The Values and Motivations of Australian Defence Policy

Justin Arnold

In Australia both sides of politics whether they are Labor or Liberal frame defence policy in the context of promoting their own vision of Australian values with the strategic aim of furthering their own political interests. During the 2001 federal election campaign the Howard Government politicised the ADF with its ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’ theme. Howard chose to revive the values systems of the Menzies Era and of the ‘Great Australian Settlement’. With this Howard brought up deep-seated fears in the Australian population by using the ADF against ‘the Yellow Peril’ of asylum seekers and against ‘the Red Menace’. Howard with these actions has brought the international and domestic reputation of the ADF into disrepute in the pursuit of his own political interests.

Kevin Rudd on the other hand is utilising the ADF in an imperial benevolent manner to promote his Victorian era social values of Social-Democratic Liberal- Institutionalism into the Asia-Pacific region and this can be seen in the Defence White Paper 2009. The values based approach of the Rudd Labor Government, are also being promoted domestically with the Strategic Reform Agenda in which the government is attempting to change the strategic culture of the ADF. The projection of a values based liberal-institutional systems of governance for the ADF by the Rudd Labor government with the Strategic Reform Program is a currently facing severe challenges. The reform of Australian strategic values both internal and external is essential if the ADF is to become capable force that will secure our values based goals and strategic interests into the Asia-Pacific Century by 2030.

The visit of the United States fleet is universally popular here… because of our distrust of the Yellow Race in the north Pacific and our recognition of the ‘entente cordiale’ spreading among all white men who realise the Yellow Peril to Caucasian civilisation, creeds and politics. Alfred Deakin

Australian Defence Policy since the time of federation in 1901 has been a reflection of the values systems of the current political party in power. Under both governments, conservative and progressive, defence policy has had both an external as well as internal values components. In analysing whether Australian Defence Policy is more affected by values or interests, both the internal and external aspects of defence policy, both the formulation of policy by government and how it is applied within the Australian Defence Force (ADF) will be examined. In both its written and applied forms Australian Defence Policy has traditionally been since the time Deakin’s ‘Great White Fleet’ speech been based upon countering a perceived threat of an overpopulated and culturally backwards Asia to our North. The latest manifestation of Australian Defence Policy as found within the Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030 Defence White Paper 2009 the Rudd Labor government has chosen to retain some of the historical nature of defence policy. To add to this the Rudd Labor government is seeking to implement an agenda of change to the values based strategic culture of the ADF through its Strategic Reform Program.

The values based approaches of Australia’s major parties are differentiated from one another, according to David Horner, ‘based on ideology- nationalism versus imperialism’. The approach of modern Labor Governments from Whitlam to Rudd has seen the policies of imperial acquiescence and forward defence abandoned in favour of a value based nationalistic self-reliance approach. The November 2007 election of Kevin Rudd has seen a shift in the focus of defence policy towards a more pragmatic and nationalistic self-reliant approach when it comes to the formulation of strategic defence policy. With the change of government in 2007 form Howard to Rudd has marked a change in defence policy approach for the Australian government that is more values than interest based.

The shift in political values in Australia form right to left can be seen to coincide with the great shift in social values which US author Francis Fukuyama calls, ‘after neo-conservatism’. This has resulted in a new focus for Australian Defence Policy has resulted from the return to a policy of self-reliance as its strategic orientation with the election of the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. The shift from forward defence to a policy of self-reliance for Australian Defence Policy has seen the emphasis shift from reliance on a foreign power to an independent defence of Australia’s approaches. What hasn’t changed is the values based nature of imposing our ideas on our neighbours when it comes to developing defence policy to help secure our national interests. These underlying values, however, change depending on whether we have a progressive or conservative party in governance. The evolutionary nature of the strategic values is having a dramatic impact upon the strategic culture of the ADF and has left it strategically didactically hanging.

The concept of what Michael Evans calls ‘strategic culture’ forms the basis of the application for the ADF of the government’s defence policy. Evans defines strategic culture as referring to ‘a nation’s traditions, values, attitudes, patterns of behaviour, habits, symbols, achievements and particular ways of adapting to the environment and solving problems with respect to the threat and use of force’. In the Australian policy contextualisation the values system which underpins our national defence policy ‘reflects variations on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American ideas about the use of force by liberal democratic societies’. What however remains unique to the Rudd governments approach to defence policy development is the deliberate attempt to modify Australian strategic culture. It is in this approach that the Rudd government is attempting to implement change not only upon the strategic culture ADF but also upon governance in the Asia Pacific region in an attempt to secure our future of our collective national interests.

The strategic culture of the ADF reflects the values, which at the time of federation were announced by Deakin in his ‘Great White Fleet’ speech. These values, which form the basis of Australian Defence Policy, can be found in the Great Australian Settlement that accompanied our federation. Evans describes these values as,
The first time three pillars were socio-economic in character and were designed to bring prosperity based on social justice. They were State Paternalism, industry protection and wage arbitration. The fourth and fifth pillars, the philosophy of White Australia and the ideology of imperial benevolence, were social-political in nature, and enforced the first three domestic foundation pillars.
The two most important of these values are the last two, the White Australia Policy and the concept of Imperial Benevolence. These two values based principles are over time have slowly diminished in their influence on defence policy development, in favour of polices based upon multiculturalism and self-reliance. The White Australia and Imperial Benevolence policies, still however, play a role in the formulation of Australian approaches to developing defence policy and especially in the ADF’s application of these policies.

In its historic themes defence policy has always been defined in relation to three objective factors according to Smith et al, ‘its geographic setting, its small population, and its export-dependent economy’. The conservative values system which can be seen in the White Australia Policy is historically, the values system which has underpinned both defence policy formulation and its application. The ADF is one of the last of Australia’s social institutions still promoting the outdated conservative White Australia values system fighting what Manning Clark called, ‘the enemy within and the enemy without’ is in need of dramatic reform.

Deakin’s White Australia Policy has historically been a key feature of the values that underpin the making of Australia’s defence orientated foreign policy. Smith et al has described these polices as being shaped by ‘paranoid’ fears of our Asian neighbours and positively ‘by our shared values with the USA and Britain’. These two features can be seen as features of the forward defence policy, which has traditionally been favoured by conservative governments.

Anthony Burke, one of Australia’s leading experts on the formulation of defence policy from the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, has described the conservative approach to defence policy as being,
imagined on the basis of a bounded and vulnerable identity in perpetual opposition to an outside other- an other whose character and claims threaten its integrity and safety.
These conservative approaches to defence policy as seen in the application of forward defence is based upon protecting the values based principles of protecting a White Australia. After WWII a new internal threat was added to our strategic culture by the Menzies and this was threat was labelled as the ‘the Red Menace’.

The post WWII era saw defence policy from the conservative side of politics being based upon the application of the values based principles of imperial acquiesce and forward defence. Deakin’s White Australia Policy was based upon defending the supremacy of Anglo-Saxon dominance from the threat of ‘the Yellow Peril’. Menzies added a second, the fight against ‘the Red Menace’ of communism in which the Labor Party was singled out for special attention. The Menzies period saw the application of these two conservative values based principles upon the ADF which have helped to form the basis of its Australian strategic culture and the application of defence policy in the ADF. The combination of imperil acquiesce, forward defence, the yellow Peril and the Red Menace values based polices has underpinned the nature of Australian Defence Policy for just on 60 years.

The unnecessary and disastrous combination of these polices has seen the commitment and loss of Australian troops to such un-winnable theatre’s of war, Korea and Vietnam. The modern interpretation of these polices under the Howard led governments has seen Australia commit troops outside our own region to fight un-winnable wars of little or with absolute no national interests at stake. The current Defence White Paper 2009 has sort to continue the values of the Menzies era as a justification for modernising the ADF conventional war capabilities by naming the Peoples’ Republic of China as our greatest potential threat. A value based policy decision that has provoked much heated debate and proved to be the most controversial section of this policy document.

The China Threat Thesis is a modern combination of both ‘the Yellow Peril’ and ‘the Red Menace’ paranoia’s and forms the basis of the threat risk assessment of the Defence White Paper 2009 in which China is identified as our greatest potential threat. The identification of China as a threat is contained within several sections of the Defence White Paper but the most obvious is in Section 4 when it states,
China’s military modernisation has the potential to give its neighbours cause for concern if not carefully explained… there is likely to be a question in the minds of regional states about the long-term strategic purpose of its force development plans.
The threat form a economically successful and cashed-up China is based upon the Deakinesque values system of the White Australia Policy and the Yellow Peril. A position that Australian Defence Policy has in common with our major military ally in the United States. It is a contemporary justification for the continuance of the major joint historical theme in Australian defence culture that was first articulated by Deakin in his ‘Great White Fleet’ speech in 1908.

The process of refinement in Australian Defence Policy is a process that has been developing since Deakin’s Great White Fleet Speech. Deakin’s speech which set the tone not only for a value based strategic culture of the ADF but also forms the basis for all Australian Defence Policy since 1908. These strategic cultural values can be seen in the currently Defence White Paper is the identification of a threat from a prosperous and independent China. The need to reform the values of the ADF is a need of urgent attention. Especially in the light of the politicisation of the ADF under the Howard led regime.

The political stunt known in the popular media as ‘the Children Overboard Affair’ and around parliamentary circles as ‘A Certain Maritime Incident’ has brought continued international condemnation to both the ADF. It is interesting note is that it was John Faulkner the current Defence Minister that led the Labor Party attacks on the government for mishandling the truth and for using the ADF as a political tool before the Senate enquiry into ‘A Certain Maritime Incident’. Now with John Faulkner as the new Defence Minister chosen to replace Joel Fitzgibbon he has initiated Governments attempt to reform the strategic culture of the ADF with its Strategic Reform Program.

The Rudd Labor Government with its attempt to reform the conservative Menzite values system of the ADF has faced a systematic campaign against reforms from high levels within the defence force establishment. An example of this can be seen with the exposure of illegal spying activities by the ADF against former defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon. The difficulties in reforming the ADF can be seen with the Defence Signal’s Directorate (DSD) spying on the Maritime Union of Australia, the Uniting Church and on Labor Party MP’s to furthermost of Howard own political interests. The conservative politicisation of the ADF’s strategic culture with these public examples of its failure to adapt to the significant political shift leftwards with the end of the Cold War in the 1990s with the death of neo-conservativism has seen recruitment drop significantly.

The ADF’s inability to recruit both the quality and the quantity of recruits it needs to rebuild itself into a force that is capable of defending Australia into the Asia Pacific Century by 2030 is the major problem faced by the Rudd Government when it comes to implementing its value-based defence policies. The current Australian Defence Minister John Faulkner is now attempting to reform the governance of the ADF so that it is a force that is as capable of defending Australia from potential external threats as it is capable of defending Australia from so-called internal ones. In this agenda Faulkner has outlined the Rudd Labor Government’s agenda of change within the ADF that includes the opening up of tis institutional structures to a post -Conservative socially inclusive values system that forms the basis of the current Defence White Paper 2009.

To meet these ends Minister Faulkner has outlines the changes in governance that the ADF will be taking in a speech entitled ‘Governance and Defence, Some Early Impression’. Minister Faulkner’s speech was delivered at the Australian & New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) which former ASIC regulator and current ANZSOG Dean Allan Fells described as being, ‘dedicated to promoting outstanding public sector leadership and policy that really works for the benefit of the public’. The delivery of Faulkner’s speech, about the complexities of reforming the ADF governance structures, at ANZSOG was a deliberate statement of intent by Faulkner in regards to which the Rudd government is determined in its attempt to reform the strategic culture in the ADF.

Now what is needed is for the ADF to do is to step out form the shadow of the cold war and embrace the principles of liberal-democratic good governance and accept and apply the new strategic values as outlined by the Rudd government. The job of the new Defence Minister Faulkner will be to clean up the ADF by implementing the principles of good governance that will allow the Strategic Reform Program to provide Australia with a capable and self-reliant defence force. The government has made a good start to this reform program by bringing in Dr Ian Watt from the Department of Finance and Deregulation with his history of promoting transparency in governance. Also the strategic appointment of the Lowy Institutes’ Allan Gyngell to the job as Chief of the Office of National Assessments will help provide Rudd and the Labor Party with a friendly review of strategic issues. These appointments will help not only the Rudd government in its reform agenda to prepare Australia for a self-reliant defence future through the remodelling of the ADF’s strategic culture.

The new approach of the Rudd government defence policy as outlined in the current Defence White Paper 2009 sees a role for the ADF in promoting these same Social-Democratic Liberal-Institutionalist values that the ADF is hostile to domestically beyond our own borders and into our region. The Great Australian Settlement values system can be seen to underpin the application of the defence policy by the ADF is a values system that is no longer relevant to a multicultural middle power Australia that seeks to become. The development of a new strategic culture based upon Social-Democratic Liberal-Institutionalism for the ADF will help in the Rudd government’s strategic agenda to project these same values into the Asia Pacific region to project our collective national strategic interests.

The Liberal Party historically has seen defence policy as a convenient avenue for promoting its own interests domestically and this can be seen in Menzies’ attempt to ban the Communist Party of Australia. John Howard in his attempt to secure his own political interests has also similarly used defence capabilities and this can be seen in his 2001 re-election campaign entitled ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’. The use of defence force assets to monitor civil society organisations in the Children Overboard Affair and the ADF’s training of a scab labour workforce in Dubai shows that under Howard the blatant politicisation of the ADF.

Howard’s choice to further his own domestic agenda by politicising the ADF not only has damaged his reputation but also that of the ADF and it’s personal. The ADF if it cannot embrace the openness and transparency of the Rudd governments Strategic Reform Program for defence governance doesn’t stand a chance of reforming itself into a independent force capable not only of standing on its own feet globally but defending Australia form any and all strategic threats it may face in the Asia Pacific century.

Australia is currently in a position where its current defence policy is a value based document that attempts to pursue our interests through future strategic placement into the Asia pacific Century. In the future if the United States was to suffer from further economic disorder and was forced to withdraw west of the Hawaiian Islands, Australia would be in the tenuous position where our values and interests might be dialectally opposed. Such a scenario would mean that we might be forced to sacrifice the pursuit of our values of the need to pursue our interests by militaristically aligning ourselves with China. One of the most fascinating aspects of our current defence policy, as outlined by didactic Defence White Paper 2009 is in the planning for such a scenario. So therefore the Rudd Labor Governments attempt to position Australia between the United States and China in what Victorian theologian John Henry Newman called the via media is a sound decision.

So therefore in conclusion, the development of Australian Defence policy is based upon the values system of whichever political party is currently in control of parliament. The external nature of the values system, which underscores Australian Defence Policy, has recently undergone a dramatic transformation with the death of neo-conservatism and current ascendancy of traditional social-democratic liberal-institutionalism with the election of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia. The traditional Deakinesque value based system that is still prevalent in the ADF manifests itself in racism, chauvinism and anti-communism and is the target of the Rudd Government’s Strategic Reform Program.

Without change in the values system of the strategic culture of the ADF Australia’s ability to recruit the personal it needs to secure our interests into the Asia Pacific century looks in doubt. The transformed nature of the values system of Australian Defence Policy, which can be seen in the current Defence White Paper 2009 with its concept of self-actualised individualism for Australia’s strategic positioning. An approach that is capable of delivering an Australian Defence Force that is more than capable of defending Australia by 2030 against any potential threat in the Asia Pacific Century.