Australia needs a tragic statesman

When Australian Prime Minister John Curtin died in office in July 1945, his death was attributed not only to sickness but also to the immense pressure of leading the country through the Second World War. His greatest burden was the imperative to make a series of decisions that could not wait for certainty. 

Curtin withdrew Australian forces from the Middle East despite Churchill’s opposition, accepted Singapore’s fall before Britain acknowledged it, and shifted the nation’s focus to a new and untested alliance with the United States. He understood the fog of war and the difficult choices that had to be made. Having been a pacifist and socialist in his younger days, he was forced to grapple with a moral dilemma, knowing that he had to place Australia on a total war footing in spite of his ideals.

Curtin represented the ‘tragic statesman’, making tough choices in unpredictable circumstances, accepting inevitable losses, and never mistaking hope for certainty. Australia has not seen a leader like him since.  

History reveals a pattern in which leaders display an optimism-bias and are susceptible to ‘interwar thinking’: they expect wars to be short, technology to be decisive and plans to be predictable. These assumptions persist. Excessive optimism has influenced strategic thinking, often neglecting the tragic aspects of geopolitics. This bias ignores the crucial role of philosophical disposition in strategy, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, where Australia is now confronting the hard constraints of realpolitik. 

So, what exactly is a tragic sensibility? Tragedy is the condition of being forced to choose between two genuinely important things, knowing that choosing one will inevitably mean losing something of real value. This concept has been used in allegory, history and literature since the Greek tragedies and throughout the works of Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides and Shakespeare. Aeschylus’ Agamemnon exemplifies tragedy: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us through the awful grace of God.’ The recurring theme among these classic texts is that hubris, flaws and unrelenting necessity can lead to a fall from grace and irreplaceable loss. 

A tragic sensibility emphasises that the world is inherently dangerous, requiring humans to navigate a landscape of constraints, uncertainty and moral ambiguity, where every decision entails sacrifice, yet action remains vital. A tragic sensibility is neither pessimistic nor fatalistic; it is merely the antidote to unwarranted optimism. 

The modern orthodoxy of statecraft tends to reduce strategy to a managerial exercise focused on technical capabilities. Yet those with a tragic sensibility adopt a more philosophical approach, viewing strategic thinking as intrinsic to the human condition. Scholars ranging from Machiavelli, Clausewitz and Hobbes to Kissinger, Mearsheimer and Aron have recognised that a tragic sensibility is indispensable to statecraft; that the quest for power and security involves trade-offs, loss and futility. Among contemporary writers, Robert Kaplan makes the clearest case for adopting this philosophical approach. His argument that not all problems have policy solutions, and that a tragic sensibility reckons with the basest forces of human nature, speaks to the crises we face today.

Hal Brands and Charles Edel make the case for this from a civic perspective, with a primary focus on America and the liberal rules-based order. Great powers often offset a lack of tragic sensibility by leveraging their extensive resources, which grant them more flexibility to fix strategic mistakes driven by optimism-bias and hubris (albeit at significant and often undue cost). In contrast, mid-sized powers such as Australia, Japan and Korea lack this advantage due to their limited resources and lower capabilities. Despite Brands and Edel’s application of tragedy to great powers, their contention that a tragic sensibility tempers optimism with sobriety when conducting statecraft holds relevance for Indo-Pacific powers such as Australia. 

The Indo-Pacific faces a volatile geopolitical situation, with great powers increasingly competing over territory, influence and resources. This will inevitably push countries to choose sides, heightening instability. Additionally, the region is experiencing upheaval thanks to the erosion of the rules-based international order, the sidelining of multilateral institutions, and growing perceptions of the US – once the region’s key stabilising power – as an unreliable partner. 

The Indo-Pacific’s history reflects a tragic sensibility, as seen in events such as Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia in 1965. Surrounded by hostile neighbours, abandoned by Britain and uncertain of US support, Singapore faced a highly uncertain future. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was under no illusions about his country’s vulnerability and felt deeply responsible. He responded with pragmatism and resolve, building resilience in Singapore over decades through deterrence, reserve forces, a strong non-proliferation position, and the ‘poison shrimp’ strategy. Lee’s realism and decisive action exemplify the ‘tragic statesman’, transforming tragedy into strength during peacetime and shaping Singapore’s identity as a powerful nation-state. 

Japan’s recent military rearmament reflects a shift towards a tragic sensibility, driven by China’s growth and Russian aggression. Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida revised Japan’s defence posture in 2022, reinterpreting Article 9, updating strategic documents, and acquiring counterstrike capabilities for deterrence. Now, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s supermajority has the mandate to make constitutional changes and enshrine a new Japanese defence doctrine. This shift is about more than just capability; it represents a deeper philosophical change in which Japan has recognised that its postwar pacifist identity is increasingly untenable in the face of evolving Indo-Pacific security threats. Despite domestic resistance, the political class and strategists alike have embraced a tragic sensibility, understanding that alliance commitments remain untested and US intervention cannot be relied upon. 

Australia lacks a tragic sensibility, leaving it vulnerable as a mid-sized power in an age of uncertainty. The fall of Singapore demonstrated in real time the decline of British power in the Indo-Pacific, precipitating a shift in Australia’s security alignment from the UK to the US. Yet this new alliance with America brought reassurance and diminished awareness of the strategic dangers that had been revealed. While the 1987 Dibb report advanced a more sober view, the Cold War security umbrella and the peace dividend that followed have fostered collective amnesia. This absence of geopolitical tragedy has left Australia prone to ‘interwar thinking’, in which it assumes future conflicts will be brief, high-tech and easy to win. Such overconfidence risks underestimating the scale of future strategic challenges. 

Australia is adjusting its strategy, as seen in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and 2024 and 2026 National Defence Strategies, but these changes focus on policy responses rather than challenging underlying assumptions. Its core philosophy remains overly optimistic, assuming that the current level of US support will be maintained in the future. Australia has ceded its grander strategic thinking to alliance management and branded it as a strategy. This over-reliance on Washington, especially when delivery of AUKUS submarines is uncertain, leaves it unprepared for crises such as a disruption to critical sea lanes.

What exactly is demanded of a contemporary Australian tragic statesperson? Such a leader must accept unavoidable trade-offs, potential losses and value compromises in pursuit of the national interest. They would make tough, often unpopular, decisions with uncertain outcomes, accept failure as a possibility and recognise that stalemate is sometimes preferable to victory. Throughout history, tragic statesmen such as Pericles, Lincoln, Churchill, Adenauer and Lee have all acted decisively without the consolation of believing the choice was clear. President Zelensky of Ukraine may be the most recent example. 

A contemporary tragic statesperson asks strategic questions that an optimist would not. Their strength lies not in better policy-making per se, but in the expectations they set for the society and environment in which they operate. In the Australian case, they would openly recognise that the alliance is a resource, not a guarantee. This means advocating for Canberra to build the capacity to act independently – not to abandon alliance commitments, but to become a more capable and autonomous partner. Planning for a US absence, such as preparing in the event that AUKUS submarines are not delivered and filling capability gaps elsewhere, exemplifies tragic thinking. The tragic statesperson recognises the need for alternatives beyond 80 years of tradition.

The focus should not be on a specific policy but on a series of strategic questions. While an optimist might concentrate on accelerating AUKUS submarine deliveries, the tragic statesperson, while valuing AUKUS, would identify which sovereign capabilities should be developed concurrently. The tragic statesperson would seek to build stronger relationships with Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia – regions beyond Washington’s immediate concern. Although such efforts may unsettle allies, they also create new opportunities and channels for cooperation. Optimism cannot define force posture.

A tragic statesperson would need to operate during peacetime, constrained by institutional incentives that prioritise reassurance. The Australian public may not be prepared to accept the sacrifices and restrictions that such a tragic worldview entails, since they have yet to experience the consequences of a geopolitical crisis directly. 

A tragic statesperson would recognise that honest public dialogue is a civic duty, to be maintained despite the electoral risks. They would initiate politically challenging conversations about the real costs of Australia’s self-defence before a crisis occurs, acknowledging the security threats that excessive optimism has helped Australia sidestep. They would inform citizens and strategists about the need to face difficult choices, cultivating a tragic awareness rooted in history. Collective illusions are far more dangerous than honesty.

Why hasn’t Canberra yet produced a tragic statesperson capable of confronting its current challenges? Beyond geography and alliance politics dulling its awareness of tragedy, the myth of Australia as the ‘lucky country’ is deeply embedded in its political culture. This reinforces the belief that progress is inevitable, limiting the scope for realism. 

The situation is exacerbated by its minimal experience of loss tied to sovereign responsibility – nothing comparable to Great Britain’s imperial decline, the United States’ strategic overreach, or Israel’s wars of survival. Canberra has been fortunate to avoid this kind of challenge, but that luck may be running out. 

Throughout Australian history, only a few leaders have understood geopolitical tragedy. Prime Ministers Andrew Fisher, Robert Menzies and John Curtin acknowledged the tough trade-offs and sacrifices demanded during the World Wars, but each formed this awareness through a crisis. Today’s challenge is different and more difficult. The question now is whether the country can develop tragic wisdom in peacetime before catastrophe strikes. This uncertainty itself is a tragedy.