It may not be entirely obvious, but events in Ukraine, a country some 13,000 kilometres across the world, pose a national security challenge to Australia that should cause the lights to burn late in our defence and security agencies.  How events resolve in Ukraine will guide world and regional affairs for decades to come. It will also certainly impact Australia’s fiscal position for generations.

Ukraine sits on Russia’s western border and is a former member state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It has been an independent state since 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, yet it has been in political conflict with Russia for much of this time.

The Soviet Union had stationed nuclear weapons in Ukraine so in 1994, in a deal to surrender these weapons, Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. This memorandum committed the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia to guarantee Ukraine’s borders.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea.  Whilst presented as a reunion of ethnic Russians and to remedy a 1954 administrative transfer by Nikita Khrushchev, the annexation was more to ensure Russia’s access to essential naval ports at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. The risk to Russia of the loss of access to these ports was significant.

This annexation was a breach of Russia’s obligations under the Budapest Memorandum, but so was the US and UK effectively remaining silent. This is an acutely important consideration for Australia given our revamped collaborations in Aukus.

There are many reasons for Russia’s aggressive actions towards Ukraine, some valid and some not. But key among them has been the drift towards admitting Ukraine into the European Union and Nato.

How did Europe get to this point, on the brink of the largest territorial incursion since the second world war? There are many factors, but to expect Russia to sit idly by at the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato was worse than folly. It was provocative. It would be analogous to the US sitting idle while Russia established military facilities in Mexico or Canada.

Despite promises to the contrary, Nato has steadily expanded eastward towards Russia. Many foreign policy experts, including George Kennan, the architect of America’s cold war containment strategy, warned against Nato’s eastward expansion, but eastward it expanded. Russia expressed its displeasure many times, but expansion continued.

Russia is understandably sensitive about the West moving east as it has been invaded three times in two centuries from the east, across what is essentially flat territory. Ukraine was Russia’s red line.

Unfortunately, there is no rewind in geopolitics, thus what happens from here is more pressing than how and why we got here. Ukraine poses a wicked challenge for the US, and its defence allies and adversaries are watching closely.

Former US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, observed that weakness is provocative. President Barack Obama’s fumbling over his Syria chemical weapons red line shows what results from a dilution to America’s credibility. It led to a regional humanitarian crisis and a million-plus-person refugee flow into Europe facilitated by the Russian government. This in turn contributed to the rise of ultra-nationalist governments in Eastern Europe and, most likely, Brexit.

The timing of Russia’s bellicosity following US President Joe Biden’s mismanagement of America’s exit from Afghanistan is likely no coincidence. Unhelpful also was President Biden’s invitation to Russia to undertake a ‘minor’ invasion.

The costs and risks to Russia in invading Ukraine would be significant underlining Russia’s seriousness on the subject. It is unlikely that Russia could successfully annex the whole of Ukraine, but it could cause sufficient damage to generate another significant humanitarian crisis driving new destabilising waves of refugees into Western Europe. In the meantime, Russia has already managed to cause significant economic and social damage to Ukraine without starting a war.

It would be simplistic to suggest that the US and Nato having gotten to this point, could simply and unilaterally agree that Ukraine would never be welcome into the EU and Nato. This would signal to the US’s geostrategic competitors that they can set US defence and foreign policy through acts of belligerence.  It is not just Russia watching how the US responds. China will be watching as it considers its next steps in the Taiwan Strait and so too will Iran as it considers its next steps towards gaining a nuclear weapons capability.

What is increasingly apparent is that Russia’s troop build-up and cyber-attacks on Ukraine underline the UK’s and the EU’s increasing geostrategic irrelevance. An exceptionally important consideration for Australia given the UK’s participation in Aukus.

In 1964, Donald Horne wrote that Australia was the lucky country. No truer words have been written. The other side of this coin is that Australia has managed to prosper through long periods of political mediocrity.

Today, too many of our political leaders and media commentators seem to believe that the work of governing starts and ends with a media release and a press conference. The difficult work of national security, involving important choices and trade-offs is assumed away. But underneath every ‘announceable’ is the dry and heavy work of analysis, implementation and execution. Unfortunately, recent evidence raises questions about Australia’s defence capability and preparedness.

In the event of a military conflict in our region, Australia does not need to have the capacity to be victorious. Australia just needs to be able to impose unacceptable costs to change the risk calculus for any aggressor. It is not obvious that Australia is currently capable of imposing such costs, particularly if the US and UK prove unreliable.

No matter who forms the next Australian government, they will need to address this and it will be a very expensive task. It is almost certain that Australia will need to allocate increasing resources and attention to defence and national security at a time of significant structural budget deficits underpinned by a tax and regulatory regime constricting economic productivity.

If we want peace, we must prepare for war – si volumus pacem, para bellum. But this will require difficult choices and quality leadership.