This flexibility was demonstrated when Indonesia conducted its policy of “confrontation” with Malaysia. Between 1964 and 1966, troops from Australia, Britain, and New Zealand fought alongside Malaysian forces against Indonesia. Then US Under-Secretary of State Averill Harriman had told the Australian Cabinet in June 1963 that “if there should be an overt attack on Malaysia and if Australian forces should become involved, the ANZUS Treaty would ... come into operation.” However, the US government later retreated from that position, arguing that it needed to avoid getting offside with Indonesia in order to keep it out of the communist bloc. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser described the experience with Malaysia as one of the first tests of whether, under the treaty, Australia would receive practical support from the United States: “(t)he lesson to be learnt” he said, “was practical support from the United States would occur only if the issue coincided with America’s own analysis of America’s own interests.” Former Australian Defence Minister Kim Beazley has noted that after decades of unsuccessful efforts to extract from the United States their understanding of their commitments under the ANZUS treaty, Australians had to be satisfied with the thought that, if they were unsure of US assistance, Australia’s enemies would be equally unsure.

It was as a consequence of Australia’s failure to attract US support against Indonesian “confrontation” that Australia made a military contribution to the war in Vietnam in order to forge closer links with the United States. Accordingly, when the United States announced in April 1965 that it would introduce ground forces into South Vietnam, Australia sought and obtained an invitation from the South Vietnamese authorities for Australian provision of a battalion of troops to support US forces.

The failure of the United States to intervene in Indonesia’s “confrontation” with Malaysia under the terms of the treaty is still in the minds of Australia’s national defense planners. A defense review in 2000 found that “Australia today is a secure country, thanks to our geography, good relations with neighbors, a region where the prospect of inter-state conflict is low, our strong armed forces, and a close alliance with the United States. Of these positive factors, only the benefits of our strategic geography are immutable.” (Emphasis added by the author)

The ANZUS alliance post September 11

The aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001 has injected a further element of uncertainty into the nature of the US commitment to the ANZUS alliance. The security agenda that the US administration, whether Democratic or Republican, will need to pursue for the foreseeable future – fighting terrorism and keeping weapons of mass destruction from the hands of “rogue states” - are not ones that can be addressed by geographically-based alliances such as the ANZUS Treaty, which was intended to contain conventional military threats in the Asia-Pacific region posed by Cold War communist powers.

A number of prominent academics have commented on the future strategic role of the United States with regard to its traditional military alliances. Michael Mastanduno has argued that, with the more pressing concerns of the war on terror, “we cannot take for granted that the ‘hub and spokes’ alliance system with the United States at the center of a specific set of bilateral alliances … will survive.” Christopher Layne has also argued that a relative decline in US power will lead to US withdrawal from its military alliance commitments in Asia. Coral Bell predicts a multipolar world of major powers in the next twenty years who will arrange themselves as a concert, rather than a balance, of powers, a process she sees as “an unstoppable and accelerating … redistribution of power.” She has described the present unipolar world as “a moment in history, not the end of history.”

The implications for the United States’ alliance partners in Asia are clear – they cannot continue to rely on the security umbrella provided by the United States for the region’s defense. The future of the region is starting to look uncertain.

China’s rise

Alliance relations were probably never stronger than during the term of the previous (Liberal-National Party) Australian government. US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in February 2003 that the United States “has no better friend and no longer standing friend than Australia.” Although the same degree of closeness will not be enjoyed between the Bush administration and the newly elected Rudd Labor government, the relationship will remain sound. But, a major threat to the alliance has been looming as Australia’s relationship with China has developed.

As the Chinese economy has grown in the last thirty years, the commercial relationship between Australia and China has also greatly expanded. In 1972, two-way merchandise trade was $A158 million: by 2006 it was $A46 billion, making China Australia’s second largest merchandise trading partner after Japan. Statements by the Australian government suggest that by the end of 2007, China had become Australia’s largest merchandise trading partner. If China’s rapid economic growth continues, Australia is likely to remain one of its major beneficiaries.

Opinion polls conducted in 2004 showed that 35 percent of Australians were concerned about China’s growing power; however, only 8 percent thought it likely to pose a security threat to the country (compared with the 29 percent who thought Indonesia likely to do so). In another poll conducted in 2004, Australians indicated that they were significantly more concerned, inter alia, about global warming, international terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and US foreign policy than they were about China.

China’s military power has not raised serious concerns in the Australian government. In a speech in September 2005, then Prime Minister John Howard noted that “to see China’s rise in zero-sum terms is overly pessimistic, intellectually misguided, and potentially dangerous … a negation of what the West has been urging on China now for decades. China’s progress is good for … the world.”

The Australian government demonstrated the political importance it attaches to the relationship with China during the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Australia in 2003, a visit that coincided with a visit by President Bush. Both presidents spoke to the Australian Federal Parliament. Visiting US Presidents routinely speak to Parliament; at that time, President Hu was the only other national leader to have done so.