{"id":43321,"date":"2018-11-05T15:18:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T04:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=43321"},"modified":"2018-11-05T15:40:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T04:40:17","slug":"what-are-australias-strategic-objectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/what-are-australias-strategic-objectives\/","title":{"rendered":"What are Australia\u2019s strategic objectives?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In March 1950, Australia\u2019s external affairs minister Percy Spender set out the Menzies government\u2019s appreciation of the international situation<\/a> in a parliamentary speech. The aims of Australian foreign policy, he declared, \u2018are essentially the preservation of peace and our way of life\u2019 and its practice is \u2018to accomplish its aims in a peaceful manner\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was Spender\u2019s prioritisation of peace that lends his words the quality of statesmanship. Spender rightly saw that foreign policy \u2018must be principally and continually concerned with the protection of this country from aggression, and with the maintenance of our security and our way of life\u2019.<\/p>\n

He was no appeaser, believing \u2018the democracies must accept the fact that any policy of appeasement is completely ineffective and even dangerous\u2019. In his previous capacity as minister for the army between 1940 and 1941, he anticipated the Pacific War and urged the return of Australian troops from the Middle East. When Menzies withdrew his United Australia Party from the bipartisan Advisory War Council in 1944, Spender refused to resign<\/a>\u2014an action that led to his expulsion from the party.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he was no militarist. While he recognised pragmatically that foreign policy must be \u2018closely integrated with that of defence\u2019, he also acknowledged that there were two instruments of foreign policy\u2014\u2018one primarily economic, the other primarily military\u2019. The \u2018military strength of a nation\u2019, he said, \u2018may largely condition the means employed by foreign policy in seeking to achieve its purpose\u2019. That is, small powers must rely less on military force. And if or when foreign policy proves ineffective in protecting against aggression, \u2018the departments of war must take over\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australian policymakers of the time would have assessed the international situation as being at least as perilous as today\u2019s. In the six months leading up to Spender\u2019s speech, the USSR had tested a nuclear device and Mao Zedong had declared the founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China. The fault lines of the Cold War were hardening in Europe and gelling in Asia. Across the globe, and particularly in Southeast Asia, the fragile post-colonial states were engaged in a struggle for independence.<\/p>\n

Far from a sympathiser with communism, Spender laid the blame for prevailing global tensions unambiguously at the feet of Moscow\u2019s expansionist and hostile foreign policy. He spoke of the \u2018false ideological attraction which communism excites\u2019 and foresaw that the emergence of communist China \u2018fundamentally changed the whole picture in Asia\u2019.<\/p>\n

To Spender\u2019s mind, however, differences in political systems were not a sufficient cause for war. He said, \u2018I hope that I have not drawn too depressing a picture of the possible consequences of the Communist victory in China.\u2019 Yet he held that \u2018there is no logical reason why democracy and communism, as distinct from Communist imperialism, should not be able to live together in the world\u2019.<\/p>\n

It was Spender\u2019s wisdom that diplomacy and economic cooperation should precede military action, and that maintaining peace was more crucial to the security of the nation and its people than winning costly and destructive wars. Spender was no Pollyanna. The Colombo Plan<\/a> was diplomacy and economic policy in the service of national security, not altruism, and his enthusiasm for the ANZUS treaty was grounded in a realistic understanding of power.<\/p>\n

That he placed the preservation of peace at the top of Australia\u2019s strategic objectives was understandable. He was of the generation that had experienced the slaughter of World War I and the horror and devastation of World War II. It seemed sensible and obvious to him that aggression tied to expansionist policies was the real danger to Australia.<\/p>\n

However, strategic policy formulation should always be informed primarily by an awareness of how wars start. Nothing else has the same potential to adversely affect the security of a nation. War, not skirmishes or interventions, is a discontinuity that potentially will have a transformative, even catastrophic, impact, both externally and domestically.<\/p>\n

And while the minutia of past wars might fascinate historians, strategic policymakers might usefully look to broad shifts in global politics and power relativities, the emergence of new political ideologies, and upheavals in relationships or shifts in international norms. For Spender, these would be arguments for greater energy, innovation and purpose in foreign economic policy and diplomacy, accompanied by prudent and proportionate, but not provocative, military preparations.<\/p>\n

The aftermath of each of the 20th century\u2019s world wars was marked not by increased security, but by growing instability, crises and confrontation. Moreover, the former way of life, norms and values of many states disappeared post-war and their geopolitical situations degraded.<\/p>\n

The political and economic upheaval of World War I led to the collapse of the imperial states in Europe and the emergence of bolshevism and dictatorships. After 1945, Europe was divided, China became communist, former colonial possessions became states, and the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the US transformed global politics. The next major war cannot be expected to produce less unpredictable or dangerous disruptions.<\/p>\n

As Spender declared, \u2018The experience of two world wars has shown that authority which depends on force alone rests upon hollow foundations if it is not sustained by honesty of purpose, and a recognition of the value of individual human beings.\u2019 But he knew that as a last resort a nation may have to fall back on war. He also knew that only in peace and not in war can a nation\u2019s way of life be guaranteed. He knew that pursuing peace pragmatically and assiduously was the best form of security.<\/p>\n

Confronted by the strategic circumstances prevailing today in the Asia\u2013Pacific region and further afield, Spender\u2019s response would not be to prioritise the military posturing that could bring about a ruinous war. He would have reiterated that the greatest effort should be put into avoiding a war that would result in the deaths of large numbers of Australians and bring economic ruin. There would be no Australian \u2018way of life\u2019 to preserve after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In March 1950, Australia\u2019s external affairs minister Percy Spender set out the Menzies government\u2019s appreciation of the international situation in a parliamentary speech. 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