How distant wars reshape Australia

From colonial forts to nuclear submarines, Australia’s response to distant conflicts reveals a recurring pattern that continues to shape defense strategy, writes Professor Vince Hooper.

IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF 1854, Britain Crimean War When it reached the Australian colonies there was extraordinary panic.

Newspapers were seriously discussing whether Russia would attack Sydney or Melbourne, whether the aim would be invasion or simply to seize gold from colonial banks. Denison Castle He was stationed at Pinchgut Island in Sydney Harbour. Victoria has passed legislation to create an organization Volunteer Corps Up to 2,000 men. A battle fought thousands of kilometers away, on a peninsula in the Black Sea, was the catalyst for Australia’s first independent military capability.

The panic did not end in peace. Russian corvette in 1863 HeroFlagship of the Pacific fleet under the command of Rear Admiral popovHe set off for Melbourne unnoticed. More than 8,000 Melburnians visited the ship during the goodwill tour.

After the corvette set off Sydney Morning Herald reported The crew was investigating the coastal fortifications of Port Jackson and Botany Bay. This revelation deepened further the following year when a Polish officer who had escaped from Bogatyr revealed that Popov had orders to attack British naval targets near the Australian coast in the event of war.

Fears of Russian invasion were repeated in 1870 when the corvette Boyarin appeared in Hobart, in 1882 when three Russian warships entered Melbourne, and in 1885 when three Russian warships appeared in Hobart. Naked Island Castle He was on guard duty in Botany Bay. Aftershocks in Crimea continued to reshape Australian defense thinking for three decades.

The analytical point is that a war triggered by a dispute over the custody of sacred sites in the Holy Land could produce such consequences at the very edge of the British Empire. Australia’s strategic environment is not normally distributed. It is characterized by long periods of apparent stability punctuated by sharp, regime-changing shocks from quarters that no plausible risk model could point to.

Original Crimean War It also buried human remains within the colonial geography. After hostilities ended, the British Government actively encouraged veterans to emigrate, exploring New South Wales and Tasmania as suitable destinations. Crimea veterans resided in Western Australia retired protection force and the wider settler community.

Two Victoria Cross recipients of the 77th Regiment, Sergeant John Park and Private alexander wrightHe received his awards in Sydney. Russian trophy weapons We arrived in Adelaide They were fired in 1859 to commemorate the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh in 1867. Suburbs named after the Crimean wars, balaclava in Melbourne, Sevastopol The battle took place near Ballarat, Alma and Inkerman throughout New South Wales and Victoria. Geography where Australians live I still walk every day.

Fast forward 160 years and this pattern is repeated with disturbing fidelity. of Russia annexation of Crimea The incident in March 2014 could have remained a European issue in Australia’s strategic consciousness. lowering Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 The killing of 298 people, including 38 Australian citizens and residents, in Eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014 prevented the incident from happening.

Abbott The government imposed sanctions, co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution, and pursued accountability through international courts. Abbott clearly promised “shirt bib“President of Russia Vladimir Putin Just months later at the Brisbane G20, the Australian Rules football term for a frontal collision. The record was antipodean. The underlying dynamic was not a distant Crimean event that triggered a visceral reaction in the periphery.

Ten years later, the aftershock continues to spread. In May 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council found Russia responsible The shooting down of MH17 was in accordance with international law. Russia objected; Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong called the answer “deplorable”. The 2014 trigger hasn’t finished resonating like the 1854 trigger before it.

The objection writes itself: MH17 was conditional. A plane was in the wrong airspace. This is not a structural transmission mechanism; It’s bad luck. But this objection misunderstands what thick tails mean. The whole point of heavy-tailed distributions is that the event class is unpredictable while the specific trigger is unpredictable.

In 1854, no one predicted that a dispute over church keys in the Holy Land would galvanize Australian volunteer militias. In 1863, no one predicted that a Polish escapee from a Russian corvette would announce contingency plans to raid Melbourne. In 2014, no one predicted that a Buk missile would kill 38 Australians in a sunflower field in Donetsk.

The triggers were accidental. The fragility was structural, a peripheral state deeply integrated into alliance networks but geographically remote from its spheres of influence. Fat tails don’t need predictable triggers. They require structural exposure to extreme events.

Russia’s broader invasion of Ukraine in 2022 confirmed rather than created this pattern. AUKUSIt was before the invasion announced in September 2021, but the war confirmed his logic. Le Chatelier’s principle argues that an external shock to equilibrium triggers a compensatory response. In 1854 this response was a volunteer community: modest, reversible, low commitment.

Nuclear-powered submarines in service at Plymouth Devonport shipyardIt’s none of these. Plymouth connection closes a circle: One of a handful of Australian colonists who fought in the First Crimean War Suitable for Cooking SpicesA non-commissioned officer of the First Regiment of Foot, bearing the surname of that city’s most famous son, William CookworthyQuaker who discovered china clay in Cornwall and founded the Plymouth porcelain factory.

Colonies of the 1850s built forts and trained volunteers. The Australia of the 2020s is buying nuclear submarines and reorienting its entire defense procurement architecture. The scale has changed, but the mechanism of propagating distant shocks through alliance networks to force option exercise in the environment has not.

Policymakers who assume mean reversion or price Australian security using a normal distribution will be caught in the next Crimea shock. They always are.

Professor Vince Hooper is a proud Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline at the SP Jain School of Global Management, which has campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.

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