Abstract
No ally of the United States could claim to be more enthusiastic, reliable or obliging than Australia. Since World War II, when the US replaced Britain as Australia’s principal “great and powerful friend” and guarantor of Australian security, generations of Australian policymakers from both sides of politics have made the cultivation of close ties with America a non-negotiable, sacrosanct part of public policy. Even now, those who question the merits of this relationship inevitably incur accusations of strategic illiteracy at best, mindless anti-Americanism at worst. And yet as Australian troops play an essentially tokenistic part in Americanled “coalitions of the willing” in Iraq and Afghanistan—conflicts which have little immediate strategic relevance to Australia—it seems an appropriate moment to assess the benefits and impact of this relationship, both in terms of Australia’s own national interest, and from the perspective of the wider international system of which both countries are a part. In what follows I argue that the purported benefits to Australia have always been debatable and overstated; they are especially so at present. The government of John Howard has given unconditional and enthusiastic support to the Bush administration’s foreign policy agenda, encouraging the illjudged intervention in Iraq and giving momentum to the erosion of a multilateral international order that better suits the long-term interests of a smaller power like Australia. Not only has Australia played a part in undermining the old international system but its close, unequivocal, allegiance to the US may make it difficult to accommodate a new East Asian regional order in which China looks certain to play an increasingly prominent role.
Published Version
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