Australia Sleepwalking Into War

“The luck we had over the 20th century will not prevail in the life of my grandchildren.”

When it comes to understanding the national security threats facing Australia, it would be hard to find anyone more qualified than the chief of defense. From 1998 to 2002, that man was Adm. Chris Barrie. He made the above comment during a July 14 interview for The Link.

While the discussion was intended to focus on the North Korean threat, Barrie’s chilling commentary expounded on a wide variety of dangers arrayed against the “lucky country.”

The reputable warning is similar in many ways to those the Trumpet has sounded for more than two decades. As late Trumpet columnist Ron Fraser wrote in the booklet Australia—Where to Now?, “Australia is a non-nuclear-armed minnow floating on the southern rim of a rapidly expanding nuclear-enabled East Asian bloc.”

The Trumpet has repeatedly warned that Australia, along with the entire world stands on the brink of the next world war. Barrie’s predictions offer a glimpse into the similar thinking of Australia’s top brass.

End of the Golden Years

Barrie spoke at length about how events are mirroring those preceding both world wars. He lamented the fact that his grandchildren would not have it as good as he did.

As Barrie noted, aside from the few men and women deployed to the Middle East in recent decades, Australia has not been touched by battle. He fears that those days are now over and that Australia must come to terms with nation-versus-nation warfare in our lifetime.

The admiral is convinced that Australia will not be able to avoid such total war. He also believes that his progeny will not only face an increasingly hostile world, they will also lack the capacity to deal with it.

During the Cold War, there were open channels between the likes of Moscow and Washington. Today, radical dictators hidden behind bamboo curtains threaten to hit the big red button at a moment’s notice. The lack of dialogue means “the risk of miscalculation is much higher.” We lack the capacity to contain such irrational dictators. Nationalism and one-man rule are just two of the factors that have convinced Barrie that war is near at hand.

“In my view, there is an unacceptably high risk that there will be a general war in the next 50 years. … All the signs are pointing the wrong direction,” he said. He referenced American isolation as well as the British Empire not being around to provide leadership. Without powerful allies, Australia is dangerously exposed.

Today’s politicians dither on military buildup and squabble over defense contracts. Meanwhile, China is on track to have the largest naval fleet in the world by 2030 with 415 warships.

China has already won in the South China Sea. Man-made islands in the region now extend China’s military reach deep into Australasia. Warplanes have already been sighted on the new island runways.

As Trumpet writer Jeremiah Jacques wrote, “China has learned that, partly thanks to North Korea’s distracting belligerence, the South China Sea now essentially belongs to Beijing.” Be sure to read his full article “Congratulations, Beijing. The South China Sea Is Now Yours.”

Invasion

Now this is where the progressives will certainly burst into raucous laughter. “Invasion?” they scoff. “In our day and age?” To suggest Australia could get embroiled in a total war is one thing, but for a foreign power to invade seems a little more like something out of a John Marsden novel.

Yet that is exactly what Barrie warned of.

He bases his concerns on Australia’s sparse landscape. “How Australia is going to look in 2050 with 46 million people in a region of 7 billion people is beyond my imagination,” he said.

The interviewer responded, “This means that in your grandchildren’s lives, they could lose this country!”

“Correct. … Prepare for the second invasion of Australia because a lot of those people are going to come here,” Barrie responded.

Remember this isn’t coming from any old Joe Bloggs. This is a former defense chief! And he is telling us to prepare for invasion.

Do you think this interview made front-page news?

Silence

The reality for Australia is this: It isn’t just the leadership that is sleepwalking to war—it is the whole nation. There may be a few members of the public roused from sleep, but they are the exception, not the rule. People are more interested in a State of Origin rugby match than they are the sovereignty of their homeland.

Australia truly is sleepwalking to war. Our isolation from conflict looks set to be our undoing. War could never reach our pristine beaches and green hinterland, right? Wrong.

In a May interview with the Australian, Barrie stated, “All those [prewar] conditions exist now. But we … have forgotten what happens when nations go to war and lots of people lose their lives. We have lost a lot of that memory since 1945.”

We wrote on this Aussie trait in an article titled “The Australian Diet of Avocados and Ignorance.”

Differing Outcome

Here is where Barrie and the Trumpet part ways. The admiral believes that Australia has time to pull up its bootstraps and get to work. In his eyes, with skillful diplomacy and a reinvigorated defense force, Australia will survive the oncoming calamity.

The Trumpet predicts a different outcome—one based not on our own speculation but on the Word of God. Over a third of the Bible is prophecy—news in advance. And of that prophecy, the vast majority is for our time right now. Barrie believes we need strong leadership—perhaps a modern-day Winston Churchill. But read Isaiah 3 and how it speaks of the leadership void afflicting our society today. Our article “The Death of Churchillian Leadership” explains this curse in detail. Isaiah 3 is just one of thousands of prophesies about our day today!

During his interview, Barrie said, “When that first shot gets fired, you do not know where this is going to end up.” But you can know! When you look at Bible prophecy and understand the God-inspired content, you can absolutely see where this is going to end up!

If you want to know how fulfilled prophecy applies to you personally, one of the best places to start is by reading Herbert W. Armstrong’s free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Through Bible prophecy, God offers you insight that analysts long for—the ability to know what is coming before it comes!

Now don’t just nod and rejoin the sleepwalkers. Approach God’s prophecies with open eyes and an open mind and you will prove His Word to be accurate.

Australia—and much of the world—is sleepwalking toward war. You don’t have to join the ranks.