Australia: Nation-State

Australia is a single nation and this conveys quite a few advantages, especially since it's also a single state. To clarify, I’ll explain the basics of what a nation and a state are, which when joined become a nation-state. A state, for our purposes, can be thought of as a government with sovereignty(both actual and recognized control) over a geographic area. A medieval kingdom wasn't a state since there was no official system for recognizing control of territory and the kings or rulers had very loose control over events within their territory (often villages could fight wars with each over). Another aspect for our purposes is Westphalia sovereignty, where external agents, at the time this was mainly religious for either Catholicism or Protestants, have no say over domestic structures. In the context of the Westphalia treaty, you don't invade another country because its king is persecuting Protestants or Catholics, it also works against certain imperial (that was also part of the treaty of Westphalia) ambitions. This form of sovereignty has been weakened recently due to humanitarian intervention such as the recent Libyan war, or America’s habit of deposing various regimes. Naturally its stronger in the western world, since the west was never colonized/invaded like the rest was and its a western concept which fits with western ideas/concepts.  Democracy requires this form of sovereignty at whatever scale it's practiced, because if some outside force (whether it's an Imperial power, a religious institution or something like the UN/European union) stops democratic decisions or makes them instead, then it isn't democratic (as in let the numbers count iterative decision making).

So a state is a government entity that excludes external (as in outside the country) forces from the political structure, controls its own borders and is the sole arbiter of coercion, i.e. only it can make and enforce laws and edicts. Working (i.e. not failed) states are more internally peaceful (they can still be bloodthirsty), generally have better law enforcement, and often have better control and mobilization capabilities of their resources, since they don't have as much trouble dealing with internal factions. Combine it with a nation and you have a nation-state so what’s a nation?

A nation can (and often) simply refers to people who share a government and territory, but it has another meaning. It can refer to people who share something (real or imagined, usually real); culture, history, a recent war etc which binds them into a larger coherent group. So, the UK isn't a nation, and thus not a nation-state, while England, Scotland and Wales are nations. Korea is a single nation, and a part of the tension between south and north is the drive to unite the nation. This points up a key point about nations, they are a unifying force. Now that doesn't mean a nation will always unite, Ancient Greece was a single nation (Hellenic) but it never united except under foreign rule (First under Philip of Macedon, then the Roman Empire). But when Achaemenid Persia invaded, the shared culture and hence national unity allowed the Greeks to put provincial concerns behind them and show a united defense, stopping an invasion of 500,000 and some of the most impressive engineering feats of the time. What allows nations to unify under a single government as often as the do now is due to certain technological and social changes.

The Man from the Snowy River is on our ten dollar note. It was originally published in a weekly magazine and was one of the key building blocks to Australia's national identity, it being the aspect the country plays (or more accurately played) in our mythos. The technology behind it was the printing press, but the social change was the newspaper coupled with  high literacy rates and submissions from the general public. The other technological changes, with attendant social changes, were initially canals, then railways and improved communications in the form of telegraphs and radio. A lot of these technologies are from either pre-fossil fuel industrialism (Printing press and canals), can potentially be built with pre-industrial tech (Radio and telegraphs) or utilizes some of the earliest fossil fuel powered technology (Trains) and so might be possible in limited forms. Fossil fuels helped some nations or states expand far past what they could otherwise have and for the large ones made unification under a large national culture easier. America is a good example of that and so is the eastern part of Russia, before Industrialism they owned it by default but hadn't even explored it. These also allow nations to be far more unified and homogeneous than they otherwise would be.

On that note, let's look at the darker side of nation-states. The British tried their best to extinguish the welsh language, and several others, and its attendant culture in an attempt to make the welsh English. Australia has done the same thing to Aborigines (though not as consciously). Now, not all nation-states mistreat minorities, Iran (which is a distinct nation and is Persian rather than Arab) apparently protects its minorities and their political rights (except for the Bahia). This culturally homogenizing tendency has been tempered somewhat by other concepts/ideas, like equality, but this still remains and even if its not fought with violence, the battle between rival nations still goes on. The hostilities against rival nations are competition, but it has another aspect. Some of the most brutal and destructive wars or revolutions are fought over cultural factors; the thirty years war (religion), French Revolution (Ideology/bread riot) and some of the violence in places like Kenya or Iraq is  directly between nations/tribal/religious groups. Since states like internal peace (easier to raise taxs, less law enforcement needed, no civil wars etc), they have an incentive to stamp out internal nations that could destroy said peace.

Nations can also be fractal. France is a single nation, so is Italy and Spain. Yet Brittany within France is a separate nation with its own identity, so is Venice in Italy, Catalonia in Spain and in Ancient Greece Athens and Sparta were opposing nations while also belonging to the Hellenic nation, it should however be noted that modern nations are far more homogeneous than ancient ones. Nations can have smaller nations embedded in them, like how large ecosystems have smaller ecosystems embedded in them, e.g. a single rock pool along a beach, which is part of the ocean ecosystem. At the moment this isn't as important for Australia, none of our regions have the level of difference between them to be considered different nations, but that could change. Like Denmark or Japan, Australia is a single nation with only a minor level of sub-nations. Let’s look at our nationality.

Both my parents are nationally Australian, yet they come from different migrations and ethnicity. My Dad's side is that of post WW2 (actually caused by the war) Italian immigrants, while my Mother's side goes back to the first fleet (a Quaker highwayman was involved) and the family was Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh (my middle names Welsh, from some ancestor) and judging some of the old pictures one or two Aborigines. Yet despite these vastly differently backgrounds, both families consider themselves Australian. Most immigrants who want to integrate manage it quite quickly, I've known people who migrate here and become Australian within a few years. One friend moved here from China (think the SW) and went through a period of using strine and saying g'day mate. Therefore, what makes an Australian?

One of the key parts is the immigration itself, and the immigration was and is quite diverse. Convicts and the guards stand out, but they were also settlers, gold miners and in my Granduncles case, he came as a POW and liked the place. Since, unlike America, Australia didn't import quantities of slaves and unlike South Africa, the Aborigines only make up .5% of the population; there isn't an any significant section of the population with a different narrative i.e. non-immigrant. Then there's the lack of religious pilgrims or settlers that America had. And while the first settlers were forced, a longing for home didn't take them home as much as it did in many other colony efforts. There was a report back to England, was in a children's book on history, which talked about the children of the convicts, they were taller, healthier, more intelligent and law abiding than their parents, they also viewed England as a distant hellhole, likely due to their parents often being lower class. For the Aborigines, integrating them into white Australian culture didn't work, so they'll likely get their own sub-nation (or a completely separate nation) in the central desert, north coast and peripheral parts of the settled parts of Australia. So, that's Australia's nation(s). Since immigration is likely to halt, this aspect is likely to become historical, which means it will still be perfectly viable.

So, seeing what a states and nations are, its easy to see why when its combined with concepts like popular sovereignty and government representation the nation-state is an incredibly durable and resilient political/social structure. While the specific modern form might not survive, it’s quite likely for nation-states in general to survive Overshoot.

Think of Africa, most of the borders don't match tribal borders and it was supposed to fall apart long ago. Here's an extract from the war nerd 'But they last. Africa was supposed to fall apart long ago, because the country borders didn’t match the tribal ones. Didn’t happen. Won’t, either. Take Eritrea; There’s no such thing, ethnically, as an Eritrean. It’s a ridiculous colonial border the Italians set up. But once Eritrea incorporated as country, the brand took, and took hard. The Eritrean fought the Ethiopians, much bigger and stronger country, to a stalemate and they’re prouder of their totally imaginary Eritrean identity than a lot of countries are of the real thing.' 

Since our government is of the people, instead of just aristocratic families, religious organizations, or intensely local concerns, and everyone is of the same broad culture, there are few centers for opposition or secession and with a functioning democracy, successful revolutions need substantial foreign support, see Syria where even that is failing (partly due to foreign support though). Given what’s coming, having a resilient political/social structure is probably a good thing, and the traits of some intellectual groups (Marxists, Islamist, Racial supremacists, some libertarians, Anarchist etc) to be actively against nation-states is unhelpful both to them and those that follow their ideas. Now, this doesn’t mean all current nation-states should be supported; some will almost certainly fail e.g. America, China (possibly), various African and European countries etc. However, the successor states will be better off if they try to become nation-states and use an existing identity or create a new one rather than be left with rather weak links between the state and the people. And remember, nations can be small; Luxembourg's population is 524,000, while the identity can be created by recent events (see Eritrea) as a solid foundation. Shared values also count, that’s an integral part of Switzerland’s national identity and that plus history allows it to overcome having 3 main language and cultural centers. The only thing which seems to be a bad cultural link for nationalism is religion, the only countries which have tried are Pakistan and Israel, hasn't worked out that well for them.

For the evolution of nations inside Australia, a lot will depend on the surviving technologies and infrastructure. Actual divisions on the level of say China vs Japan are unlikely to develop for a while. As it stands, for the settled sections two main sub-nations are likely to appear, East and West, with the East being big enough to have multiple sub-nations, and a small but very different northern one as well. The main variable is land transport, if a railway stays connecting the East and West then the division will be slowed and a division between nations (instead of sub-nations) would almost certainly not form. Otherwise, it’s actually quite likely.

Becoming a non-immigrant culture

Australia's culture is mostly either imported or adaptations of other cultural elements, comparatively little of it is homegrown. Some of its also assimilated from the Aborigines, like didgeridoos or bush foods. The  major reasons for this is both constant contact with the west (the cultural homeland) and the other is continuous migration. These elements reinforce each other; Britain was only recently replaced by New Zealand as the main source of immigrants and since the core of their culture is also British it had little if any effect on our cultural development. Both of these elements are going to be impacted by Overshoot, and a more native culture will develop.

The end of significant migration will be twofold. The breakdown of airborne and maritime travel coupled with Australia's isolation will hinder international travel of all kinds, both to Australia and away from it. Therefore, migration will be reduced and what does occur will be on average over shorter distances, in Melbourne’s case mostly interstate or routed through other states. Then there's the lack of excess carrying capacity that will develop and the inability for the population to increase, or in other words, every immigrant needs to push a native out. Typically, this is met with resistance and the natives push back, see Russia's violent response to Hitler's Lebensraum (living space) or the precursor of current violence by Greece's Golden Dawn party. The only successful significant migrations have been either after disease wiped out 90%+ of the natives or Industrial nations colonized Islands, South Africa's population is only 9% white so its not a significant immigration (not compared to the USA or Australia). More common is what happened to sections of the Roman empire after its collapse .The invaders were to few in numbers (typically tens of thousands) compared to the native populations (typically a few million) so they conquered politically and socially but not genetically. That's unlikely to happen here, no likely invaders exist and modern western militaries (which we have) are only beaten when their on the offensive, not defensive.

The links to America and Europe will also weaken considerably. America's culture dominates, like most empires, because being the top power gives it a unique charm. However once it starts losing prestige its cultural grip will begin disappearing and unlike Rome's culture, America's culture of consumption posse's little staying power for after its empire collapses. Both Czar and Kaiser come from Caesar, nothing like that will remain of America's empire. Europe's hold will weaken for the same reason, and given how bad Britain’s situation is becoming it could happen with startling quickness. Then there is the collapse of regular communication that will isolate Australia from the rest of the world and most cultural imports. Transport's decline, while it'll mainly affect immigration, will slow the exchange of cultural artifacts, everything from wines, books and artworks etc. Isolation until transport is restored will make our culture evolve separately at least along the lines of physical objects.

Future Australian cultures will evolve out of the current European dominated one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they'll be close to either current or future European cultures. Ancient Greek and Achaemend Persian cultural origins were both Indo-European and linguistically this shows up in the modern Iranian languages, like Farsi, being closer to English than Arabic or Hebrew, but they didn't recognize each other as similar cultures. The Persians turned to horse and bow while the Greeks went with ships and hoplites. What they didn't do however, was become culturally like the surrounding Semitic people, the Iranians are not Arabs (As one said "I'd be insulted to be mistaken for a primitive Arab'). The differences in geography and ecology alone assure that, unlike Greece, Italy, or England, none of our major cities is land-locked, Rome, Sparta, and London aren't on the coast but on Rivers. While the main crops and animals are likely to stay the same (wheat, sheep, chickens, pigs, potatoes etc), flavorings and secondary foods aren't e.g. mountain pepper (Tasmanian), lemon myrtle, Kangaroo, Emus, Eucalypt Vodka (yes, that is a real drink, don't try it), Alpacas, various honeys, and all the other bush foods, and in WA I tried a new local whiskey. So culinary tastes will certainly diverge and are already starting to, and since Australia lacks any land based power centre’s the sea will have a bigger place than in European culture .Then there's the multiculturalism, currently Asians are the new cultural group but Africans are becoming more common, and the fact that very few of the minorities (which is almost all the cultural ethnic groups here since the two largest are 30% each, English and Australian) are isolated in their own little enclaves, so mixing will likely happen. The European minorities have been integrated already and it’s mostly the African and Asian ones that need to be integrated here now, most likely, they'll follow the same trajectory as those from before and change the subcultures they belong to as much as they change Australia's overall culture.

Language is one cultural area that that typically changes during a collapse phase, but at the moment Australia's situation is unique. I'm talking about the fact that everyone in Australia speaks English and their are virtually no other languages that a significant amount of the population speaks, the second largest language, Italian is spoken by only 316,000 people (slightly over 1%). Note this is the entire population, instead of just the middle or upper class and it is an everyday language instead of it being used like Latin was in Europe after Rome’s fall. In China, it’s apparently different, a friend who migrated from there recently mentioned that each province has its own language or very different dialect; I assume Europe is also different with more local and regional languages. To give you an idea of how unique this is, think of the various native languages of the British Isles (Cornish, welsh, English etc.) and how small England’s population was then. Normally when a language was spoken across a country, the peasants (70-90% of the population) would speak their own regional dialects and it was the middle, upper and urban classes who spoke a similar language. This isn't the only case of a language dominating a large area, but it is unique in how comprehensive it is. Since evolution requires diversity and this is lacking, language is less likely to diverge as wildly in Australia as it has done under other collapse phases.

Looking at the east-west divide and you can see the likely shape of Australia's cultural groups. The desert and North coast will be home to an almost insignificant proportion of the population, but they'll have a distinct culture as (potentially) hunter-gatherers, camel based nomads or heavily Asianized (Darwin) for example. The west coast will be the minor of the two city based cultures, however it'll be the meeting point for the Australian cultures and the European and African cultures. The east coast is the major cultural centre (based of size), and it will likely be the most insular.

Second Phase of Instability: Domestic factors

For Australia, the increased conflict between states, nations and various government entities will mostly be external (geographically) to the country, unlike the countries those wars will be fought in. Australia will not be a battlefield in the struggles between major or even minor powers, luckily due to geography (think of the distances and logistics involved). So for us, unlike Africa, parts of America and Asia etc. where the coming wars will be situated, increasing domestic instability is separate to foreign instability. In fact, most of the domestic instability common to collapsing civilisations isn’t likely to appear here since the rising spiral of external (e.g. invasions or raids) violence is a crucial part of the weakening of governments, peacekeeping forces (like police) and the breakdown of civil life that prevents many of the symptoms appearing. War bands can only function inside a country when either its military force is locked up stopping other problems or it’s ineffective/degraded. Rome had both of these problems, its defensive system was designed to stop large incursions but small warbands of 10-20,000 and raiding parties could penetrate every now and then while its military was being degraded by a shortage of funds, manpower and the stresses placed on it by a collapsing civilisation (such as a century of continuos civil wars and the regular stripping of the frontier forts this caused).  Economics will cause the majority of the internal unrest and violence Australia will face, except in the North coast where Indonesia and New Guinea are close enough for external violence to manifest in forms ranging from piracy to invasion. However, the North coast’s population makes up such a small percentage, about 1%, that it won’t cause many problems.

Banditry and piracy are often a symptom of poor and broken economies and this is where most of the domestic strife will originate. As law enforcement is slowly restricted to the more urbanized areas and poverty increases those in the more rural areas will more often turn to thievery and banditry. This will push more trade towards the seas and along safer routes such as rail and further the process of making Australian society orientated around the coast. The increase of transport along the coast will make a tempting target for pirates, who will need sailing boats and safe harbours. The main hindrance for pirates off Australia’s south coast is that apart from the Bass Strait, is its all open waters and there isn’t a profusion of small islands for the pirates to use as bases. This will make many internal transport lines safe-ish for regular trade, the same however is not true for external lines, which are currently very important for Australia. A significant increase in the general crime isn’t actually that likely, without the breakdown of civil life even deep depressions don’t often see crime waves and a civil war that could shred civil life is unlikely even if the states separate. Wars of secession are much more likely, though a peaceful secession movement is more likely and while that could easily cause great disruption it is incredibly unlikely to destroy civil life to the degree necessary for major problems.

Dealing with large scale domestic strife would only take a few things; forming militias in small towns and villages to deal with local bandits with government support for some the guns, training and basic logistics. The rural police force will need to evolve to deal with the rise of rural banditry and reduced resources, expect horses to be used more often and some kind of travelling judge system developed. Civil and secession wars can be avoided by all parties agreeing to allow the decisions to be decided democratically, instead of what happened in South Vietnam where the South decided to pull out of the vote of wether to be communist or democratic and thereby cause the North to declare war. It’s easier in our case because we’ve been democratic since the beginning and our system works fairly well (South Vietnams didn’t and was fairly young), there aren’t any major ideological battles currently around and major interference by a foreign power is unlikely. Mostly maintaining democracy involves ignoring or delegitimizing the demagogues or the extremists who turn events violent and people extreme. Our National character isn’t one of fanatics or extremists, keeping it that way and marginalising the radicals who’s revolutions so often bring chaos is the main goal to stop this sort of momentous civil strife.

Dealing with the limited internal piracy has multiple solutions depending on the circumstances either an arming of merchant ships (big and small), an increase in the number of escort ships or simply denying the pirates friendly ports. The main danger of piracy is outside of Australia in the traditional pirate havens, and armed merchants are likely the best solution to that problem due to their distance from our shores. While the relatively small amount of piracy likely to be found on Australia’s coast can likely dealt with by either light single or double seater airplane patrols or police cutters. The main problem will be the lack of funding caused by economic crisis just as adaption is required.