It looked like a raised middle finger. A stark, mocking figure 1 \u2013 the number of votes garnered when Australia put itself forward a couple of years ago for membership of the United Nations Security Council. Even Iran found thirty-two supporters when it stood for election in the same round. Australia, apparently, was friendless. So why did the international community shun Kevin Rudd\u2019s ambitions for greater recognition on the world stage?<\/p>\n
A similarly cool response was visible when Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Australia in early 2010. Amid the warm glow of mutual public compliments came a blast of scorn for the Prime Minister\u2019s proposed \u2018Asia-Pacific community\u2019. Yudhoyono\u2019s people declined to be drawn into a debate on the initiative, saying merely that \u201cJakarta\u2019s foreign policy priority lay instead in strengthening the Association of South-East Asian Nations\u201d, according to the account in the Australian<\/em>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an important clue here: Rudd\u2019s use of the word \u2018Pacific\u2019. If governance, even decision-making, for the East Asian region is conceived in a Pacific framework, that is significant, because on the other side of the world\u2019s greatest ocean lies, of course, the United States, its land mass stretching, as the song goes, \u201cfrom sea to shining sea\u201d.<\/p>\n On America\u2019s further seaboard, US interests extend through \u2018Atlanticism\u2019, notably in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), in which Washington is lead partner with twenty-seven countries of Europe. According to the Pentagon\u2019s (in)famous 1992 memo, Defense Planning Guidance<\/em> (DPG), Europe and East Asia are two of three regions \u2013 the Middle East being the other \u2013 in which American dominance must be reasserted.<\/p>\n The challenge, according to the DPG, was how to replicate the existing \u201cUS-led system of collective security\u201d in the post-Communist era. Of particular importance, the memo said, was \u201cthe sense that the world order is ultimately backed by the US\u201d. To this end, \u201cwe must prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements that could undermine NATO\u201d.<\/p>\n Why bring up an eighteen-year-old internal memorandum? Defense Planning Guidance<\/em> still resonates because it reads, in retrospect, like a blueprint for US foreign and security policies in the period since its publication. Sidelining the United Nations in favour of ad hoc \u2018coalitions of the willing\u2019 \u2013 check. Building up American military might to a sufficient extent to deter anyone else from contemplating renewed superpower rivalry \u2013 check; with the US continuing to outspend the rest of the world put together on its armed forces.<\/p>\n So how are the strictures of DPG playing out today in our quadrant of the globe, and what are the implications for Australia?<\/p>\n The Kosovo Precedent<\/p>\n Consider, first, an early example of this US strategy in action: the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. A persistent regional conflict involving the Albanian-majority province of Kosovo turned nasty with the emergence of a well-armed irregular force, the Kosovo Liberation Army. The KLA rapidly sidelined the leading political party in the province by such expedients as \u201ckangaroo courts\u201d and \u201csummary executions\u201d of uncooperative municipal officials: the words of a UN report.<\/p>\n Later, journalists revealed the KLA had been equipped and trained by western intelligence agencies, notably the CIA. A peacekeeping mission, deployed by the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe, was given a lopsided brief and failed to suppress guerrilla attacks. The Yugoslav army went back in, with trademark heavy-handedness. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair led calls for \u201chumanitarian intervention\u201d to prevent \u201crepression\u201d. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reached a backstairs deal on independence with KLA leaders that effectively scuppered peace talks, and NATO had its pretext for seventy-eight days of aerial bombardment.<\/p>\n What had been a political problem, albeit a knotty one, was transformed into a military problem. In the process, the identity of the obvious candidate to provide a solution switched: from the European Union, a political organisation, to NATO, a military one. The other important difference, of course, is that the US is excluded, by definition, from EU membership, whereas it is the de facto leader of NATO. European-only security arrangements had been, to quote Defense Planning Guidance<\/em>, effectively \u201cundermined\u201d. To secure continuing US influence in the vital interests of its European allies, conflicts had to turn violent to justify the application of military means.<\/p>\n Implications for East Asia Today<\/p>\n A similar syndrome risks being replicated in our own quadrant of the globe. Australia has committed A$16 billion to purchase 100 US-made Joint Strike Fighter planes, with an initial order for fourteen of the aircraft placed last year, as part of our \u2018defence\u2019 budget (pushing us into eleventh place on the global list of arms spenders). The combat range of this aircraft is a little over 1,000 kilometres, which puts, by my reckoning, just two countries within its reach: Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Defence Minister, Senator John Faulkner, gave rather more of the game away as he announced the initial tranche of the order in the federal parliament. It would, he said, position Australia \u201cto join in future coalition operations\u201d.<\/p>\n Coalition operations where? Erik Paul, in his memorable study, Little America: Australia, the 51st<\/sup> State<\/em>, shows how Australia under John Howard grew into its role as a regional \u201cdeputy sheriff\u201d in maritime South-East Asia, coming to be regarded in the process as \u201can integral part of US-UK global geo-strategy\u201d. The Defence White Paper of 2009, Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030<\/em>, evokes the possible \u201cthreat\u201d of South-East Asia being used as \u201ca conduit for the projection of military power against us by others\u201d, only to then downplay this threat by saying that stability \u201cshould\u201d continue in the region. In this and other sections of its rhetoric, however, the White Paper brings to mind George Lakoff\u2019s aphorism: \u201ceven negating a frame evokes a frame, and evoking a frame strengthens a frame\u201d. (If you want to test the proposition for yourself, try, as a thought exercise, to comply with the following instruction: \u2018Don\u2019t think of an elephant\u2019.)<\/p>\n If Australia is to make provision against even a faint threat of military power being projected against us through South-East Asia, who would be the most likely antagonist? Not the countries of the region themselves but, according to the White Paper, the Chinese. \u201cThe pace, scope and structure of China\u2019s military modernisation have the potential to give its neighbours cause for concern if not carefully explained\u201d, the document declares, \u201cif China does not reach out to others to build con\ufb01dence regarding its military plans\u201d.<\/p>\n The Hawkish View<\/p>\n The above quote marks the acceptance by the Rudd government of the hawkish view among defence analysts of China\u2019s preparations, exponents of which include the corporate-sponsored Lowy Institute, and advisers to the White Paper drafting process, notably Professor Ross Babbage, a former Defence official and arms dealer, who weighed into the debate with a well-timed newspaper column arguing that Australia needs a force at its disposal capable of \u201cripping the arm off\u201d an invading \u201cmajor Asian power\u201d. Babbage heads the Kokoda Foundation, whose website announces it as an \u201cindependent think-tank\u201d but whose list of sponsors includes the Department of Defence, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and no fewer then ten companies in the arms industry.<\/p>\n On the subject of China\u2019s intentions, the \u2018Kokoda view\u2019 contrasts with that of the government\u2019s own public servants. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute \u2013 another Defence-funded body masquerading as an \u201cindependent think-tank\u201d \u2013 positioned itself as a ring-holder in the debate, noting in a contemporary briefing that whereas \u201csenior Australian defence planners now foresee the rise of an aggressive, hegemonic China in Asia [this is] in contrast to intelligence assessments which see no such China in prospect\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not surprising that the more hawkish assessment won out over that of the professional intelligence community in drafting the White Paper. The Paper was written following a consultation process, including submissions from major weapons manufacturers, chaired by Stephen Loosley, a former Labor senator who, at the time, had just joined the board of Thales Australia. Company chairman Paul McClintock greeted Loosley\u2019s appointment with a promise to shareholders that the new recruit would help Thales \u201ccontinue to grow and deliver on its strategies\u201d: which, given that Thales\u2019 main strategy is to snag the biggest possible share of the military budget ($1.1 billion in the period 2006-2009, making it the fifth-largest defence contractor) might be thought to amount to a conflict of interests. The other personnel involved, in both the public hearings and the advisory panel, all came from a similar range of backgrounds: the armed forces and the defence industry.<\/p>\n The unambiguous message to China, in both the White Paper and its accompanying procurement plans \u2013 also including new submarines, warships and missile systems \u2013 did prompt some perturbations. A front-page story in the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>, under the headline, \u2018Rudd accused of fuelling new arms race\u2019, stood out among generally supine media responses in highlighting Chinese concerns:<\/p>\n \u201cA Chinese military strategist, Rear-Admiral Yang Yi, told the Herald<\/em> yesterday that Australia had spawned a new variation of \u2018the China-threat thesis\u2019 that could be emulated by other nations and encourage them to accelerate their rearmament programs. \u2018I really can\u2019t understand this stupid, this crazy idea from Australia\u2019, he said. \u2018I am very concerned and worried about it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, China has reacted furiously to the announcement of a new US$6 billion program of American arms for Taiwan, and is a ringside spectator at the ongoing US$8 billion upgrade of the US military base on Guam. Conflicts are becoming increasingly militarised, thus further entrenching US dominance in East Asia.<\/p>\n __________________________________<\/p>\n Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n This is Part One of Jake Lynch\u2019s chapter in <\/em>Vision 2030: An Alternative Approach to Australian Security, a publication by Medical Action for the Prevention of War, edited by Michelle Fahy. It is commissioned and published as a response to the Australian government\u2019s Defence White Paper, <\/em>Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030. The publication will be launched at the parliament in Canberra on Monday May 24th<\/sup>. Part Two of Jake Lynch\u2019s contribution will appear next week on TMS.<\/em><\/p>\n It looked like a raised middle finger. A stark, mocking figure 1 \u2013 the number of votes garnered when Australia put itself forward a couple of years ago for membership of the United Nations Security Council. Even Iran found thirty-two supporters when it stood for election in the same round. Australia, apparently, was friendless. So why did the international community shun Kevin Rudd\u2019s ambitions for greater recognition on the world stage?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"