{"id":50121,"date":"2019-08-27T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T20:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=50121"},"modified":"2020-04-30T16:12:33","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T06:12:33","slug":"morrisons-middle-power-mateship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/morrisons-middle-power-mateship\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrison\u2019s middle-power mateship"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

How times change. Only half a century or so ago, Australians were fighting and dying in Vietnam in an American-led effort to hold back the supposed threat of communist expansion. The whole of Southeast Asia would fall over like so many dominoes, we were assured, unless young Australian men risked their lives to stop them. Now the very same \u2018communist\u2019 government, which eventually won the war, is now our newest \u2018mate\u2019<\/a> in the region.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be a relative of one of the 500 or so Australians who died in Vietnam to wonder what\u2019s going on here. What vital national interest did these young men give their lives for? Even the former head of the Australian Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove, has conceded<\/a> that Australia\u2019s participation in this conflict was \u2018a mistake\u2019. It is, of course, not the last one Australian policymakers and planners have made when acting in support of the alliance with the United States.<\/p>\n

Nor is it necessary to rehearse the well-known and catastrophic history of the invasion of Iraq to make a simple point: that war was also one in which Australia\u2019s vital strategic interests were arguably not involved and which contributed absolutely nothing to the safety of the nation. And yet our predictable support of American foolishness contributed to a tragedy that has yet to finish playing itself out.<\/p>\n

Even if we put to one side the appalling and avoidable loss of human life, strategic hardheads would have to concede that the destabilisation of the entire Middle East has profoundly undermined international security generally. It has also encouraged our \u2018great and powerful friend\u2019 to make an all-too-predictable request for participation in yet another ill-judged and potentially calamitous foreign adventure<\/a> with little immediate relevance to Australia.<\/p>\n

Equally predictably, the Morrison government has agreed to cooperate. That this contribution has been dressed up as part of a supposedly international effort\u2014and not slavish devotion to the alliance\u2014doesn\u2019t make it look any less like just another outing of the usual Anglosphere suspects. The phrase lipstick on a pig comes to mind.<\/p>\n

If this is a depressingly familiar story and an abrogation of foreign policy independence, there are some signs that all may not be lost for middle-power diplomacy<\/a> of a sort that\u2019s often invoked but less frequently seen. Vietnam really is a remarkable success story and likely to become one of the region\u2019s most consequential rising powers. If ever a partner was worth cultivating, it would seem to fit the bill.<\/p>\n

Welcome as Scott Morrison\u2019s visit<\/a> was in many ways, though, it\u2019s not too cynical to ask whether it would have happened at all were it not for the government\u2019s all-consuming anxiety about the rise of China. It\u2019s striking that in the calculus of threats and opportunities<\/a> that has shaped Australia\u2019s foreign policy generally and regional relations in particular, it is the former that have been ascendant.<\/p>\n

No doubt Canberra\u2019s strategic elites would argue that\u2019s as it should be. Whatever one thinks of the merits of such claims, it\u2019s difficult to see Australia\u2019s dominant strategic culture<\/a> and values changing, despite the disasters they have led us into over recent years\u2014to say nothing of the pointless loss of life.<\/p>\n

But the somewhat unexpected embrace of Vietnam as our new mate really might offer a chance for a little creative diplomacy. True, Australia\u2019s attitude is arguably self-serving and instrumental\u2014Vietnam\u2019s also got an even more immediate and difficult relationship with China<\/a>\u2014but even inauspicious beginnings can produce good outcomes.<\/p>\n

If Australian policymakers are serious about developing an independent brand of middle-power diplomacy, then Vietnam is precisely the sort of country they should be looking to enlist to the cause. As our blossoming friendship suggests, we have potentially common causes in a number of areas, and not just in our unease about China.<\/p>\n

As middle powers with little capacity to influence the behaviour of China or the United States when acting alone, we may have more in common with Vietnam than we do with either of the region\u2019s \u2018great powers\u2019. Indeed, it\u2019s not too fanciful<\/a> to suggest that a coalition of like-minded states such as Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, India and Australia might jointly discourage both China and<\/em> the US from behaving badly.<\/p>\n

Of course, that would require Australia to have the capacity to make decisions about what\u2019s in our <\/em>national interests, rather than reflexively responding to the actions or demands of others. One might have thought or hoped that Australian policymakers would have drawn some instructive lessons about the value of independent policy from our recent involvement in the Middle East, and from what now seems to have been a pointless conflict in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Even more ambitiously, perhaps, it might be possible to develop a foreign policy that isn\u2019t exclusively framed through the prism of potential security threats, especially from our immediate neighbourhood. Morrison\u2019s trip to Vietnam is a hopeful sign. A closer relationship with Vietnam would be one constructive way of honouring the otherwise needless sacrifice of young Australian lives and an indication of how much at least some aspects of regional relations have progressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How times change. Only half a century or so ago, Australians were fighting and dying in Vietnam in an American-led effort to hold back the supposed threat of communist expansion. The whole of Southeast Asia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":454,"featured_media":50123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131,17,52,540],"class_list":["post-50121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-anzus","tag-australia","tag-china","tag-vietnam"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMorrison\u2019s middle-power mateship | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/morrisons-middle-power-mateship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Morrison\u2019s middle-power mateship | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How times change. 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