{"id":10632,"date":"2013-11-11T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=10632"},"modified":"2013-11-14T11:01:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T00:01:08","slug":"leaving-the-wars-of-the-us-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/leaving-the-wars-of-the-us-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaving the wars of the US alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"
As with Vietnam, so with Afghanistan; Australia departs a disastrous war without any damage to the alliance. Indeed, this time Australia withdraws with far fewer doubts about the alliance than last time. After Vietnam, Australia had to rethink its defence doctrine based on the new reality that never again could it expect US \u2018boots on the ground\u2019 in Southeast Asia. Australia\u2019s grand self-defence rethink after Vietnam was driven by that \u2018no-more-GIs\u2019 understanding.<\/p>\n This time, the new alliance dimension is the US Marines in Darwin, while the US Navy and Air Force look afresh at the attractions of Western and northern Australia. The Australian fear after Vietnam was being left home alone; now the US is taking up residence.<\/p>\n The long-expressed perception of Australia as a natural ally was enhanced by Australia\u2019s contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the natural ally perception plays some part in Washington eyeing Australian real estate as an easy and early part of the rebalance. But Australia\u2019s marginal contribution in Iraq and Afghanistan has no role in the US decision to rebalance to Asia; Washington isn\u2019t on the pivot as an expression of thanks to Australia for services rendered.<\/p>\n The language of the alliance is of an unbroken covenant, but the hard political reality is always of the need to decide, choose and commit. The difference is between seeing the alliance as an unbroken continuum or thinking of it, instead, as a shape-shifting relationship driven by the specific choices of a given moment.<\/p>\n The wars that are the milestones of this relationship obviously have some common characteristics (the continuum) but they always present as turning points or hurdles or leaps of faith or steps in the dark (the choices). The ANZUS treaty is a legal contract that isn\u2019t self-activating or automatic. Always, the alliance calls for an act of will, a moment of choice at a particular moment.<\/p>\n At crucial points, the alliance has \u2018sliding door<\/a>\u2019 moments. The consistent element in Australian thinking\u2014the prime directive\u2014is the desire to go through the door as close as possible to the US, no matter how different the other factors involved. This is a recipe for following, not diverging.<\/p>\n The question of how past performance in the alliance will influence the future of the alliance is a Canberra perennial. The realist\/cynical view is well-expressed in a letter the then Cabinet Minister, John Gorton, sent to his Prime Minister, Harold Holt, in December 1966, as Australia readied to lift its Vietnam contribution from a combat battalion to a task force of 8000 men. Australia should make \u2018a <\/i>contribution\u2019 and have \u2018a <\/i>presence\u2019, Gorton wrote, but the size<\/i> <\/b>of the contribution was irrelevant, so long as it was \u2018not contemptible.\u2019<\/p>\n As Gorton\u2019s biographer<\/a>, Ian Hancock, summarised the argument: \u2018It was plainly \u2018absurd\u2019 to suggest that an extra two or three thousand men would affect the decision-making of the present or of some future American administration\u2019. Little wonder that Peter Edwards commented in the official history of the Vietnam War<\/a> that, as Prime Minister, Gorton \u2018oscillated uncertainly between forward defence and continental defence, between hawkish reaffirmation and dovish initiatives\u2019.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s alliance habit is towards big rhetoric while sending a small force. The realist\/cynical perspective runs through much that Australia did and did not do\u2014and the size of what Australia contributed\u2014in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The aim was to make \u2018a contribution\u2019 and have \u2018a presence\u2019 that honoured the alliance while minimising the military and political burden.<\/p>\n John Howard managed to design\u2014and luck plus good soldiering delivered\u2014a \u2018no casualties\u2019 alliance contribution in Iraq. By being an early, enthusiastic and voluble volunteer, Howard shared the early-mover, closest-ally kudos with Britain, while being able to argue that the size of the Australian force and the needs of Australia\u2019s own region must guide the alliance contribution. Australia certainly did the time in Afghanistan. But the limits Australia imposed on what it did could be symbolised by Canberra\u2019s refusal to accept the command job in Uruzgan province until the withdrawal phase was in view.<\/p>\n Until 2010, Uruzgan was under Dutch command. When the Dutch withdrew, Australia refused to accept command, instead providing the deputy to a US commander. In announcing the decision to take the command position in 2012, Defence Minister Stephen Smith said circumstances in Uruzgan were very different from what they had been in June 2010 and that \u2018taking on the leadership now in Uruzgan puts us in a better position to manage the transition process\u2019. The transition was the argument made, but it was becoming hard for Australia to refuse command when the bulk of the troops in Uruzgan were Australians, joined by several hundred American troops and contingents from Singapore and Slovakia.<\/p>\n The Uruzgan commander job issue is an example of a recurring habit of mind in Canberra: when Australia speaks of military operations and the alliance, one of the key drivers is some explicit or tacit version of \u2018alliance management\u2019. In Vietnam it was expressed as the \u2018insurance policy\u2019 requirement of contributing now to ensure future benefit. Maybe Australia is making progress if it has moved from just paying the price to some attempt at management. Yet, while the language has shifted, the sentiments don\u2019t seem too far apart.<\/p>\n Alliance management, ultimately, is about where the weight of the alliance falls. The next column will look at the emerging demands of Australia\u2019s alliance addiction.<\/p>\n Graeme Dobell is the ASPI journalist fellow.<\/em>\u00a0Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Australia is leaving the Afghanistan war well before the war is over. This is one of the Vietnam echoes in our experience of Afghanistan. Both were coalition wars fought by Australia with a central focus …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":10633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[43,40,131,17,31],"class_list":["post-10632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alliance","tag-afghanistan","tag-alliance-2","tag-anzus","tag-australia","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>Australia is leaving the Afghanistan war well before the war is over. This is one of the Vietnam echoes in our experience of Afghanistan. Both were coalition wars fought by Australia with a central focus on securing the alliance with the US.<\/p>\n
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