Australia’s close security relationship with the US is indeed logical

There is no doubt that war is the saddest expression of human activity and the crudest form of politics. It nearly always brings misery in terms of lives either killed or injured, infrastructure destroyed and so on.

But conflict is unlikely to go away, nor Australia’s need to secure a great like-minded partner, despite our need to learn from humanity’s ongoing struggle for resources and the influence of certain ideas.

Kellie Tranter claims in yesterday’s On Line Opinion that the “ANZUS Treaty unfortunately has wedded us to the US in an abusive relationship” which “has been conscripted to support illegal invasions and occupations of sovereign nations for highly questionable purposes”.

Now, I do not deny that the US and Australia have not made some security mistakes. I suspect that some strategic decisions may deserve the wrath of public scrutiny.

But as an imperfect individual who recognises my own contradictions, I will not suggest supposed moral certainty by supporting a ridiculous proposition that win-win security policy solutions are possible, or that we can merely sit on the fence.

Despite US credibility being harmed in recent years by unilateral action in Iraq, as well as some evidence that torture was sanctioned, Australia’s need for such a close security relationship remains logical and appropriate in this ultra-competitive world. 

Take US-Australian involvement in Afghanistan. Can critics be serious when they suggest that the war in Afghanistan will only be over when international troops have gone” so that “Afghanistan can proceed down the path to self-determination free of foreign interference”. 

History demonstrates the risks of action, but also of inaction. Whilst Afghanistan has see off more armies than most, it is also true that US inaction after the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1988 allowed that country to disintegrate further into warring chiefdoms.

But rather than blaming the US for this oversight, I do not suggest that this could have been avoided if only we gave them the resources and so on. Nor do I declare (decades later) that the Cold War could have easily been avoided, or that we had nothing to fear from totalitarian regimes.  As if.

Instead I look back at events and realise just how difficult it was for Western leaders to prop up poor states from the 1980s at a time when governments were coming under greater pressure both to ensure that their own domestic economies remained competitive yet also meet growing social welfare demands. 

And given that we actually write for the present, I wonder whether the brief respite that Afghan women have recently experienced would have been possible without Western intervention? 

As events leading up to recent Western intervention in Afghanistan indicate, it is impossible to prescribe fool-proof foreign policies that always prevent conflict. In this era of economic globalisation, many nations (and cultures) have resented US influence, although the US itself was not immune from its own social problems given the decline of its manufacturing sector. History has now documented the rise of radical Islamic groups and considerable anti-US sentiment, including in Latin America.

However, I argue that the US played a positive role for good in overall terms. In a world where the concept of freer trade did prove instrumental in producing greater well-being for both rich and poor nations, albeit fuelled by debt and accompanied by substantial environmental degradation, it has been the US which has played the most important economic and security role.

Support for an important US security remains evident, especially in response to Russia and  authoritarian China.

Just as most European nations openly support the US because of security concerns towards Russia, including once neutral Sweden, most Asian nations will support US leadership because of the ambition of authoritarian China. While many Australian academics have bagged the US, few sensible scholars will openly support China’s attempt to match US prowess in terms of advanced weaponry, its attacks on foreign computer systems, or its ongoing desire to control its population.

China, with around 22 per cent of the world’s population and limited natural resources may have important national objectives, but many nations have reason to see that its ambition is checked.

As Australia is demonstrating with its support of greater US presence in northern Australia, thankfully not all nations accept the inevitable rise and fall of certain nations as if it is a given and nothing can be done. Proud nations have important normative reasons that can prevail over pure economic considerations.

Truth is that imperfect actions by the US (and Australia) will not stop struggling nations or segments of their populations looking to Western leadership to resolve their plights. As past Pew Research Center work demonstrates, even Muslim majorities respect Western leadership in terms of culture (attractiveness to others), values (demonstrated consistency), and policies (perceived inclusiveness and legitimacy).

So with the US facing its own budgetary constraints, it is reasonable to assume that close allies (including Australia) may have to play a greater security role as new problems emerge in this ultra-competitive world.

May our proud ANZAC tradition continue, and critics of our involvement with the US lift their game to describe a better alternative rather than merely bag brave liberal-minded nations acting for a better world, despite our own policy imperfections.