thayer us australia alliance and southeast asia

8/6/2019 Thayer US Australia Alliance and Southeast Asia

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The Future of US Alliances in Asia:Australias Security Perspectives

Carlyle A. Thayer

Presentation to International Conference on

The Future of US Alliances in Asia

Coorganised by the Pacific Forum CSIS, Yuchenco Center

De La Salle University and the Philippine Institute for

Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research

New World Hotel Manila

May 2527, 2011


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Draft Discussion Paper 2

The Future of US Alliances in Asia: Australias Security Perspectives

Carlyle A. Thayer1

This presentation addresses Australian perspectives on the security priorities inSoutheast Asia. It seeks to answer four questions:

What are the primary security concerns in the region?

Have those concerns changed over the past ten years?

What are the major factors shaping security perspectives?

What role do domestic politics and conflicts play in shaping perspectives?

This discussion is framed by Australias alliance with the United States. According toForeign Minister Kevin Rudd, The cornerstone of Australias global and regional

engagement is our alliance with the United States And for Australia it remains the

bedrock of our national security.2

Background to the AustraliaAmerica Alliance

Australias alliance with the United States is based on a treaty signed on September1, 1951. This document is formally titled the Security Treaty Between Australia,

New Zealand and the United States of America but is more widely referred to as the

ANZUS Treaty. The operative clauses of this treaty state:Article IV

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on any of theParties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it

would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutionalprocesses.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be

immediately reported to the Security Council of the United Nations. Suchmeasures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures

necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Article V

1 Emeritus Professor, The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy,

Canberra. Contact: [email protected].

2 Kevin Rudd, Australia Foreign Policy and the Asia Pacific Century, Speech to the Brookings

Institution, Washington, DC, May 3, 2011.


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For the purpose of Article IV, an armed attack on any of the Parties is deemed toinclude an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of any of the Parties, or on

the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces,public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.

Australia derives five major benefits from the ANZUS Treaty3:

1. Security guarantee that the United States would come to Australias aid in theevent of a major strategic threat;

2. Exceptional access to highlevel American policymakers on political,diplomatic and military affairs;

3. Privileged access to the findings, assessments and evaluations of theAmerican intelligence agencies;

4. Privileged access to advanced science and technology, especially in defencerelated areas; and

5. Economic benefits of special access to the American market under the FreeTrade Agreement (which came into force in January 2005).

In 1986 the United States unilaterally suspended New Zealand from ANZUS

activities as a result of its adoption of an antinuclear policy that barred nuclearweapons and nuclearpowered ships from New Zealand. The annual trilateral

meeting of ANZUS defence ministers was replaced by annual bilateral discussions

AUSMIN (Australia United States Ministerial meeting).

In September 2011, Prime Minister John Howard paid an official visit to Washington

to mark the 50th

anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty. He was physically present inWashington when the terrorist attacks on The Pentagon and the Twin Towers inNew York City took place. On return to Australia Prime Minister Howard, with

support from the Opposition, led the Parliament on September 14, 2001 to formallyinvoke the ANZUS Treaty for the first time.

Australia became one of the main allies in the U.S.led Global War on Terrorism. It

dispatched military forces to Afghanistan in 200102 and joined the United Statesand United Kingdom in the Iraq War in 2003. As historian Peter Edwards has noted

Australias defence emphasis shifted from defence of Australia to the defence ofAustralian interests and values.

On March 9, 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard marked the 60th

anniversary of theANZUS Treaty by formally addressing the U.S. Congress. She summed up Australiasview of the alliance in these words:

You have an ally in Australia. An ally for war and peace. An ally for hardship and

3 Peter Edwards, Permanent Friends? Historical Reflections on the Australian American Alliance , Lowy

Institute Paper 08. Sydney: Lowy Institute for International Policy, 2005, 34.


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prosperity. An ally for the sixty years past and Australia is an ally for all the years

to come. Geography and history alone could never explain the strength of thecommitment between us. Rather, our values are shared and our people are

friends. This is the heart of our alliance

In the decades since [the ANZUS Treaty was signed], we have stuck together. In

every major conflict. From Korea and Vietnam to the conflicts in the Gulf. Yourdarkest days since Pearl Harbour were ten years ago in Washington and NewYork. And we were with you

Australia will stand firm with our ally the United States [in Afghanistan]. Our

friends understand this. Our enemies understand this too.

What are the primary security concerns in the region?

The annual AUSMIN consultations provide an opportunity for Australia and theUnited States to coordinate their policies and approaches not only to Southeast Asia

but the broader AsiaPacific Region. It suits both parties to keep their coordination

and joint activities low key. With respect to Southeast Asia, Australia and the UnitedStates pursue their policies in parallel with each other. Both work extremely closelyto counter the threat of global terrorism, particularly in Indonesia, for example.

There are two sides to the ANZUS coin. On the one side, all countries in the region in

their relations with Australia, particularly potential adversaries, must takeAustralias alliance status with the United States into account. The value of the

ANZUS alliance was demonstrated when in 1999 Australia led an international

intervention in East Timor. At that time the intensions of the Indonesian militaryand their surrogate militia groups were uncertain. The United States made it clear to

Indonesia that it was prepared to intervene if Australianled forces came under

attack.4 The U.S. also stationed a troop ship with embarked marines as a deterrent.Further the United States provided crucial logistics and intelligence support to the

Australianled intervention force.

On the other side of the coin, the United States values and takes note of Australias

particular expertise in regional affairs. Australian views are heard and Australia

thus has the opportunity to shape policy formulation.

While Australia is part of the East Asia region and has substantial interests in

Southeast Asia, Australia is not a member of the Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN). Australia has strong bilateral defence ties with Singapore and

Malaysia both bilaterally and multilaterally through the Five Power Defence

Arrangements (FPDA). Australia also has important defence cooperation programswith Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, and Vietnam. The Australian

Defence Force, with the exception of Vietnam, conducts regular military exerciseswith all of the other countries.

4Elizabeth Becker, US to Jakarta Messenger: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, New York Times ,14September 1999. I am grateful to Dr. Frank Frost for this reference and comments on this paper.


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What are Australias perceptions of the prime security concerns in Southeast Asia?The answer is provided by two Defence White Papers that serve as bookends for the

period 2000 to 2009.

Australias 2009 Defence White Paper, the most recent, defined Australias strategic

interests as those national security interests that concern the structure and featuresof the international order that ensure our security from armed attackand inrelation to which Australia might contemplate the use of force.5

During the drafting of the White Paper Australian security and intelligence analysts

were divided in their assessments of the strategic implications of Chinas rise.6Boththe Office of National Assessments and the Defence Intelligence Organisation

reportedly offered the view that Chinas military transformation was primarilydefensive, being largely in response to U.S. naval power in the Pacific, and was also

commensurate with Chinas status as an emerging great power.7 But this view was

countered by senior officials in the Department of Defence who saw Chinas military

modernization as posing a potential challenge to Australias security interests. Thelatter view prevailed. It is now known, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the then PrimeMinister Kevin Rudd also shared such reservations about Chinas rise. Five weeks

prior to the release of the White Paper, Rudd reportedly told Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton that integrating China into the international community should bepursued by multilateral engagement while also preparing to deploy force if

everything goes wrong.8 Rudd also foreshadowed the reports focus on naval

capability in response to Chinas growing ability to project force. The 2009 DefenseWhite Paper concluded:

China will also be the strongest Asian military power, by aconsiderable margin. Its military modernization will be

increasingly characterised by the development of powerprojection capabilities. A major power of Chinas stature can beexpected to develop a globally significant military capability

befitting its size. But the pace, scope and structure of Chinasmilitary modernization have the potential to give its neighbours

cause for concern[Chinas] modernisation appears potentially to

5Australian Government, Department of Defence,Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force2030 (Canberra, 2009), 41.

6 See Carlyle A. Thayer, Chinas Rise and the Passing of American Primacy: Australia Debates Its

Future,Roundtable,Asia Policy[National Bureau of Asian Research], forthcoming July 2011.

7 Cameron Stewart, Deaf Ear on Agency Advice,Australian, December 7, 2010.

8 U.S. Embassy Cables: Hillary Clinton Ponders U.S. Relationship with Its Chinese Banker, Guardian,

March 28, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usembassycablesdocuments/199393. For

commentary, see Paul Maley Rudds Plan to Contain Beijing, Australian, December 6, 2010; Laura

Tingle, What Rudd Really Thinks about China, Australian Financial Review, December 6, 2010; and

David McLenan, Secret Cable Shows Rudd Warned U.S. on Paranoid China, Canberra Times,

December 6, 2010.


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be beyond the scope of what would be required for a conflict over

Taiwan.9

The White Paper recommend the largest peacetime defence expenditure since

World War II and listed as future procurements three air warfare destroyers, eightfrigates, and twelve conventional submarines.

The White Paper also identified four major Australian strategic interests: a secure

Australia, a secure immediate neighbourhood, strategic stability in the AsiaPacificregion and a stable, rulesbased global security order. Southeast Asia sits at the

intersection of the second and third interests. The Southeast Asia region

increasingly reflects the power shifts now underway in Asia, and transmits thosepower shifts into Australias immediate geographic area of concern.

Australias strategic policy remains focused on potential threats arising fromexternal power domination of the region and regional instability. The 2009 Defence

White Paper notes, for example, A secure and stable Southeast Asia is in Australias

strategic interest as neither a source of broad security threat, nor as a conduit for

the projection of military power against us by others.10

The Defence White Paper also noted that economic progress and social development

in Southeast Asia will be beset by security problems such as terrorism, insurgencyand communal violence. In order to address and mitigate these potential threats,

the White Paper focuses on five main objectives:

preventing any major external power from dominating Southeast Asia or

from exercising military power in the region that would challenge Australias

ability to control the air and sea approaches to its continental land mass

maintaining the engagement of major allies, such as the United States, in

regional security preventing or mitigating the acquisition of military power by any regional

state to undertake sustained military operations in the air and sea

approaches to Australia

contributing to the stability, development, and cohesion of those states

closest to Australia, particularly Indonesia, TimorLeste and Papua New

Guinea, to ensure that those countries do not become a source of threat toAustralia

promoting and strengthening the regional security architecture tomaximise the attainment of Australias strategic objectives through

cooperative security relationships, particularly among the major powers butalso including regional partners.

9 Australian Government,Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century, 34.

10Australian Government, Department of Defence,Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force2030 (Canberra, 2009), 34.


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From Australias perspective, there are four prime security concerns in SoutheastAsia: (1) the negative impact of the global economic and financial crisis on political

stability in individual countries; (2) the impact of increased Chinese economic andmilitary power; (3) terrorism, insurgency and communal violence; and (4) the

threat terrorism poses to Australian interests and Australian citizens.

Have those concerns changed over the past ten years?

Australia published a Defence White Paper in 2000 and this provides a useful basis

for comparison with the 2009 White Paper.11 The 2000 White Paper identified two

major issues that had a major bearing on regional security: globalization and USprimacy. Globalisation, on balance, was held to be good for security, and the White

Paper concluded that US primacy was likely to endure but could not be taken forgranted.

With respect to Southeast Asia, the 2000 White Paper noted that the management of

great power relations (China, Japan, India, Russia and the US) was crucial forregional security. The White Paper assessed that instability or conflict among the

great powers was a major concern. Otherwise, Southeast Asia was viewed as anarea of great promise generally. But two sets of security issues were flagged:

conflicting claims in the South China Sea and economic and structural challenges toIndonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

It should be noted that Australian led the intervention force in East Timor in 1999,and its commitment to stability in that country continued after independence in May

2002 up to the present. After independence Australia continued to support the

United Nations Mission in East Timor and provided direct training assistance to the

East Timor Defence Force. Australia was also involved in the Bougainville PeaceMonitoring Group up to June 2003. And in 2003 Australia became involved instabilization efforts in the Solomon Islands (Operation Helpen Fren). In 2005 and

2006 the Australian Defence Force (ADF) had to redeploy back to East Timor and

the Solomon Islands, respectively, to deal with renewed domestic unrest.

The events of 9/11 and the Bali terrorist bombing in October 2002 changed the

security environment. Australia was compelled to issue a new assessment embodiedinAustralias National Security A Defence Update 2003. Quite simply the Global War

on Terrorism, the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)and border protection became the major security issues facing Australia and the

ADF was involved in the highest level of operations since the Vietnam War.

During this period Australia committed military forces to Afghanistan. Australia was

heavily involved in counterterrorism cooperation with Indonesia following the

2002 Bali bombings (Operation Bali Assist) and subsequent terrorist attacks

11Australian Government, Department of Defence, Defence 2000 Our Future Defence Force(Canberra, 2000).


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including a bombing outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004. Australias

concerns about WMD proliferation resulted in its joining the U.S.led ProliferationSecurity Initiative (PSI). Australia hosted the first PSI interdiction exercise in 2004

in the Coral Sea. Australias border protection efforts included Operation Relex todetect illegal immigrants and the standing up of the Joint Offshore Protection

Command in March 2005.

In 200405, the Indian Ocean tsunami and Cyclone Nargis led to the ADFs

involvement in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) through

Operation Sumatra Assist, Operation Thai Assist, Operation Nargis Assist,respectively.

During the period from 200009 changing regional security concerns were perhapsbest reflected in the evolution of the Five Power Defence Arrangements.12 In July

2000 the fourth meeting of FPDA Defence Ministers redesignated the Integrated AirDefence System (IADS) to Integrated Area Defence to give greater prominence to

joint capability. As a result the FPDA entered a new period of evolution and

transformation in combined and joint exercises to address conventional threats at agreater level of sophistication than before. Since then FPDA has developed a

developed a modest but sophisticated conventional deterrent capability.13

At the fifth FPDA Defence Ministers Meeting in June 2003, the ministers agreed that

the FPDA should enhance their ability to deal with emerging asymmetric threats.This decision was taken in the context of 9/11 and its aftermath and heightened

regional fears of catastrophic terrorist action in the Malacca Strait. Thereafter FPDA

exercises incorporated asymmetric threats with a specific focus on nonconventional challenges such as global terrorism, piracy, protection of Exclusive

Economic Zones (EEZ), disaster relief and smuggling of illicit drugs. The following

year the FPDA Defence Ministers determined that the FPDA should incorporatenonconventional threat scenarios such as maritime security serials in scheduled

FPDA exercises, and conduct additional exercises focused on maritime security, withthe gradual inclusion of nonmilitary agencies in such exercises. The FPDA also

conducted exercises in support of international peacekeeping.

Over the tenyear period under review, the major changes in security concerns have

been twofold: greater importance has been given to addressing nonconventionalthreats such as involving defence forces in border protection, counterterrorism

12This section is drawn from Carlyle A. Thayer, The Five Power Defence Arrangements: The QuietAchiever, Security Challenges, 3(1), February 2007. 7996.13Carlyle A. Thayer, The Five Power Defence Arrangements Exercises and Their Contribution toRegional Security, 20042010, in Ralf Emmers and Ian Storey, eds., Five Power Arrangements at Forty

(Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, forthcoming 2011).


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