Posted on 01/15/2004 10:58:01 AM PST by Dundee
Alliance with US 'no given'
AUSTRALIA'S alliance with the US has reached a "new zenith" under John Howard but its future is threatened by unrealistic expectations, resentment in Asia, and a lack of bipartisan political support, a new US study says.
As the US's highest ranking military official, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers, visits Australia today for talks with the Prime Minister, Defence Minister Robert Hill and defence force chief Peter Cosgrove, the US War College Strategic Studies Institute says resentment within Asia at Australia's involvement in Iraq and unrealistic US expectations about Australia's defence capabilities could create tensions in the relationship.
"Australia is at pains to shake the deputy sheriff image it accrued throughout much of East Asia during the East Timor campaign," the paper, written by Rod Lyon and William Tow from the University of Queensland, says.
"(But) Australia's participation in the the coalition of the willing's campaign against Iraq ... will only intensify that image in the eyes of various Islamic groups in Southeast Asia ... that are highly critical of American power and policies."
The paper says that another constraint on the alliance is "a tendency by Washington to assign its comparatively small Pacific ally too much credence as a military power and to generate excessive pressure for Australia to participate in every substantial coalition operation that the US undertakes in a post-September 11 world."
And it predicts pressures on Australian defence spending already underfunded by up to $12 billion to 2010 will come under further pressure as baby boomers move into retirement and demand higher welfare costs.
The paper stresses that Mr Howard's deliberate push to forge closer ties with the US has paid off.
It says Mr Howard has emerged as a "prescient political seer, (in) position to extract substantial and enduring benefits from the ANZUS affiliation including the culmination of a wide-ranging bilateral Australia US free trade agreement".
"(John Howard has) pursued a post-1996 calculation that bandwagoning with the United States as the decisive force in global politics would best serve Australia's national security and economic interests.
"That calculation put at risk Australian gambits for inclusion in Asia's increasing institutionalisation ... (but) the risk has been acceptable to a Howard Government that never adhered to a vision of linking Australian foreign policy to east Asian regionalism."
Such has been the personal commitment of the George W. Bush's "man of steel" to building the alliance through East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq, the paper says, that his logical successor Treasurer Peter Costello would be a "solid" but less effective replacement.
So Australia should cut their ties with us for fear of terror? *geez*
I think it would be a great win-win for both countries -- both the U. S. and Australian militaries would benefit greatly from working more closely. And I cannot think of a single country anywhere on the globe that more Americans would prefer to be stationed in.
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