Welcome

Begin by thanking:

• Leader of the Opposition Dr Brendan Nelson
• Allan Gyngell, Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy
• Dr Rory Medcalf, Director of the International Security program at Lowy.
• I am grateful to my parliamentary colleagues for giving up their time to attend
• Thank you to other distinguished guests friends
• Healthy cohort of my former students who appear to think I still have something interesting to say.

Dr Nelson & Mr Alan Gyngell have been very generous in their comments on the paper.

International change

This paper began as an attempt to develop a clearer understanding of the profoundly complex international forces that are now shaping our world. I anticipate these will continue to shape world events well into the early decades of the new century.

It seemed to me that a natural starting point for such an enquiry was an address to the US congress by another President Bush in September 1990. It was just a month after Iraq had occupied Kuwait and the president wanted to discuss ‘what we must do together to defend civilized values around the world’. He contended that part of the answer lay in the emergence of a ‘new world order’ — a ‘new era free from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace’.

To some people, this was an unexpectedly ambitious yet highly attractive vision of the future. As the distinguished security analyst Lawrence Freedman later remarked, it conveyed an ‘appealing sense of international progress.’

Over a decade and a half later, the optimism and idealism that accompanied the then President Bush’s post-Cold War vision of the future has dissipated: the global order is not as he had hoped and his optimism for a better world is far from being justified.

The event most spectacularly responsible for destroying many of President’s hopes was 9/11 — the appalling terrorist attacks in the United States on that crisp autumn morning in September 2001. It is doubtful whether an act of terrorism in any era, ancient or modern, has had such an immediate, wide-ranging and long-term impact on the international community. It continues to resonate. It continues to confront the international community with an enormous and complex challenge. As I argue in this paper it should not be underestimated, it will not soon be defeated and we need to develop more effective ways to address it.

But as threatening as terrorism has become, it is important to appreciate that it is only one dimension of change in an international system experiencing historic transformation. We are living (L&G) in an age where some of the elemental components of the existing international order are being subjected to intense pressures — America faces the challenge of rising great powers, globalisation’s open liberal economic order is under assault from protectionism, multilateralism is confronting a crisis of confidence, fanaticism and extremism of all types is on the rise, the way we live work and play is placing increasing stress on the environment, the tide appears to have turned against further expansion of democracy and there is a long list of other threats dangers and disjunctions. These developments are redrawing the contours of the geopolitical landscape.

As I also contend and examine in this paper, the source of many of these pressures are the fault-lines now dividing the global community. They are now of such complexity and of such force that they are transforming the 'context for living globally.’ As a result there is every prospect that over the coming decades we will see greater instability in world affairs. Messy disputes leading to increasing tensions - and perhaps conflict are likely over any number of issues. It is entirely possible that in many parts of the world people, states and communities will experience higher levels of political, social, economic and environmental insecurity.

The paper points out that part of the complexity of this new environment is that the risks are emanating from new and more ambiguous sources. For some states, threats to territorial interests from international competitors will continue to pose a security risk. These are generally easily identified.

Those emanating from within secretive terrorist cells, through the conduct of clandestine weapons programs, or from behind the protective screens of transnational crime, are far less visible.

Similarly, when collective human activity is responsible for, say, the collapse of financial markets, deepening poverty, state failure, environmental degradation, climate change or waves of refugees effective responses make demands on policymakers well outside the traditional paradigm of foreign and defence policy. Yet they all engage elements of our security.

Implications for Australia

In an increasingly interconnected 24/7 world, no country, including Australia, can escape the impact of widespread change. In this respect little has changed for us in well over a hundred years. International events have always shaped Australia’s destiny and in a globalised world this is more so than ever. Today we have a great stake in the preservation of the existing international order and this makes foreign policy an especially important arena of public policy.

We not only live in a period of transformational global change, the paper highlights the point that Australia itself faces significant challenges abroad. For the moment, Iraq, Afghanistan, international terrorism, climate change and instability in the South Pacific claim much of the foreign policy spotlight. But there is a potentially profound shift in the global strategic balance of power is ahead and it will be played out in Asia as the US, China, Japan and India all seek to adjust to the new economic and strategic realities of the region. This will pose challenges for Australia and will have to be managed alongside the need for effective responses to the threats and vulnerabilities created by issues such as weapons proliferation, energy insecurity, trade protectionism, population movements and the risk of a new pandemic.

Reviewing Liberal Policy

The Liberal Party must use its time in opposition to think clearly about these challenges and their implications for Australia’s foreign policy. It can do so with considerable pride in the former government’s many achievements in office. In an increasingly difficult, even hostile strategic environment, the Howard Government pursued an energetic and well focused foreign policy.

The Howard policy blended the use of military force with a strong commitment to diplomatic activism, both in the Asia Pacific region and more widely. Its policy accomplishments were extensive and will endure and there were significant innovations in policy planning, especially with regard to national security. Careful budget management enabled a long overdue and very substantial increase in funding for defence and intelligence agencies.

The paper contends that overall, the Howard government’s foreign policy record is an impressive one, but that we must be frank in acknowledging its weaknesses. Its response to climate change, for example, was to say the least uneven, the Pacific solution overshadowed the considerable strengths of a well conceived and responsible immigration policy, and as I have said on the public record on other occasions, Iraq was an ill-conceived enterprise from the very beginning: it was a venture where none of Australia’s compelling national interests were at stake. We were right however, to remain committed to a long term presence given our initial role in the invasion. After March 2003, the failures of policy there were a constant burden on the government and a factor in our declining public support.

It is now time, however, to look ahead and for the Coalition to undertake a comprehensive reassessment of its foreign policy. In a world of profound change and enormous challenges, we should be mindful of, but cannot be hostage to, the Howard government's foreign policy legacy. It is common ground, I trust, that we are in need of fresh ideas and new policy options. These should be judged against Liberal values and for their capacity to provide practical solutions to the challenges we face. I believe this paper makes a useful and creative contribution to this process.

The Paper’s Recommendations

Very briefly, the paper aims to reinvigorate the foundations of a Liberal approach to foreign policy and stands in stark contrast to the Rudd approach. There the vague and conceptually crippled foreign policy principles focused on the so called "three pillars of policy" fail utterly to give sufficient attention to Australia 's national interests. The pillars rest on conceptual quick sand. This makes the whole of Labor's foreign policy structure highly unstable and places the nation's interest at risk. My paper asserts that a clear understanding of national interests have to be the key driver of Australian policy. The paper places these interests within the context of a strategy of selective global activism and outlines how this can be achieved.

This strategy accepts the world as it is and not as we might like it to be. It recognises that Australia has interests spread widely but unevenly around the world. It understands that they are not all of the same importance and cannot all be protected to the same extent simultaneously. Careful policy choices have to be made. Accordingly, establishing the right national priorities and working out how best to pursue them is critically important.

The Rudd government appears to find the idea of policy prioritisation an excruciating challenge. It is deeply alarming for example, that during its first months of office the government seems to be going out of its way to devalue the excellent relationship the Howard government was able to establish with Japan.

To assist Australia in protecting the diverse range of interests it possesses, the paper includes among its recommendations a call for Australia to maintain secure alliances and partnerships abroad, to establish more flexible and sophisticated instruments of policy, to maintain a credible military force with a capacity for self reliance for some missions, and to establish a new long term strategic assessment capability to better understand the changing environment.

The risks, threats and challenges of the emerging global order require another round of reform and innovation in the processes of Australia’s policy making. The paper argues for strong practical structures with the establishment of a statutory National Security Office and the development of a triennial National Strategy Appreciation. Both will enhance Australia’s capacity to respond to international risks and challenges.

One of the shortcomings of the Howard government’s foreign policy was its distrust of multilateralism. This was particularly difficult to comprehend in an era when more and more foreign policy issues require international cooperation. It was also curious in the context of Australia’s well established expertise and competence in the field. Reluctance to use multilateralism was akin to sending our diplomats out into the international arena with one hand tied behind their backs. Not surprisingly it compromised their capacity to be fully effective in fighting for Australia’s interests. The paper acknowledges the many weaknesses and perils of multilateralism, but calls for its revival as a key element of the way Australia approaches international affairs.

In government we were also unwise not to fund the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade adequately. The men and women of the Australian Foreign Service consistently perform their duties with dedication and great professionalism, but they are being asked constantly to do more with fewer resources. We are steadily emasculating one of our most important foreign policy capabilities. The Rudd government’s decision to make further deep cuts in DFAT’s budget is not only another broken election promise, but is compounding the problems of an under resourced and overstretched foreign service. It is playing dice with the national interest. My paper calls for a reversal of this trend.

The paper contains further recommendations on matters such as the Asia-Pacific, international law and developing more integrated instruments of policy. You can read these at your leisure.

Let me finish by reiterating that as the 21st century unfolds, Australia is likely to face a steadily expanding array of foreign policy challenges in an increasingly complex strategic environment. The things we have done in the past will not, of themselves, be good enough in the future.

We will only be able to remain secure and prosperous if we play an increasingly smart national game, one that is more strategic in the conception and design of our foreign policy, more resolute in acquiring the means to underpin it and more tactically astute in the ways we seek to pursue it.

The paper contains some ideas to help us achieve that goal. Thank you all for coming today.