Ungerer, Carl (Ed.), Australian Foreign Policy in an Age of Terror. UNSW Press, 2008. RRP: $49.95. ISBN: 9780868408156
At first sight this book is more about national security than foreign policy. The collection of essays by defence and international relations scholars examines the central claim: 'After 9/11, terrorism became a central and defining issue in Australia's domestic policies and foreign relations.'
The first half of the book considers global and strategic dimensions. Carl Ungerer looks at Australia's place in the international system. Rod Lyon addresses Australia-US relations and ANZUS. Andrew O'Neil, non-proliferation strategy. Richard Leaver, trade. Melissa Curley, new threats to security such as unregulated migration and pandemic diseases.
The second half addresses regional dimensions. David Martin Jones and Ungerer review the Australian intelligence community. Martin Jones, China. Andrea Benvenuti, South Asia. Christian Hirst, the South Pacific.
It is claimed the book 'will provide students with an up-to-date analysis of the issues and concerns which are driving contemporary Australian foreign policy'. But the agenda is unbalanced. No chapters on climate change, energy and peak oil, human rights, the UN, Australian aid programs, our relations with ASEAN (whose leading member country is the world's most populous Islamic country and our closest neighbour), or with the Middle East (the major source of our oil, buyer of our wheat, and where our troops are engaged).
The world evoked in this book is one of selected bilateral friends and general threats — mostly from Islamic terrorism. It is an 'us and them' world. If the terrorists don't get us, illegal immigrants, pandemics or disease-carrying migratory birds will.
It is John Howard's fearful world. Not surprising, because the book grew out of a workshop held in 2006, when Howard's power over Australian perceptions of the world seemed unassailable, and his fears had become Australia's fears. It is a pity it took so long to publish this book — under the Rudd Labor Government, the international agenda is moving in less fearful directions. For Australia to be a good international citizen is once again a major aim of foreign policy.
The book does have instructive value. First, it reminds us how domestic politics and the Coalition's neo-conservative ideology unbalanced foreign policy discussions in Australia over the past 12 years.
The most profound shock to Australian foreign policy was not 9/11 but our change of government in 1996. Multilateralism, good international citizen language and honouring UN obligations were out. Bilateralism, assertive coalitions of the