Asia-Pacific Security: Policy Challenges

2 The challenge for Australian foreign-policy professionals

2 The challenge for Australian foreign-policy professionals David W. Lovell Most of the chapters in this collection are by specialists in the Asia-Pacific region, each of them expert in the politics of its various countries and their numerous interactions. It is a region so vast—extending, on some accounts, from the shores of the Americas to the Indian subcontinent, and from Dunedin to Vladivostok and Anchorage, and embracing dozens of countries—that a significant amount of specialization is only to be expected. Without a detailed knowledge of the history of particular countries, of their relationships with others, their institutions, policy makers, and aspirations, making foreign policy would be even more hazardous than it currently is. My contribution is not expert in the same way, but I think it is nevertheless appropriate in any serious discussion of policy making and implementation. I will not canvass particular regional issues here. Instead, I want to draw attention to another type of challenge that confronts foreign-policy professionals. As well as developing and maintaining their specialized knowledge, they must remain acutely aware that specialization itself can produce problems if it is not leavened by broader perspectives, and by an approach to detailed information that is selfconsciously cautious and critical. Australian foreign-policy professionals—those people who advise politicians in this area, who implement policy, and who comment upon it in the media—are professional only in so far as they combine detail with perspective, contemporary comment with a sense of history, and advice with a sense of their own responsibilities in the larger task of managing foreign relations. Developments in the Asia-Pacific region are now calling, perhaps more urgently than ever before, for the deployment of those skills. In this chapter, therefore, I shall reflect on some issues of perspective. I shall caution, in particular, against unexamined assumptions on a couple of fundamental issues on the grounds that they might distort policy making, and diminish Australia’s ability to benefit from the current situation. 18 Asia-Pacific Security Though it is difficult to be categorical about such things, we seem to be at a time of historic change in international relations. As with earlier times of transition in relations between states, there is a perceptible and rapid change in the balance of forces in the world. Emerging powers are beginning to find their places at the table of the established powers, and to explore new ways of doing business with each other. It is a change that was precipitated by the end of the Cold War, and the predominantly bi-polar world that characterized it; and it is pushed along by the economic rise of countries such as India and China. In my view, this transition period presents a historic opportunity for Australia. The jostling for position at the table of power contains considerable challenges for policy makers of the major powers themselves, especially those in the United States and China. For the focus of international attention has begun to move from Europe to the Asia-Pacific region. The region is increasingly significant for Australia, not as a source of threat and insecurity as it once chiefly was, but as a place in which to play a positive role and, in important respects, to find a rightful ‘home’. It does not promise to be an easy path, but it is a necessary one if we are serious about a secure future. The role of foreign-policy professionals will be a crucial one both in getting the best for Australia out of the current transition, and in getting the best outcome for the region. The domestic profile of Australia’s foreign-policy professionals may be low, but their job is crucial to good policy, its successful implementation, and its public acceptance. If they can combine specialized knowledge with sound judgement, they will contribute to the emergence of a more stable and peaceful world. Australia and the Asia-Pacific If Australia faces a historic opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region, it must be said that we carry with us considerable baggage, and that our outreach is a recent affair. Australia’s responses to the Asia-Pacific region were, until as late as the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by an attitude that we were set apart—by our cultural origins, our political institutions, and our interests and aspirations—and, worse, that we were surrounded by a sea of dangers. Our sense of separateness led to restrictive immigration; the White Australia Policy was one of...