleeding wound’. Former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker says, ‘We are witnessing the single biggest US national security failure in our lifetime.’ The once bright beacon on the hill is becoming a flickering candle.

Major US cities such as New York and Chicago are being overrun in a sea of human squalor. Late last year in New York City, thousands of school students were forced to stay home so illegal migrants could be housed. The impacts will play out for generations. Which is what adversaries want. We can thank our tectonic plates that Australia has no land border.

The failure on the southern border is providing the perfect cover for people who want to destroy the US. According to the FBI, 169 people on their terrorist watch list crossed into the US in 2023. Again, these are only the ones who’ve been caught; many others are finding it easy to blend in.

At a 2018 counter-terrorism conference in Tehran (an oxymoron), Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threated the US with a ‘deluge of drugs, refugees and terrorism in the West’. Meanwhile, hundreds of young fighting-aged Chinese males with military demeanours wait to join the human caravans of exploitation in Bogota hotels and specially designated Panamanian camps. Over twenty-three thousand Chinese nationals were caught crossing the southern border last year. That’s more than in the last ten years combined. It turns out the United Nations are also in on it. A 2024 report reveals the UN is funding 248 non-government organisations to provide credit to illegal migrants.  All part of the UN’s Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela. Yet credit is given to ‘all migrants’ from ‘all nationalities’.

Meanwhile Mexican drug cartels are some of the best armed non-government organisations on the planet. US border agents have witnessed 10 to 12-hour gun battles, with belt-fed machine guns, light-anti tank weapons, 40mm grenades, RPGs and thousands of military grade firearms. These cartels are better equipped that the New Zealand Defence Force. It is they who are running the southern border, not the US government.

Texas and Arizona are facing the brunt of this invasion. Farming families are under siege from hundreds of fit, young males crossing their property and small towns are being inundated. So-called ‘human stash houses’ are regularly found in the Rio Grande Valley. Yet when Texas implements measures to stop the illegal crossings, such as barbed-wire fencing, the Biden administration launches legal appeals through the Supreme Court to have them removed.  That’s right. Instead of working with their own state governments and the interests of the average American, to protect their own sovereignty, they work against them. Only one conclusion can be drawn: this invasion is by design.

If this is how the US government treats its own country, what is it saying to its allies during one of the most volatile global environments since prior to World War II?

Another consequence of US failed national security on its southern border is fentanyl. Working through Mexican drug cartels, on an industrial scale, Chinese entities supply the precursor chemicals for fentanyl. Fentanyl is being weaponised to weaken the fabric of American society. The US China Economic and Security Review Commission reports the CCP has promoted the production and export of drugs to undermine the US. Just two milligrams of the synthetic opioid, the equivalent of 10 to 15 grains of table salt, can be lethal. The Centers for Disease Control estimate over 100,000 Americans died from fentanyl in 2022.

It’s hard to find a comparable First World nation that has been so reckless. For the West’s adversaries it is ripe for exploitation with new ways of war. Why take on Goliath’s strength with strength when cunning can beat it. The real question is why the US is allowing this to happen.

Its not that the US lacks the material power. It’s that like all current Western nations, it lacks the will. Across Western nations it is hard to point to a single political leader who recognises the grave position we are in due to the self-inflicted destruction of our national identity and the erosion of the power of deterrence. If you think the two are unrelated, name a single tribe, community or nation of people that has survived without belief in themselves.

This is not another cheap shot at the US, relishing in its demise. Instead, it reflects a deep concern for one of the greatest unfolding strategic tragedies of our time and the serious consequences for Australia. Australia needs a strong, patriotic, steadfast America. Land of the free, home of the brave.

To butcher a Henry Kissinger quote, we are still fighting military war; our opponents are waging a political, economic, social and technological one. We are seeking physical attrition; opponents are aiming for our psychological exhaustion, and acquiescence.

We risk losing sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war – the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win. Made all the easier when you water the seeds of your own destruction.