Overcoming the Creswell–Foster divide in Australian strategy: the challenge for twenty-first century policy-makers

Abstract

This article examines the continuing influence of the contending twentieth century schools of Creswellian continental defence and Fosterite expeditionary defence in Australian strategy. A context for analysis is developed through an examination of the contemporary globalised security environment which is marked by bifurcation into state-centric and multi-centric threats. The demands of this new security environment have led to the evolution of twenty-first century manifestations of the Creswell–Foster divide in the form of the defender-regionalist and the reformer-globalist schools of strategy. The article analyses how differences between these two schools, especially over the value of geography, have been exacerbated by the new dynamics of globalised security. In the future, however, overcoming the contemporary Creswell–Foster divide between the defender-regionalists and the reformer-globalists in Australian strategy is unlikely to occur in the exclusive arena of defence policy. Rather, what is required is the creation of an overarching national security strategy beginning with the establishment of an Australian Commission on Twenty-First Century National Security. Such a Commission could be modelled on the US Hart–Rudman Commission of 1999–2001 and be suitably adapted to Australian conditions. An Australian commission should be charged with producing a long-term report on holistic and ‘best practice’ security policy options for upholding and protecting Australia's vital national interests in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.