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The Australia US Alliance under the microscope

By Michael Wesley - posted Wednesday, 6 October 2004


  • strength (allied contribution to US military actions);
  • access (the use of another nation’s external leverage - be it geopolitical, diplomatic, economic or otherwise - by the US to achieve specific strategic objectives);
  • legitimacy (the ability of the US to demonstrate that its actions are based upon international consensus); and
  • strategic restraint (the US security guarantee acts to reassure certain allies that they have no need to arm themselves to a greater extent).

Each of the first three benefits of alliances for the US will be important in a strategic environment destabilised by transnational threat. The US needs strength and access from allies because it is fighting terrorism and proliferation primarily in territories it does not control. And it needs legitimacy because here it is fighting not so much actors as practices; the integrity of its campaign requires both terrorism and proliferation to be seen by most countries as threats that must be combated. Australia will be expected to contribute strength, access and legitimacy to US actions in order to benefit further from the alliance.

Interestingly, Australia has gained the most kudos in Washington not from Afghanistan and Iraq but from the East Timor and Solomon Islands operations and the capture of the Pong Su. That Australia led these operations which were broadly seen as consistent with US interests and values without needing extensive US involvement has been favourably compared to Europe’s dithering responses in Bosnia and Kosovo.

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Another major change is occurring that will affect the nature of the Australia-US alliance, and that is the US global force posture review, which is currently under way. There are several considerations that have driven US policy makers to begin the process of fundamentally changing the way US forces are constituted and stationed around the world. These considerations include:

  • Strategic uncertainty
  • The strategic inflexibility entailed by large troop deployments
  • Anti-American sentiments
  • The Revolution in Military Affairs
  • Considerations of career predictability for a professional army.

Each of these considerations is driving US strategic posture away from the old Cold War model of major troop concentrations in Europe and Northeast Asia. Significantly, allies will be required to maintain their interoperability in technology, doctrine and tactics with US forces. As Des Ball has pointed out, this will require a major investment by the Australian Defence Force over the next decade.

Strategic threats brought on by humanitarian crises, terrorism, WMD proliferation and threats to infrastructure are likely to be a major part of the future strategic landscape too. As the promoter of the liberal international order, the US will continue to promote solidarity among Americans and its allies by identifying and anathematising the illiberal other, defining rogue states, terrorists and proliferators as fascists, an existential challenge to the world order. Further, the key strategic challenges will see the US focus of interest move away from Europe to the Eurasian continent. It is likely four countries will be key: Iran, India, China and Russia. The key strategic challenges will be much closer to Australia.

The Future of the Australia-US Alliance: Political Dynamics

What’s really intrigued me about the Iraq war are the political dynamics it’s set up. Everyone’s familiar with the Pew Surveys showing the rise of anti-Americanism around the world; what really interests me is how the many flavours of anti-Americanism - post-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-secularist, European left, European right - have each been enflamed by the Iraq war, and further, that they have begun to draw on and use each other’s arguments about the evils of America. For example the specific targeting of the Halliburton company by Saudi al Qaeda leader Abdulaziz al-Muqran, is a direct reference to European leftist critiques that the US went to war to promote Dick Cheney’s financial interests.

Beyond this, I’ve watched with great interest the increasingly hysterical political debates in Australia and elsewhere about the Iraq war. What I think is happening here is a dynamic that is bigger than hatred or support for George W Bush or the war in Iraq, and that this political dynamic will have a major destabilising effect on the Australia-US alliance. Stated briefly, issues of international relations that once were only sporadically important domestically are becoming a central part of domestic politics in Western countries.

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Two alternative interpretations of world politics have emerged since the end of the Cold War. The first is an internationalist-cosmopolitan vision which sees advances in international law, norms and institutions as transforming international relations, and achieving progress on collective problems such as human rights abuses, uneven development and environmental damage. It is a vision that the left tends to endorse: that by eliminating or mitigating problems in the system, while removing the system’s protections for dictators, the problems of individual states and societies can be more effectively addressed.

The alternative worldview is a realist-unipolarist vision which sees the best way of protecting and expanding the status quo through deterrence, enforcement and the provision of public goods by US power in broad coalition with like-minded allies. By providing stability and prosperity to more and more individual states, US power will benefit the international system as a whole. This is a vision the right tends to endorse: by assisting states to pursue their self-interests (here defined as democracy and free market economic growth) a beneficial status quo will be strengthened. But the enjoyment of US power also demands solidarity with its aims - protecto ergo obligo.

Many US actions - refusal to endorse the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and withdrawal from the ABM treaty - have outraged many on the left because they appear to damage the building of communitarian international norms. These actions are seen by many left-wing commentators as an example of the old, self-interested international relations destroying the possibilities of the new. On the other hand, many right-wing commentators see multilateralist attempts to impose limits on US actions as dangerous meddling with the guarantor of world order, akin to special interests that use government and the legal system as a way of advancing minority privileges over majority interests.

Here is a dynamic and a set of interpretations that have become well-entrenched. Rather than being a phenomenon of the War on Terror, Iraq and George W Bush, these images and the polarisation of debate will likely be stirred up repeatedly in the coming years. And, as the recent ‘troops out by Christmas’ debate in Australia has showed, such polarisation has a worrying tendency to leave cool calculation, careful nuancing of position, and the possibility of compromise at the door.

Conclusion

The Australia-US alliance has, for the most part, been one of the most uncontroversial of America’s alliances. But there are emerging developments and dynamics that will challenge this placidity in the years to come, whichever party wins office in either Washington or Canberra.

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Article edited by Julian Gruin.
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About the Author

Professor Michael Wesley is the Director of the Griffith Asia Pacific Research Institute at Griffith University.

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