At the end of September, the Australian Greens elected David Shoebridge their new leader. Shoebridge had previously been the party’s spokesperson for foreign affairs and defense, and he retained those responsibilities. While he has always been a combative politician, he immediately created controversy by stating it would be the Greens’ policy to oppose providing further military assistance to Ukraine. Extraordinarily, in a meeting with a number of Ukrainian-Australian community groups this week he left a further sour taste by informing them to not “burn any bridges” by criticizing the Greens.

Shoebridge has said that the party is one of “peace and non-violence,” but within this perspective comes a number of often naïve assumptions about international relations and how states manage conflict. It leads to an odd scenario whereby in proclaiming to be advocates of peace and nonviolence the Greens end up supporting belligerents over victims. 

There are some common traits that “pacifist” parties exhibit that are worth analyzing to understand the Greens’ position. 

The first is that they see violence as a self-perpetuating system. War creates a cycle of fear, militarization, and retaliation. The participants become trapped in an escalating security dilemma – each interpreting the other’s actions as a threat. Therefore peace requires breaking this cycle through restraint, negotiation, and disarmament. This may seem rational on the surface, but it doesn’t account for bad faith actors who believe solely in domination and cannot be trusted to honor any negotiated deal. This is the type of state Ukraine is facing with Russia. 

Alongside this, there is a distrust of the distinction between offensive and defensive power. There is a belief that all military power is essentially used for offensive purposes to varying degrees. Based on that assumption, states which arm themselves in defense – or become a part of an alliance system – are creating the conditions for aggressive actions to occur. Yet this assumes that larger states will naturally respect the sovereignty of their smaller neighbors if they are not armed. This, again, is a misunderstanding of Russia, which views weakness, not strength, as an incentive to escalate. 

What pacifists often believe is that nonviolent resistance is an underutilized alternative to military resistance. There have, of course, been instances where nonviolent resistance has proved incredibly effective, in India during British rule, for example. But nonviolent resistance relies on two factors – when an occupying force requires the assistance of the invaded population, and when this force has enough of a moral compass to be able form some empathy for those it has invaded. Russia simply does not believe that Ukraine is a legitimate nation-state. A disarmed Ukraine is a nonexistent Ukraine.

For some pacifists the priority is to stop conflict, even if the resulting settlement leaves the aggressor state with territorial or political gains. A ceasefire can be argued as saving lives. Yet any settlement that rewards aggression may be an encouragement for further aggression. Russia not only sees Ukraine as an illegitimate state, but also Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, and Moldova. Rewarding Russia for its invasion of Ukraine sends a signal that it can make military gains in these states too.  

The concept of deterrence is built on the assumption that there will always be belligerence in the world and that peace requires demonstrating and communicating clearly through credible military power that this belligerence will not succeed. For parties like the Greens this is a difficult assumption to swallow. Their belief is that peace can be secured through diplomacy and “good vibes” alone. 

The danger within this pacifism is that it becomes an inflexible political doctrine that treats a refusal to use force as a self-perceived moral victory, and overlooks the actual victims of violence. It confuses the insisted innocence of their own actions with the justice of a real world outcome. 

As a policy, the Greens decision to not support military assistance to Ukraine is a deeply flawed one, but as a political position it is self-defeating. Support for military assistance to Ukraine is a popular position in Australia, and many people believe that Australia should be doing more to help.

Support for the Greens themselves has plateaued at around 12 percent of the Australian public. The party’s approach is mostly to cultivate its status within this 12 percent and they seem disinclined to try to speak to anyone else. Therefore, the party’s position on military assistance to Ukraine probably has less to do with Ukraine itself, and was simply devised as a form of internal moral posturing with little comprehension how peace and security are actually achieved.