The main counterargument to weapons transfers is that weapons feed escalation, but Ukrainian civilians and troops are already dying (Opens in new window) on a daily basis. An under-armed Ukraine invites further aggression.
Shoebridge’s criticism of AUKUS and reliance on the US is legitimate, but doubts about Australia’s alliances only increase the importance of demonstrating its independence to support a democracy under attack.
The Greens’ position instead seems to conflate the war in Ukraine with Iraq. Former Greens leader Bob Brown heckled (Opens in new window) US President George W. Bush in parliament in October 2003 after Australia followed the US into an illegal war. The Greens’ new deputy leader, Steph Hodgins-May, explicitly recognised this moment as inspiration (Opens in new window) for joining the party: “This is challenging power.”
Challenging power means something different when you’ve been invaded by nuclear-armed Russia. Iraq was an illegal war. And so is the invasion of Ukraine. In Ukraine, Australia would be helping an invaded country, not an invading one, yet the Greens deny it the means to resist.
Countries that have lived under Russian or Soviet rule understand the stakes. The previously occupied Baltic states (Opens in new window) give among the highest shares of GDP to Ukraine, while Georgia, invaded by Russia in 2008, still has a fifth of its territory occupied by Russia.
A party born of activism should understand why people need to fight under repressive rule. In Myanmar, a 2021 military coup was met with peaceful nonviolent mass street protests. They were soon mowed down in the streets by the junta, with activists tortured to death. In my recent research (Opens in new window) with colleagues, we found some environmental activists responded by taking up arms. Without democracy they saw no prospect of environmental protection or justice, so armed struggle became environmental activism by other means.
Germany’s Greens, a party with pacifist origins, reversed course (Opens in new window) after the invasion and has repeatedly urged (Opens in new window) Berlin to expand military support to Ukraine, including the supply of Taurus cruise missiles. Being close to the conflict makes the risks of Russian expansion more visceral.
All reasonable people want peace, but sometimes it has to be fought for. Nonviolence only works when the antagonist has respect for human life, a characteristic that neither Myanmar’s generals nor the Kremlin have exhibited. Against such regimes, slotting flowers into gun barrels does not work. Ukrainians have asked for weapons.
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