Australia's foreign policy confusion

Australia has always sat somewhat uneasily in its region. Obvious reasons for this are that we are a western liberal democracy; that our predominant culture is European-derived; that our economy, though comparatively small, is highly developed. These features tend to distinguish Australia from most of its neighbours.

Nevertheless we are here, and both we and our neighbours have to live with the fact, no matter how uncomfortable it might be from time to time. But it is true that Australian policy towards the region has not always helped make this necessary co-existence any easier: just as the policies and attitudes of some neighbours have likewise on occasion been unhelpful.

In comparison to some neighbours, especially the small south Pacific states, we are powerful. But this can be overstressed: we have a capacity to intervene, but it remains strictly limited. We do not have the resources to impose ourselves on neighbours which choose to go a different way. Any intervention by us can only be small scale and of relatively short duration.

With respect to our South-East Asian neighbours we have a kind of conventional military preponderance, in that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) is capable of successfully defending us against regionally-based foreign attack. (However, there is no state in the region with either the will or, more importantly, the capability, to launch any significant attack on us.) We do not have the capacity to mount serious offensive military operations (as distinct from, say, retaliatory strikes) against opposition.

We have nevertheless played a significant regional role, notably since the end of the Cold War. Since the 1999 Australian-led INTERFET deployment, which helped clean up the mess (deliberately) left in East Timor by the Indonesian military and its militia creatures, Australia has been called upon to provide peacekeeping, peacemaking or reconstructive forces in a number of places.

In fact, our first major deployment of this type was as long ago as the early ’90s, as part of a much larger force sent to Cambodia under UN auspices to help rebuild and stabilise that country after decades of conflict and occupation.

One reason we find ourselves doing a lot of this work is that the ADF is generally good at it: better in fact than a lot of others. Even in overt conflict situations, like the Vietnam War, we were much better at winning “hearts and minds” in our small area of responsibility than were the Americans overall. More recently, we got out of the failed UN operation in Somalia with our reputation intact, whereas the US endured the humiliation dramatised in the movie Blackhawk Down and the Canadians got embroiled in a scandal involving abuse of innocent Somalis and a subsequent high-level cover-up attempt.

So-called “peacekeeping” or “peace support” operations in failed or destroyed states, along with large-scale humanitarian operations such as that conducted in Indonesia after the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami, are typical of demands likely to be made on the ADF in the foreseeable future. The most recent case, the ongoing attempt to help stabilise East Timor after the collapse of effective government there, involves a significant deployment - perhaps 2,000 personnel all-up (with about 1,300 of these on the ground) - and, with other commitments, probably means we are currently as much “deployed” as is safe and sustainable.

In fact, capabilities for this kind of operation often compete for funds with the demands of an entirely different type of activity - so-called “coalition warfare”, where we operate with the US in one of its wars.

We have already made two significant mistakes in regional assistance policy. In 2000 we rejected pleas for aid from the Solomon Islands. And more recently, with an astonishing lack of foresight, we wound up our commitment to East Timor. In both cases our decisions were primarily due to resource pressures. Both have since blown up in our face, forcing later larger-scale re-deployments to the Solomons and now to East Timor. One reason for the resource pressures is the massive cost of participating and preparing for US-led coalition war.

Going to these coalition wars is costly enough, but not as costly as forever being ready for them on the scale Washington seems to expect. Because it involves so-called inter-operability with high-tech American force elements, it requires us to invest in multi-billion dollar projects like the Joint Strike Fighter and the Air Warfare Destroyer.

While such warfare is a part of being a US ally, Australia has allowed it to disproportionately dominate our strategic posture and acquisitions programs. In point of fact, no “coalition war” in which we have been involved would have turned out differently had we not been there. We are too small a power to make a decisive contribution to operations like either of the Iraq wars (1991 and the one which we helped start in 2003) or, say, a putative war with China over Taiwan.

Therefore, accepting that coalition war is something we must do if we want to be a US ally (though a bit more selectivity in which wars to join would be highly desirable), we should do it on the smallest scale necessary to make the appropriate political statement. By de-emphasising, though not dropping, coalition war capabilities in our acquisitions, we free up resources to support things like border protection, air and sea surveillance of the approaches to Australia, counter-terrorism and deployments like those to East Timor.

It also provides additional opportunities for a different kind of inter-operability: that required to work co-operatively with the forces of other states which may make contributions to regional assistance missions in which we are involved. Reading the Australian media (or even the Defence Department’s website), you could be excused for thinking that we are on our own in the new East Timor deployment. In fact, though the Australian contingent is the largest, there are also to be contributions from Portugal (the ex-colonial power), Malaysia and New Zealand.

This kind of interoperability involves far less emphasis on high-tech warfighting and much more on day-to-day practical co-ordination to keep the peacekeeping operation on track. It is not as costly, nor as glamorous, but is intensely practical and very important.

(Parenthetically, one should note that despite the ADF’s excellent record in this type of deployment, the current Timor operation will require all our skills, and those of our partners, if it is not to fail. The situation, intervention in a failed state, is far less favourable than it was in 1999, or in Cambodia.)

Politically, too, there are advantages, most notably in strengthening Australia’s regional credibility. Our good peacekeeping record is widely acknowledged, but many in our region still remain suspicious of Australian intentions and motivations. In any given case, is Australia acting in its own behalf? Is it trying to be a good regional citizen? Or doing Washington’s work for it? This uncertainty is very damaging to Australia’s regional image.

One has to wonder about our good judgment and sensitivity to regional concerns when the government has to be dragooned into grudgingly signing the perfectly harmless ASEAN Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, and when it echoes George Bush’s “pre-emption” rhetoric. John Howard’s notorious “Deputy Sheriff” line was about as useful in promoting Australia’s regional image as its refusal to sign the Kyoto climate change protocols when a number of South Pacific states face disaster as sea levels continue to rise.

Contrariwise, the Australian response to the Boxing Day tsunami was exemplary, even (I suspect) shaming the US into a more generous response than it initially contemplated.

If this catalogue of conflicting signals confuses readers, it is because Australian strategic and foreign policy is itself confused. As has been the case for decades, we still seem unable to decide whether our region is one in which we should play a useful and constructive role appropriate to our status as a small but advanced western state in a less developed region, or whether it is a source of threats against which we should buy insurance against in Washington and by disproportionately strengthening the high-tech end of our military. This ambiguity provides plenty of opportunity for anyone wishing to attack Australian regional policy.