After American Primacy: Imagining the Future of Australia’s Defence

By Peter J. Dean, Brendan Taylor and Stephan Frühling

For over seventy years the ‘Lucky Country’s strategic position had been anchored by the US-led international order that has been in place since the ending of the Second World War. But that order is now under strain due to a confluence of forces, including US President Donald Trump’s ‘America first’ policies, increasingly assertive authoritarian regimes in China and Russia, and the rise of new powers - such as India and Indonesia - as more powerful international players.

In this new era, beset with rapid strategic and technological change underpinned by increasing major power jostling in a more multipolar Indo-Pacific, what does the future hold for this region and for Australia’s defence policy?

Like its companion volumes, Australia’s Defence: Towards a New Era? (2014) and Australia’s American Alliance (2016), this book brings together leading experts to examine the future of Australian defence policy after American primacy, plotting possible, probable and preferable strategic futures for a country that faces unprecedented strategic challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Apr 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780522874556

Book preview

Defence Studies

Series editors

Professor Peter J. Dean and

Professor Brendan Taylor

The aim of this series is to publish outstanding works of research on strategy and warfare with a focus on Australia and the region. Books in the series take a broad approach to defence studies, examining war in its numerous forms, including military, strategic, political and historic aspects. The series focus is principally on the hard power elements of military studies, in particular the use or threatened use of armed force in international affairs. This includes the history of military operations across the spectrum of conflict, Asia’s strategic transformation and strategic policy options for Australia and the region. Books in the series consist of either edited or single-author works that are academically rigorous and accessible to both academics and the interested general reader.

Peter J. Dean is Professor of War Studies and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He is a specialist on the ANZUS Alliance, Australian strategic policy, military operations—especially amphibious and expeditionary warfare, and the Pacific War. Peter has been a Fulbright Fellow in Australia–United States Alliance Studies and an Endeavour Research Scholar as well as a non-resident fellow with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He is the author or editor of nine books, including The Architect of Victory (Cambridge University Press), and MacArthur’s Coalition (University Press of Kansas). He is also the editor (with Brendan Taylor and Stephan Frühling) of Australia’s Defence: Towards a New Era? and Australia’s American Alliance (Melbourne University Press, 2016). He is co-editor (with Brendan Taylor) of the Melbourne University Press ‘Defence Studies’ series, a member of the Editorial Board of the Australian Army Journal and a former managing editor of the journal Security Challenges. He is a regular media commentator on Australian, United States and regional defence issues.

Stephan Frühling is an Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and the Associate Dean (Education) of the College of Asia and the Pacific of the Australian National University. He has widely published on Australian defence policy, defence planning and strategy, nuclear weapons and NATO. Dr Frühling was the Fulbright Professional Fellow in Australia–US Alliance Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC in 2017, and has worked as a ‘Partner across the globe’ research fellow in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College in Rome in 2015. He was a member of the Australian Government’s External Panel of Experts on the development of the 2016 Defence White Paper.

Brendan Taylor is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. He was Head of the Centre from 2011–2016. He is a specialist on great power strategic relations in the Asia-Pacific, East Asian ‘flashpoints’, and Asian security architecture. His publications have featured in such leading journals as The Washington Quarterly, International Affairs, Survival, Asian Security, Asia Policy, Review of International Studies and the Pacific Review. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Sanctions as Grand Strategy, which was published in the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Adelphi series. He is also the editor (with William Tow) of Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Asia-Pacific Security (Routledge, 2013); and (with Peter Dean and Stephan Frühling) of Australia’s American Alliance (Melbourne University Press, 2016). His latest book, The Four Flashpoints: How Asia Goes to War, was published by La Trobe University Press in conjunction with Black Inc. in August 2018.

After American Primacy

Imagining the Future of Australia’s Defence

Edited by Peter J. Dean, Stephan Frühling and Brendan Taylor

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

[e-mail]

www.mup.com.au

First published 2019

Text © Peter J. Dean, Stephan Frühling and Brendan Taylor 2019

Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2019

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Cover design by Phil Campbell Designs

Typeset by J & M Typesetting

Printed in Australia by OPUS Group

Front cover photograph: The Australian–American Memorial Canberra, courtesy of Peter A Mahon.

9780522874549 (paperback)

9780522874532 (hardback)

9780522874556 (ebook)

Contents

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Contributors

Introduction

Peter J. Dean, Stephan Frühling and Brendan Taylor

Part I Imagining the future defence of Australia

1The defence of Australia: From lucky country to uncomfortable normality

Stephan Frühling

2Public attitudes toward the future defence of Australia

Danielle Chubb and Ian McAllister

3Maintaining a capability edge

Richard Brabin-Smith

4Nuclear weapons and the defence of Australia

Rod Lyon

Part II Imagining US futures in a contested Asia

5Better balancing: Securing a free and open Indo-Pacific

John Lee

6Pulling back: Offshore balancing

William T. Tow

7A grand bargain between the United States and China

Nick Bisley

8‘America First’ and Australia’s strategic future

Kim Beazley

Part III Imagining Australian defence policy without the alliance

9Searching for a new great and powerful friend?

Brendan Taylor

10 Security with Asia?

Andrew Carr and Christopher Roberts

11 Unarmed and independent? The New Zealand option

Robert Ayson

12 Armed neutrality? Dependence, independence and Australian strategy

Peter J. Dean

Part IV Conclusion

13 A world transformed: The need for new defence approaches?

Sarah Percy

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

This book is the third in a trilogy of texts examining the past, present and future of Australia’s defence. The authors are grateful to all of the contributors to those earlier volumes—as well as to the research assistants who supported their publication—for laying such solid foundations to this final, future-facing volume. The financial and administrative support provided by the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and by the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University has been especially valuable. The support of Melbourne University Press has been equally indispensable. We are particularly grateful to our wonderful editor, Catherine McInnis, for her guidance and support, as well as to Cathryn Game, who copyedited the manuscript, and to Jon Jermey who compiled the index.

We are indebted to Andrew Carr for suggesting and organising a panel drawing on the book’s contribution at the 2018 International Political Science Association in Brisbane, which provided a useful opportunity to test some of the ideas in this volume.

This book would not exist were it not for the sterling research assistance support provided by Bradley Wood. His responsiveness, attention to detail and subject matter expertise have been highly appreciated. Bradley is a rising star in the field of Australian strategic and defence studies and a name to watch in future. It has been our privilege to work with him on this project.

Last, but certainly not least, we acknowledge the support and forbearance of our families, without whom the work we do would simply not be possible.

Peter J. Dean, Stephan Frühling and Brendan Taylor

Perth and Canberra, September 2018

Glossary

Contributors

Robert Ayson has been Professor of Strategic Studies at Victoria University since 2010 and works in close association with the Center for Strategic Studies. Professor Ayson has also held academic positions with ANU, Massey University and the University of Waikato, and official positions with the New Zealand Government. He completed his MA as a Freyberg Scholar to ANU and his PhD at King’s College London as a Commonwealth Scholar to the United Kingdom. He is Adjunct Professor with ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and Honorary Professor with the New Zealand Defence Force Command and Staff College.

Professor Ayson’s research and teaching focuses on strategic competition and cooperation, especially in relation to the management of armed conflict. He has a particular interest in connecting leading strategic ideas to Asia-Pacific security challenges. This ranges from his work on such theorists as Hedley Bull and Thomas Schelling to his studies of New Zealand and Australian responses to China’s rise and America’s response.

Hon Kim Beazley AC was a minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor governments (1983–96) holding, at various times, the portfolios of Defence, Finance, Transport and Communications, Employment Education and Training, Aviation, and Special Minister of State. He was Deputy Prime Minister (1995–96) and Leader of the Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition (1996–01 and 2005–06). Beazley also served on parliamentary committees, including the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Joint Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee.

After retiring from politics in 2007, Beazley was appointed Winthrop Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Western Australia. From July 2008 to December 2009, he served as Chancellor of the Australian National University. In February 2010, Beazley was appointed Ambassador to the United States and served until January 2016.

On his return to Australia, Beazley was appointed President of the Australian Institute for International Affairs (2016–17), Distinguished Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Co-Chairman of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue and Distinguished Fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre Limited, and is currently Governor of Western Australia.

Nick Bisley is Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University. His research and teaching expertise is in Asia’s international relations, Great Power politics and Australian foreign and defence policy. Professor Bisley recently completed his tenure as the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of International Affairs, the country’s oldest International Relations journal. He is a member of the advisory board of China Matters and a member of the Council for Security and Cooperation in the Asia Pacific. He has been a Senior Research Associate of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and a Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, DC.

Professor Bisley is the author of many works on international relations, including Issues in 21st Century World Politics (3rd edition, Palgrave, 2017), Great Powers in the Changing International Order (Lynne Rienner, 2012) and Building Asia’s Security (IISS/Routledge, 2009, Adelphi No. 408). He regularly contributes to and is quoted in national and international media including the Guardian, the Economist, CNN and Time Magazine.

Richard Brabin-Smith AO is an Honorary Professor at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, where he follows his interests in matters relating to Australian and regional security. Previously, he spent thirty years in the Department of Defence, including twenty years in senior policy and corporate management positions such as Deputy Secretary for Strategic Policy and Chief Defence Scientist. Some particular highlights of his Defence career were a year’s secondment to Program Analysis and Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon in the early 1980s, attachment to the Review of Defence Capability conducted by Paul Dibb in the mid-1980s, and membership of the Senior Review Panel of the Defence Efficiency Review in the late 1990s. His recent publications include ‘Nuclear risk in Asia: How Australia should respond’, in Nuclear Asia, ed. Michael Wesley, Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific, Canberra, 2017, and, with Paul Dibb, Australia’s Management of Strategic Risk in the New Era, ASPI Strategic Insight 123, November 2017.

Andrew Carr is a Senior Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. His research focuses on strategy, middle powers and Australian defence policy. He has published books with Oxford University Press and Georgetown University Press, and in academic journals such as the Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, Australian Journal of International Affairs, and Journal of Indian Ocean Research, along with the literary journal Meanjin. Dr Carr is the editor of the Centre of Gravity policy paper series. Dr Carr will be the 2019 Fulbright Professional Scholar in Australian–U.S. Alliance Studies, based at Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

Danielle Chubb is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her most recent books are North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks (co-edited with Andrew Yeo, Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Contentious Activism and Inter-Korean Relations (Columbia University Press, 2014). Dr Chubb is a founding member of the POLIS group in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University. Her main research interests are transnational activism, the intersection of human rights and security policy, the policy dynamics of the Korean peninsula, and Australian foreign policy. She is currently completing a book, with Ian McAllister, on public opinion and defence and foreign policy in Australia.

Peter J. Dean is a Professor of War Studies who specialises in the ANZUS Alliance, Australian strategic policy and military operations. He joined the University of Western Australia as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) in 2018. Dr Dean has been a Fulbright Fellow in Australia–US Alliance Studies and an Endeavour Research Scholar as well as a non-resident fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Before joining UWA, he was a scholar at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, in the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific where he held numerous research, teaching and leadership positions.

Dr Dean is the co-editor (with Brendan Taylor) of the Melbourne University Press Defence Studies Series and a member of the Editorial Board of the Australian Army Journal. His is the author and/or editor of eight books including (with Brendan Taylor and Stephan Frühling) Australia’s American Alliance (Melbourne University Press, 2016) and MacArthur’s Coalition: US and Australian Military Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (University Press of Kansas, 2018).

Stephan Frühling is an Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and the Associate Dean (Education) of the College of Asia and the Pacific of the Australian National University. He has widely published on Australian defence policy, defence planning and strategy, nuclear weapons and NATO. Dr Frühling was the Fulbright Professional Fellow in Australia–US Alliance Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC in 2017, and has worked as a ‘Partner across the globe’ research fellow in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College in Rome in 2015. He was a member of the Australian Government’s External Panel of Experts on the development of the 2016 Defence White Paper.

John Lee is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He is also a Senior Fellow (non-resident) at the United States Studies Centre and adjunct professor at the University of Sydney. From 2016 to 2018, he served as senior adviser to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. In this role, he was her principal adviser on Asia and for economic, strategic and political affairs in the Indo-Pacific region. Professor Lee was also appointed the Foreign Minister’s lead adviser on the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the first comprehensive foreign affairs blueprint for Australia since 2003 and written to guide Australia’s external engagement for the next ten years and beyond. He has held an adjunct associate professorship at the Australian National University.

His research covers the Chinese political economy and strategic and economic affairs pertaining to the Indo-Pacific. He received his masters degree and doctorate in International Relations from the University of Oxford and his Bachelor of Laws and Arts (1st Class—Philosophy) degrees from the University of New South Wales. Dr Lee is based in Sydney, Australia.

Rod Lyon is a Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He has worked at ASPI since late 2006, primarily in the field of international security. From 2000 to 2006, he lectured in international relations at the University of Queensland, teaching courses on strategic studies, civil–military relations, regional security and Australian foreign policy. From 1985 to 1996, he worked as a strategic analyst at the Office of National Assessments in Canberra. From 1983 to 1985, he worked in the Scientific and Strategic Branch of the External Intelligence Bureau in Wellington, New Zealand. His primary research interest is nuclear strategy. He was the 2004–05 Fulbright Scholar in Australia–United States Alliance Studies. He has produced a wide range of publications through ASPI and, on occasion, in peer-reviewed journals and edited books.

Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University. His most recent books are Conflict to Peace: Society and Politics in Northern Ireland Over Half a Century (Manchester University Press, 2013), The Australian Voter (UNSW Press, 2012) and Political Parties and Democratic Linkage (Oxford University Press, 2011). Since 1987, Professor McAllister has been director of the Australian Election Study, a large national post-election survey of political attitudes and behaviour. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His scholarly research covers Australian politics, comparative political behaviour and post-communist politics. He is completing a book on Russian voting and elections and, with Danielle Chubb, a book on public opinion, defence and foreign affairs.

Sarah Percy is Associate Professor in international relations at the University of Queensland, where she is also Deputy Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs. Her research interests include unconventional security actors and unconventional security threats, and she has published widely on mercenaries, private security companies, pirates, organised crime at sea, and unconventional maritime security.

Christopher B. Roberts is a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University and Director of the National Asian Studies Centre at the University of Canberra. He specialises in the politics and security of the Indo-Pacific, including ASEAN, the South China Sea, the drivers and constraints to international collaboration and competition, the preconditions to peace and post-conflict resolution, and the impact of great and middle power dynamics on the regional order.

Dr Roberts lived in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan for more than five years and has nearly two decades of field experience throughout Asia, including more than 150 country visits to all the ASEAN nations plus South and North-East Asia. As a result, he has published more than seventy publications including books (two as sole author and two as volume editor), journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, commentaries and reports. These publications have also addressed the politics, security and foreign policy approaches of Indonesia, Myanmar, Brunei, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, India and the United States and Australia. Five of his journal articles have been published in top-tier (A-ranked) journals, and he has received more than a dozen research awards and grants.

Dr Roberts has also held various leadership positions contributing to the development of academic programs, research agendas and outreach at the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales and RSIS at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).

Brendan Taylor is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. He was Head of the Centre from 2011–2016. He is a specialist on great power strategic relations in the Asia-Pacific, East Asian ‘flashpoints’, and Asian security architecture. His publications have featured in such leading journals as The Washington Quarterly, International Affairs, Survival, Asian Security, Asia Policy, Review of International Studies and the Pacific Review. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Sanctions as Grand Strategy, which was published in the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Adelphi series. He is also the editor (with William Tow) of Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Asia-Pacific Security (Routledge, 2013); and (with Peter Dean and Stephan Frühling) of Australia’s American Alliance (Melbourne University Press, 2016). His latest book, The Four Flashpoints: How Asia Goes to War, was published by La Trobe University Press in conjunction with Black Inc. in August 2018.

William T. Tow is Emeritus Professor in the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, Australian National University. Previously head of the department, Professor Tow has also worked at the University of Southern California, the University of Queensland and Griffith University. Author of many books, journal articles and book chapters dealing with Asia-Pacific security alliances and partnerships and Asian regional security architectures, he has published single-authored or co-authored books with Cambridge University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press and Columbia University Press. He has held visiting fellowships at Stanford University, the IISS and the Institute of South-East Asian Studies—Yusof Ishak Institute, and he was a Visiting Professor at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore in 2012.

His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Volkswagen Foundation and other granting entities. Professor Tow was editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs from 2001 to 2006, a board member for the Australian Fulbright Commission (1991–96) and continues to serve as co-editor for the Routledge series on Asia-Pacific security.

Introduction

Peter J. Dean, Stephan Frühling and Brendan Taylor

Australia’s strategic circumstances at the time of writing (2019) are as uncertain as they have been since the late 1960s, when President Richard Nixon sent shockwaves through the US-led network of Asian alliances by declaring that its members needed to assume greater responsibility for their own defence. To Australia’s chagrin, Britain and the United States withdrew from major military commitments in South-East Asia. But both countries remained internationally engaged, economically at least. Australia’s friends and allies continued to dominate the rest of the world for decades to come.

Today, that dominance has ended. Australia continues to look to a global community of friends and allies with which it shares core interests and values, but the erratic policies of President Donald Trump, coupled with his outright derision of alliance relationships in general, are having an even more unsettling influence now than the pronouncement of that ‘Nixon Doctrine’ five decades ago. Even if the United States was able to play the global role it has played for the last seventy years, will it, as a polity, be willing to bear the cost of doing so?

In response to these pressures, a series of Australian governments of both political persuasions have in recent years reinforced their commitment to support the so-called ‘rules-based international order’. Now, however, Trump’s avowedly ‘America first’ approach to foreign and security policy seems to many to be at odds with the fundamental tenets of that order. The respected former Australian official Allan Gyngell thus suggests that the seven-decades-long international order of the post-war period is indeed over. But what will come after, and what should Australia do?

The uncertainties about Australia’s most important ally come at a time when the ability of potentially hostile actors to project power and influence into the Asia-Pacific—Australia’s region—are also on the rise. After several decades of adherence to Deng Xiaoping’s maxim of ‘biding time and hiding capabilities’, China’s aspirations to become Asia’s dominant power have become increasingly apparent. Xi Jinping’s ambitious ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) is regarded by some commentators as an attempt to marginalise US influence across Asia, with a view to possibly even evicting the United States from this part of the world.

Within Australia’s nearer neighbourhood, Beijing’s levels of foreign assistance and influence in the South Pacific might soon eclipse those of Canberra, directly challenging the latter’s long-time claim to ‘superpower’ status in this subregion. Likewise, the middle kingdom’s militarisation of the South China Sea has improved Beijing’s ability to robustly challenge Australian military vessels and aircraft traversing those waters, while also enhancing China’s ability to project military power closer to Australian shores.

Uncertainties over the future of the US role in Asia, China’s growing regional power and ambition, and North Korea’s nuclear and missile advances, have put the entire region on edge. The spectre of Japan and South Korea developing nuclear weapons has been part of the security debate in North-East Asia for some years. Now, some commentators have even suggested that Australia should begin contemplating the development of a nuclear weapons capability, as it did during the early decades of the Cold War. But even short of such drastic steps, the sense that the country needs a radical rethink of its security policy is palpable. In his stimulating essay Without America: Australia in the New Asia, strategic intellectual Hugh White concludes that Australia will need ‘to rethink