U.S. - Pacific
Enlisted for the Long Haul
Australia Sees Benefits to Mutual Defense
Americans have become accustomed recently to hearing other people say nasty things about the United States, especially the French and Germans, the Arabs and other Muslim nations and the North Koreans. These countries have been particularly vocal in criticizing the U.S. as arrogant, imperious and a bully.
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An exception, and one that stands out, is Australia. “Australia and the United States share values and ideals that underpin our strong relationship,” says a White Paper on foreign policy published in Canberra earlier this year. “We both have deep democratic traditions and aspirations, elements of a common heritage and a lasting record of cooperation and shared sacrifice.”
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Australia sides with the U.S. more often than not for what the government in Canberra considers to be sound and pragmatic reasons. Anthony L. Smith, a researcher at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, says that: “Canberra has made a strategic calculation that it can greatly enhance Australia’s national security through an alliance with the United States.”
Yet Australians are quick to assert that having an alliance with the U.S. doesn’t mean that they blindly follow Washington in every instance. They have their own national interests and disagree on some security issues, including the need for the U.S. to implement the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In commercial issues, the Australians are sometimes annoyed by U.S. farm subsidies and other protectionist practices.
The Australian government, striving to back up its strategic calculations, deployed 2,000 soldiers to fight alongside the Britons and Americans in Iraq, even though the war was politically unpopular with large numbers of Australian citizens, just as it was in many other nations.
Australian officials contend that their nation’s alliance with the U.S. gives them a stronger voice in Washington than might otherwise be the case. “The alliance gives us the ability to get in the door,” says an Australian diplomat. “When we call up, they know who we are.” Similarly, the White Paper contends: “We have never been better placed to put our views before the United States—and have them heard—including on issues where we disagree.”
Australia has been looking to America for part of its national defense since World War II, when the lifeline to Britain, then its colonial ruler, was cut. At the same time, the Japanese threatened to invade from what the Australians call the Near North, meaning what was then the Dutch East Indies and New Guinea. The Americans helped to defend Australia, then used that country as a base from which to launch its island-hopping campaign to the north—a strategy that led to the defeat of Japan.
Britain was so drained by World War II and subsequent economic crises that the government in London decided, in 1968, to withdraw most of its military forces from “East of Suez.” All the more, Australia looked to the U.S. for security and backed that with troops who fought in both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The U.S. in recent years has started to look to other nations to take the lead in resolving international issues and Australia was among the first to stand up. Canberra led the multinational force that brought peace and order to East Timor in 1999, with the U.S. in a backup logistics role.
A report from Canberra that parallels the White Paper, the Defense Update of 2003, says that “the strategic advantage offered by our geography does not protect Australia against rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction and long-range ballistic missiles. Nor does it protect Australia from the scourge of terrorism.”
After the terrorist assaults in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, Australia was quick to respond, invoking the ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-United States) treaty for the first time since it was negotiated in 1951, setting up a counter-terror dialogue with the U.S., and sending troops to help destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“For Australians,” says the defense report, the reality of terrorism “was brought home in Bali.” In October 2002, Islamic terrorists attacked a nightclub on the resort island of Bali in Indonesia, killing 202 people, most of them Australians on holiday.
Australia has thus enlisted in the war on terror for the duration. According to the defense report, “The Australian government’s contribution to the war has spanned diplomatic, legislative, police and intelligence cooperations, capacity-building and financial and border controls.”
“This focus,” it concludes, “will be enduring.”
