Up Front
Super Powers: Big and Bigger
Australia and the U.S. in the Pacific
This issue is especially focused on the role of Australia in the Pacific region. Employing the talents of Australian journalist Rowan Callick, who covers the region for the Australian Financial Review, we were able to put Pacific Magazine’s questions to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, whose countenance graces our cover, and whose interview begins on page 16. (Click here for story.) Downer’s answers to Callick’s pointed questions are a bit mushy, that is, they are spoken in diplomatese, a dialect known worldwide for the yawns it produces in its audience.
But beneath the surface are some revealing strategic and historic realities. For instance, both PNG and Nauru have long-standing colonial histories with their larger neighbor. And between the lines of Downer's answers is also the perennial Australian desire for buffers between itself and sources of potential trouble. China and North Korea come to mind. Indonesia or the Philippines might erupt at any time. So trouble in PNG, or elsewhere close by, is not appealing to Australian strategists.
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Ever since the Bali bombings reminded Australians that New Yorkers are not the only ones who have to worry about terrorism, the government of Australia has thrown its cowboy hat in the ring with George Bush (and a few Eastern European nations) to join the frontlines of a war on Iraq.
Australia is a mini-super power of sorts, much analogous to the U.S. Both countries had British colonial roots, both have vast natural resources and both nations exterminated their indigenous populations to make room for European settlers. (And both have fenced in the remnant descendants of the American Indian and the Aborigine with politically correct regrets.)
Both countries are now very multi-ethnic, yet remain ruled by Anglo-Protestant elites. Australia has a ring of Pacific Island vassals around its landmass and the U.S. has an analogous archipelago of Pacific Island dependents running from Hawaii through the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. Many people in the world view both the U.S. and Australia as having reckless, ill-informed foreign policies which endanger their neighbors. The Pacific vassal states appreciate U.S. and Australian aid, but they have always retained their right to complain about the donor overlords.
In his overview piece, Callick mentions the phrase “arc of instability,” which was coined by an Australian historian and is used quite often these days in Pacific discourse. It’s meant to refer to the line of political instability that runs southeast to northwest from Fiji through Vanuatu, the Solomons and up into PNG and West Papua. Until the last few weeks, I’ve always hesitated to include Fiji—despite it’s recent coup history—in this arc of uncertainty. But recent events have proven me wrong as the breakdown of law and order in the urban areas of Fiji is growing more and more obvious. Our page 11 Notes item is just one report among many about the increasingly unstable situation in Fiji. Our sources there say coup rumors are even starting again while knowledgeable urban citizens no longer go out at night.
So Australia, more than the USA, is closer to the Pacific flashpoints and thus, has a greater survival interest in political stability in the Pacific. American foreign policy remains inordinately fixed on Europe and the Middle East.
Scott Whitney can be reached at:
scottw@pacificbasin.net
