When Tony Abbott came to power a year ago, he promised a foreign policy of 'more Jakarta, less Geneva'. It was shorthand for greater emphasis on important bilateral relationships, less Rudd-ian emphasis on United Nations-centred grandstanding.
The reality has been almost the reverse: 'more NATO, less Jakarta'. This is essentially a foreign policy driven by militaristic multilateralism, tapping at the doors of the Western alliance power centres – Washington, London, Brussels (NATO headquarters) and Tokyo.
Australia now behaves as if it were a supplicant for NATO membership. Like the fragile post-Soviet East Europeans, we seem desperate to be allowed into that inner circle. We want to earn our colours with Aussie boots on the ground in Iraq, Syria and even Ukraine!
Since Richard Casey was External Affairs Minister in the 1950s, the three pillars of Australian foreign policy have been: a genuine reaching out to our Asian neighbours, adherence to UN-based multilateral values and institutions, and a firm but self-respecting defence partnership with the United States. All those pillars look pretty shaken now.
This is a foreign policy based on aggressiveness: knee-jerk reactions to short-term crises with no evidence of depth, vision or overall strategy; a hierarchical approach of obsequiousness to presumed (NATO) betters and condescension to presumed (southeast Asian) inferiors. We are back to the era of 'Asia is somewhere you fly over on the way to Europe'.
There has been serious misbalancing in relations with Indonesia, China, Japan and India. We are told that relations with Indonesia are back to normal after a period of necessary firmness in turning back the boats. This is nonsense.
Indonesians now view Australia with wariness and suspicion, after Australia's arrogant behaviour both on-water and in relation to spying. Nobody in Jakarta believes that our Navy boats mistakenly trespassed in Indonesian waters in returning asylum-seeker boats and dumping orange lifeboats crammed with seasick returnees on their beaches. These were taken as deliberate signals that Fortress Australia will do whatever it takes to repel intruders.
Meanwhile, the apologies for eavesdropping on the former Indonesian president's family came late, grudging and heavily qualified. With newly elected president Jokowi there is correct exercise of protocol but no warmth. Much ground painfully built over 50 years has been lost.
China looks on Australia now as basically a country keen to join US and Japanese military efforts to contain their strategic rise. The harshly handled rejection of Huawei's telecom bid as a security risk; the effectively