Hugh White (strategist)

Based on Wikipedia: Hugh White (strategist)

The Man Who Asks Australia's Most Uncomfortable Question

What happens to Australia if America loses a war with China?

This is the question that has defined Hugh White's career. Not because he delights in catastrophe, but because he believes his country has been sleepwalking toward a reckoning it refuses to acknowledge. For decades, Australian strategic thinking has rested on a comfortable assumption: that the United States will always be there, always dominant, always willing to fight for its Pacific allies. White has spent the better part of twenty years methodically dismantling that assumption.

The result has made him one of Australia's most influential and controversial strategic thinkers. His critics accuse him of defeatism, of giving too much ground to Beijing, of undermining the alliance that has kept Australia safe since World War Two. His supporters see someone willing to say what others won't: that the post-American world is already arriving, whether Canberra likes it or not.

From Philosophy to Power

White's path to becoming Australia's foremost strategic pessimist began, unexpectedly, with philosophy. He studied at the University of Melbourne in the 1970s before heading to Oxford, where he earned a Bachelor of Philosophy and won the John Locke Prize in Mental Philosophy in 1978. The prize is named after the seventeenth-century English philosopher whose ideas about government, reason, and the social contract helped shape Western liberal democracy.

Philosophy, at its core, is about examining assumptions. What do we actually know? What do we merely believe? What comfortable illusions are we reluctant to abandon? These habits of mind would serve White well when he turned from abstract questions about knowledge and existence to very concrete questions about war and peace.

The 1980s took him through a series of positions that gave him an unusually broad view of how Australia actually makes decisions about its security. He worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald, learning how to explain complex ideas to general audiences. He served as an intelligence analyst at the Office of National Assessments, Australia's peak intelligence body, where he learned what the country's spy agencies actually knew (and didn't know) about the world. He advised Kim Beazley, who served as Defence Minister under the Hawke government, and then became international advisor to Prime Minister Bob Hawke himself.

This trajectory gave White something rare: understanding of both the analytical side of strategy (what is actually happening in the world?) and the political side (what can governments actually do about it?). Too many strategic thinkers understand one without the other.

The 2000 White Paper

In 1995, White was appointed Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Department of Defence. It's a position that sounds bureaucratic but carries enormous influence. The deputy secretary helps shape how Australia thinks about threats, capabilities, and the fundamental question of what the military is actually for.

His most significant work during this period was helping to produce the 2000 Defence White Paper, titled "Our Future Defence Forces." White has described himself as its "principal author." A defence white paper is a government's official statement of military strategy—what threats it sees, what capabilities it needs, how it plans to defend the nation. In Australia, these documents appear every few years and drive billions of dollars in spending decisions.

The 2000 white paper's central conclusions sound almost quaint in retrospect: Australia must maintain a self-reliant defence force, retain control of its maritime territories, and "seek to attack hostile forces as far from our shores as possible." This was strategic orthodoxy for a country that had, for most of its history, relied on great power protectors—first Britain, then America—while maintaining enough independent capability to handle regional crises.

But the world of 2000 was about to change dramatically. China's economy had been growing at nearly ten percent per year for two decades, and its military modernization was accelerating. The question that would consume White's later career was already taking shape: what happens when the protector can no longer protect?

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute

After leaving the Defence Department in 2000, White became the first director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, known as ASPI. Think tanks play a peculiar role in democratic societies. They provide a space between government and academia where ideas can be developed, debated, and—if they gain enough traction—eventually influence policy.

ASPI has since become one of Australia's most prominent voices on defence and security issues, particularly regarding China. Its researchers have produced detailed investigations into everything from Chinese military capabilities to surveillance technology in Xinjiang. The institute White founded has, in many ways, taken a harder line on China than White himself—an irony he has occasionally noted.

The China Choice

White's 2010 book "The China Choice: Why We Should Share Power" thrust him into national and international prominence. The argument was deceptively simple but deeply controversial.

For over a century, the United States has been the dominant power in Asia. Its navy controls the Pacific. Its alliances—with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia—form an arc around China. This American dominance has, White acknowledged, been largely beneficial:

For more than a century, [the US] has contributed to peace and order, to economic development, to political evolution, and to science, technology and art around the world – and all these contributions have been nothing short of exceptional.

But China's rise changes everything. A country with four times America's population and an economy that was rapidly approaching American size could not be kept subordinate forever. The question was not whether the Asian order would change, but how.

White saw three possibilities. First, America could try to maintain its primacy, containing China much as it had contained the Soviet Union. Second, America could withdraw from Asia, leaving the region to sort itself out. Third—and this was White's preferred option—America and China could negotiate a new order based on shared power, something like the Concert of Europe that maintained relative peace among the great powers after the Napoleonic Wars.

The Concert of Europe, which lasted from 1815 to the outbreak of World War One, was an informal system in which Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed to consult on major questions and avoid the kind of hegemonic wars that had torn the continent apart. It was imperfect—plenty of smaller wars occurred, and nationalism eventually destroyed it—but it represented an alternative to the cycle of rising powers challenging established ones through catastrophic conflict.

White argued that Australia's attempt to maintain good relations with both America and China—what strategists call "hedging"—could not last forever. Eventually, Canberra would have to choose. And if America and China couldn't find a way to share power, that choice might come in the context of a war that would devastate the region.

The book received favorable attention globally. The New York Times, the Financial Times, and the New York Review of Books all engaged with its arguments. In 2012, Crikey's Power Index ranked White as the seventh most influential thinker in Australia.

What Strategic Hedging Actually Means

To understand why White's argument was so provocative, you need to understand what Australian strategy had actually been for decades.

Australia faces a geographic paradox. Its closest major trading partner is China. Its closest major security partner is the United States. Its economy depends on selling iron ore, coal, and natural gas to Chinese factories. Its security depends on American warships and the implicit promise that any attack on Australia would bring American retaliation.

The solution, pursued by governments of both parties, was to hedge. Maintain the American alliance while building economic ties with China. Don't force a choice. Keep all options open. This approach worked beautifully during the era of American dominance, when China was focused on economic development and content to operate within American-led institutions.

White's heresy was to argue that hedging had an expiration date. As China grew more powerful and more assertive, as competition between Washington and Beijing intensified, Australia would eventually face moments where it couldn't please both. What then?

Nuclear Australia?

White's 2019 book "How to Defend Australia" raised an even more explosive proposition. If America could no longer be relied upon to defend Australia, and if regional threats were growing, should Australia develop its own nuclear weapons?

The suggestion generated enormous controversy. Australia has long been a staunch supporter of nuclear non-proliferation. It hosts no nuclear weapons (unlike some American allies that accept them on their territory). Going nuclear would upend decades of Australian diplomacy and potentially trigger a regional arms race.

White wasn't necessarily advocating for nuclear weapons. He was doing what philosophers do: examining assumptions. If Australia couldn't rely on America's nuclear umbrella—the implicit promise that any nuclear attack on Australia would be met with American nuclear retaliation—what were the alternatives? Develop independent capabilities? Accept a subordinate position to China? Hope the current order somehow persisted?

The point wasn't that nuclear weapons were the answer. The point was that Australia needed to think seriously about questions it had long avoided.

The Submarine Controversy

Strategic arguments have practical consequences. In the mid-2010s, Australia was deciding how to replace its aging Collins-class submarines. The Abbott government favored a deal with Japan, which would have deepened security ties with Tokyo and potentially given Australia access to sophisticated Japanese submarine technology.

White publicly opposed the Japanese option. His reasoning wasn't about the submarines themselves but about what the deal would signal to Beijing. Choosing Japanese submarines would look like Australia explicitly siding with Japan—and by extension, America—against China. It would foreclose options and deepen the very strategic alignment White thought dangerous.

He advocated instead for deals with France or Germany, countries with excellent submarine industries but less fraught relationships with China. Australia eventually chose the French option, though that deal later collapsed in spectacular fashion when the AUKUS agreement was announced in 2021, with Australia instead acquiring American nuclear-powered submarines.

The AUKUS deal represented almost exactly the opposite of what White had advocated: an explicit deepening of the American alliance, acquisition of American technology that would lock Australia into American systems for decades, and a clear signal to Beijing about where Canberra's loyalties lay.

Afghanistan and the Limits of Alliance

White was also critical of Australia's involvement in the War in Afghanistan. The country had joined the American-led invasion after the September 11 attacks, initially to help destroy Al-Qaeda and overthrow the Taliban government that had harbored it. But the mission evolved into a twenty-year nation-building effort that cost Australian lives and achieved little lasting success.

White argued that the Rudd and Gillard governments had escalated Australian involvement beyond what strategy justified, resulting in increased casualties. His critique wasn't just about Afghanistan itself but about what it revealed about Australian strategic thinking: a tendency to follow America without sufficiently questioning whether American interests and Australian interests actually aligned.

This is a delicate argument for any Australian strategist to make. The American alliance enjoys bipartisan support and genuine public backing. Questioning it can look like questioning the sacrifices of Australian soldiers who fought and died alongside Americans. But White's point was precisely that alliance loyalty shouldn't be automatic—that true friends sometimes disagree, and that following a great power into unwise wars serves neither country well.

The Critics Strike Back

White has attracted plenty of criticism over the years. The most common charge is that he's too pessimistic about American power and too willing to accommodate Chinese ambitions.

Paul Dibb, a fellow strategic thinker at the Australian National University, has argued that White overstates China's ability to project power. Yes, China has grown enormously strong. But converting economic and military capability into actual regional dominance is harder than it looks. The United States retains significant advantages in technology, alliances, and experience. China faces its own demographic challenges, economic slowdowns, and internal contradictions.

James Goldrick, a strategist at the Australian Defence Force Academy, has criticized what he sees as White's "bellicosity"—his willingness to contemplate conflicts that others prefer not to imagine. Goldrick argues that strategists must weigh not just capabilities but costs. War between great powers in the nuclear age would be catastrophic beyond anything White's scenarios contemplate. The price of conflict must be measured against the price of accommodation.

Other critics see White as naively treating China as a rational actor that will respond predictably to incentives. Under Xi Jinping, China has become more authoritarian domestically and more assertive internationally. The idea that Beijing would accept a Concert of Asia arrangement, rather than pushing for outright dominance, may be wishful thinking.

The Quarterly Essays

Much of White's most influential work has appeared not in academic journals but in the Quarterly Essay, an Australian publication that commissions long-form essays on significant topics. The format suits White's style: room enough to develop complex arguments, accessible enough to reach general readers, prestigious enough to command attention.

His Quarterly Essays form a kind of ongoing chronicle of his thinking as events have unfolded:

"Power Shift: Australia's Future Between Washington and Beijing" (2010) laid out the basic argument about American decline and Chinese rise.

"Without America: Australia in the New Asia" (2017) explored what Australian strategy might look like if American protection could no longer be assumed.

"Sleepwalk to War: Australia's Unthinking Alliance with America" (2022) argued that Australia was drifting toward a potential conflict with China without seriously debating whether such a war served Australian interests.

"Hard New World: Our Post-American Future" (2025) examines what comes next as the American-led order continues to fray.

The titles alone tell a story: from questioning the power shift, to contemplating life without America, to warning of sleepwalking into war, to accepting a hard new world. White has been consistent in his fundamental argument but increasingly urgent in his warnings.

Recognition and Honors

In 2014, White was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours. The citation recognized his "distinguished service to international affairs, through strategic defence studies as an analyst, academic and adviser to government, and to public administration."

The Order of Australia is the country's primary system for recognizing achievement. Officer rank (AO) is the second-highest level, below Companion but above Member. The honor acknowledged not just White's intellectual contributions but his decades of practical service in government.

In 2020, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Fellowship recognizes distinguished contributions to the social sciences through research, application, or public service. It places White among Australia's most respected scholars in fields ranging from economics to political science to anthropology.

The Stakes of the Argument

Why does any of this matter? Because the questions White raises aren't abstract. They concern whether Australia will someday find itself at war—and if so, with whom, for what, and at what cost.

The current trajectory is clear. Australia has deepened its alliance with America through AUKUS. It has allowed American military forces greater access to Australian bases. It has joined American-led efforts to counter Chinese influence. This path has significant support among Australian strategists, politicians, and the public.

White's challenge is simple: have we thought this through? If America and China do come to blows over Taiwan or some other flashpoint, what exactly would Australia do? Fight alongside America, potentially inviting Chinese retaliation against Australian cities? Stay out, potentially destroying the alliance? Something in between?

The fact that Australia doesn't seem to have clear answers to these questions is precisely White's point. A country can stumble into catastrophe by failing to think seriously about catastrophe. The most dangerous assumption in strategy is that things will somehow work out.

A Philosopher in the War Room

There's something fitting about a philosopher becoming one of Australia's most prominent strategic thinkers. Philosophy teaches you to question comfortable assumptions. It trains you to imagine alternatives. It demands that you follow arguments to their conclusions, even when those conclusions are uncomfortable.

White's great contribution has been to force Australia to confront questions it would rather not ask. Not because he enjoys being a contrarian or takes pleasure in pessimism, but because democracies make better decisions when they debate difficult questions openly rather than leaving them to experts behind closed doors.

Whether White is right about America's decline, about China's intentions, about the possibility of a new Concert of Asia—these remain genuinely contested questions. Serious strategists disagree. Events will eventually settle the arguments one way or another.

But the alternative to asking these questions is not safety. It's sleepwalking. And whatever else can be said about Hugh White, he has spent his career trying to wake Australia up.