A fine and more or less unarguable paper - unless you are a politician. As we all know, any politician can interpret any situation to suit their own narrow political view and they have the uncanny knack of ignoring inconvenient realities. To claim that eliminating MPA did not seriously erode the safety and security of the country is manifest nonsense - but not to the politicians. They know, or think they know, that the country as a whole cares more about health, welfare etc than defence. To say we don't have the money is also nonsense - it's just a question of priorities but priorities are a question of votes.
And, as is inevitable, when over time this country finds itself having to accept unpalatable realities such as less friendly but more aggressive nations being granted advantageous mineral, trade, sub sea extraction rights and rights of access by weaker states because we, and others, are no longer able to provide a counter-balance to implicit military threat, the politicians will just shrug their shoulders and say it's not their fault or will try and dress it up as though it actually was beneficial to us. And that's how it will happen - there may not be a hot war, because we won't be able to fight one, so we will gradually retreat from supporting our friends and guaranteeing our trade routes and we'll find ourselves accepting disadvantageous trade agreements and more expensive raw materials, and the politicians will blame everyone but themselves.