Rethinking Australian foreign policy in a post-Bush world

It is surprising how seriously many parts of Australia's defence and foreign policy establishment believe in the existence of the "war on terror". For instance, the Australian Strategic Policy Institutes's Dr Rod Lyon has been an enthusiastic cheer-leader for this so-called "generational conflict", in which the armed forces and police services of "the West" are supposed to be engaged in a decades-long, cross-national, asymmetric conflict against the forces of Islamic extremism.

But from the perspective of foreign-policy sceptics or even great power traditionalists, the "war on terror" looks not so much like a vast inter-connected theatre of war as a neat brand for a marketing campaign. Future historians looking back on the rhetoric of western democracies during this period may well describe the various insurgencies and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East in the far more prosaic terms of a series of sub-national rebellions, sporadic bombing campaigns and movements of national self-determination.

In Afghanistan, for instance, it is not easy to discern to what degree the various factions of tribal warlords, organised crime operations and even the Taliban are really participating in the "war on terror". A simpler explanation is that, even for the Taliban, these groups are fighting foreign occupiers for largely local reasons and with few supra-regional agendas.

In our region, it is clear that while the actions of Jemaah Islamiyah were indeed intended to harm Australian interests, the key targets of its terrorism campaign were always domestic. Like the Marxist insurgency that has been raging in Mindanao for three decades, JI's most salient impact was in its home country, and the most effective counter-measures taken against it have been policing, not military action.

At home in Australia, there is simply no evidence for a domestic terrorism movement, in spite of the at-times hysterical rhetoric used by the Prime Minster and Attorney-General to justify the introduction of draconian anti-terror laws. As recent actions by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police show, Australian citizens probably have more to worry about from the botched operations of these domestic enforcement agencies than the so-called “terrorist threat.”

If the war on terror is a convenient fiction, than the reality of Australia's foreign policy choices are confronted in our relationship to China. Indeed, if there can be said to be one key plank to what might be called a "realist" Australian foreign policy, it surely must be to grapple with the shifting influences and great power relationship of the US and China. Yet even here, Australia has increasingly thrown in its lot with the US during the Howard years. Our recent decision to sign-up to a four-power defence treaty with Japan, the US and India was not warmly welcomed in Beijing, for which such a treaty must clearly appear to be a policy of containment.

Earlier this year, writing in foreign policy journal The American Interest, French political scientist Pierre Hassner argued that while "American power is vast and may yet grow by many measures . . . the legitimacy of that power is waning, and with it the authority of America’s word and its model". Hassner is right. The question for Australia is when we will be prepared to abandon the discredited neocon fictions of the "war on terror", and how we should respond to the declining legitimacy of the United States.

In a prescient recent article in the same journal, noted Australian analyst Owen Harries from the Lowy Institute examined the problems that Australia will face in coming decades as the influence of the US wanes. Acknowledging the problem, he argued that the issue is more pervasive than one of mere perception: "the failure of the can-do country to cope even with the effect of a hurricane on one of its great cities has suggested a weakness that goes beyond Iraq".

Harries observes that if American influence really is on the decline, then "if so, it is a cause of concern not only for Americans but for the international system". He then proceeds to explain why, offering a laundry list of problems which will require international leadership - "globalisation; global warming; mass uncontrolled human migration; nuclear proliferation, extending to weak states with poor security and control systems; and, of course, terrorism". It looks as though the reign of the US as the world's only "hyper-power" has been brief.

Back at the National Press Club, Robert McLelland castigated Alexander Downer for his government's refusal to formulate an exit strategy for our forces in Iraq. But Australia now needs more than an exit strategy from the Coalition of the Willing. It's time to seriously rethink the bedrock of 60 years of our foreign policy and move towards a more regional, more internationalist and less hegemonic policy agenda. Engaging or re-engaging with international collective security endeavours (like the UN and NATO) and environmental security treaties (like Kyoto), would certainly be a good place to start. Most importantly, we need to stop acting to support the moral legitimacy of US entanglements.

As US foreign policy inevitably shifts after March 2009, Australia will find we will have to change ours, whether we like it or not. A new, more independent foreign policy is not only likely post-George W. Bush. It's almost certainly required.