The Other Special Relationship - The United States and Australia at the Start of the 21st Century (2007)

2007·1.5 MB·English

by  Strategic Studies Institute

THE OTHER SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP:
THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIA
AT THE START OF THE 21st CENTURY
Edited by
Jeffrey D. McCausland
Douglas T. Stuart
William T. Tow
Michael Wesley
February 2007
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ISBN 1-58487-276-4
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ........................................... vii
Jeffrey D. McCausland, Douglas T. Stuart, William
T. Tow, and Michael Wesley
Acknowledgments ................................xvii
Introduction ....................................... 1
The Honorable Bill Hayden
Panel I: Foreign Policy: Setting the Context ............ 19
1. Panel I Chairman’s Introduction ................... 21
Douglas T. Stuart
2. The Future of U.S.–Australia Relations
and the Curse of George Harrison. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
John C. Hulsman
3. The Australian-American Alliance:
Towards a Revitalization ......................... 39
Paul Kelly
Panel II: Foreign Policy: The Alliance in the Asia-
Pacific Region .................................. 63
4. Panel II Chairman’s Introduction .................. 65
William T. Tow
5. The Alliance and the Asia-Pacific Region:
An American Perspective ......................... 77
Andrew Scobell
6. The Alliance and the Asia-Pacific Region:
An Australian Perspective ....................... 109
Robert Ayson
iii
Panel III: Political and Legal Aspects
of the Special Relationship ....................... 133
7. Panel III Chairman’s Introduction ................. 135
Michael Wesley
8. The Relationship’s Political Aspects:
An American Perspective ........................ 145
John Higley
9. Australian Public Opinion and the
Australia-U.S. Alliance .......................... 161
Brendon O’Connor
Panel IV: Economic and Business Aspects
of the Special Relationship ...................... 179
10. Panel IV Chairman’s Introduction ................ 181
Brendan Taylor
11. The United States and Australia:
Competing Economic Perspectives ............... 189
Leif Rosenberger
12. Economic and Business Aspects: An Australian
Perspective ................................... 215
Don Russell
Panel V: Security and Defense Aspects
of the U.S.-Australia Special Relationship ......... 243
13. Panel V Chairman’s Introduction ................ 245
Jeffrey D. McCausland
14. The United States, Australia, and the Search
for Order in East Asia and Beyond ............... 261
James J. Przystup
iv
15. Security and Defense Aspects of the Special
Relationship: An Australian Perspective .......... 279
Michael Evans
Conclusion ...................................... 311
16. The Future of the U.S.-Australia Alliance:
Adapting to New Challenges? ................... 313
James A. Schear
About the Contributors ............................ 327
v

PREFACE
Jeffrey D. McCausland
Douglas T. Stuart
William T. Tow
Michael Wesley
The idea for this volume grew out of a previous
collaboration between Jeffrey McCausland and
Douglas Stuart. Arguing that the bilateral relationship
between the United States and the United Kingdom
was both underappreciated and understudied, they
organized a series of conferences in 2005 which brought
together a group of well-known American and British
academics, journalists, and policymakers to discuss
political, military, and economic aspects of the “special
relationship.” The conference proceedings, published
by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War
College under the title U.S.-UK Relations at the Start
of the 21st Century, proved to be extremely popular—
requiring a second printing and generating follow-
on public discussions on both sides of the Atlantic.1
Conversation during these public events tended to
focus on one basic question and a couple of ancillary
questions: Was the U.S.-UK relationship unique? If so,
in what respects? And why?
Scholarly inquiry into the “other special relation-
ship” between the United States and Australia flowed
logically from these discussions. With the generous
financial and administrative assistance of the U.S.
Army War College, Dickinson College, the Australian
National University, and the Griffith University
Asia Institute, and with the indispensable scholarly
collaboration of William Tow and Michael Wesley, a
vii
series of professional conferences was organized in
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, on the U.S.
side, and in Brisbane and Canberra on the Australian
side. A team of American and Australian experts came
together in all four locations to discuss issues relating
to foreign policy, economics and business, domestic
politics and public opinion, and security and defense
affairs. The U.S. Army War College also enriched
our discussions with panels in Carlisle and Canberra
relating to the Global War on Terror.
This volume is designed to summarize the major
findings of our fruitful collaboration over the last year.
To provide the participants with a common lexicon, all
of the contributors to this volume were asked to return
to their dog-eared copies of Arnold Wolfers’ wise
and wide-ranging book, Discord and Collaboration.2
Although Wolfers’ book is more than 40 years old, it
was selected because of its valuable (and still-valid)
insights regarding alliance behavior, the goals and
interests of nations, and the interaction of individual,
national, and international factors as determinants of
foreign policy. Readers will find references to Discord
and Collaboration throughout this volume.
It came as no surprise when many of the themes that
surfaced in the study of U.S.-UK relations resurfaced
in our deliberations on U.S.-Australian relations. One
recurrent theme was the importance of leadership in
both the U.S.-UK and the U.S.-Australian relationships.
Both Tony Blair and John Howard have cultivated
close personal relationships with George W. Bush,
based on the shared “Anglosphere” values of political
and economic liberalism and a shared appreciation of
the need to act assertively, and globally, in defense of
these values.3 The result has been a level of comfort and
mutual trust among the three leaders that has greatly
facilitated international cooperation.
viii
In contrast to Prime Minister Blair, who was able
to maintain a close friendship with both Bill Clinton
and George W. Bush, the personal chemistry between
John Howard and Clinton was never strong. President
Clinton’s oscillations on China policy, his relative lack
of interest in Japan, the absence of tangible progress
on bilateral free trade negotiations, and Howard’s
disappointment regarding U.S. support in East Timor,
all worked to impose strains on the relationship. This
all changed, however, with the arrival of George W.
Bush. As Paul Kelly observes in this volume, “Howard
and Bush are political soul mates” whose close personal
ties have provided the foundation for what Kelly
describes as “the new intimacy” between America and
Australia.
Beyond the thematic resemblance between this
volume and the previous study of U.S.-UK relations,
another similarity is the importance of two events
in determining London and Canberra’s relations
with Washington. The terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001 (9/11) represent the first turning point. The
British and Australian governments reacted similarly
to these attacks—immediately identifying 9/11 as
a transformative moment in international relations.
But the Australian Prime Minister’s presence in
Washington, DC, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks
intensified the personal impact of the events, and within
a few days his government had invoked the ANZUS
Treaty to offer its full support to the United States. This
development would have been hard to imagine a half-
century before, when the Australians who negotiated
the ANZUS Treaty tended to assume that if the alliance
were ever called into action, it would be done to apply
American power on behalf of Australian security.
ix
The second “big event” dominating both U.S.-UK
relations and U.S.-Australia relations has been Amer-
ica’s management of the Global War on Terror and, in
particular, its leadership of the ongoing operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Once the Iraq campaign began
to look like a quagmire, a growing number of critics
in both Britain and Australia began to question the
wisdom and the propriety of close collaboration with
the American “hyperpower.” In Britain, this has taken
the form of Tony Blair’s “poodle problem,” which
has contributed to demands from both the British
public and Mr. Blair’s own Labour Party for the Prime
Minister’s resignation.
John Howard has confronted his own “poodle
problem” (often portrayed in the Australian news
media as a “deputy sheriff problem”). To date, Mr.
Howard has managed this problem more effectively
than his British counterpart. Mr. Howard is nonetheless
likely to face increasing domestic criticism about
the substantive results he has achieved in his efforts
to translate his support for the United States into
economic and political benefits. Don Russell addresses
one aspect of this cost-benefit issue in his discussion
in this volume of the Australia-United States Free
Trade Agreement. John Hulsman addresses the same
problem at a more general level, arguing that “the U.S.
must get away from taking Australia for granted” in
its management of foreign affairs.
The Australian Prime Minister will also find it
increasingly difficult to manage the vigorous debate
which has developed in Australia over what it means
to be an ally of a superpower in trouble. Mr. Howard
has argued that strong allies do not desert each other
when they experience unanticipated difficulties in
fulfilling their missions.
x