Peaceful resolution against odds

THINGS are not going well in many regions of the world. Economic, military and political volatility has affected Brazil, Venezuela, the US, Great Britain, France, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and Japan.

Geopolitical tension has ratcheted up in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan and the western Pacific.

These are just a few of the major hot spots to have been reported by the corporate media. There are dozens of other subplots in play that have gone unnoticed by the mainstream media.

The global picture is getting darker. It is becoming evident that the post-World War II financial and security institutions, and international bodies, such as the United Nations, are no longer providing the necessary stability needed among the community of nations.

At the recent Australian Leadership Retreat on the Gold Coast, former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie warned that the window for a constructive and substantive discussion about the Indo-Pacific occurring in Australia is closing much more quickly than anticipated.

Barrie bluntly stated what many Australian and US foreign policymakers are arguing and debating about behind closed doors, and in the halls of power in Canberra and Washington.

Individuals are becoming more outspoken due to what they perceive as a dangerous degree of ignorance and indifference to a world that is steadily unravelling. Is anyone paying attention?

Can we have a real discussion in a public forum about what Americans and Australians really need to know about what is actually occurring in the world?

Two books recently published in Australia have

Randall Doyle

the potential to make huge contributions to the muchneeded discussion about the history of Australian foreign policy, and what the average Australian citizen needs to know about the most powerful country, economically and militarily, in East Asia — China.

Allan Gyngell, former director-general of the Office of National Assessments, the Australian Government’s central intelligence assessment agency, has written Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942, on the history of Australian foreign policy since the beginning of World War II.

He provides excellent detail about Australia’s historic need to have a powerful ally at its side since its birth as a nation in 1901.

Gyngell’s work focuses primarily on Australia’s actions and decisions during and after World War II. It also presents the argument that Australians must fact the inescapable reality, in the 21st century, that the global situation is fundamentally different and more chaotic, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. Therefore, a serious and sober discussion needs to be had in Australia.

What are Australia’s national interests? How will Australia navigate between China and the US in the IndoPacific? Can Australia achieve a balanced approach without serious ramifications affecting its economy and national security? Does Australia possess the courage to come to grips with an increasingly dangerous situation in the western Pacific?

Gyngell, a former diplomat, and a former analyst in several Australian government departments, does not mince words. He is deeply concerned about Australia’s fate. In the end, he believes Australia is capable of making the tough calls about its future, but time is growing short. Thus, Australia’s options will become limited if it waits until volatility in the Indo-Pacific becomes a full-blown crisis.

Gyngell believes the time to make serious decisions is now.

Another important book is a publication from Linda Jakobson and Bates Gill.

Jakobson, an awardwinning writer on China, is a former East Asia program director at the Lowy Institute.

Gill, a professor of AsiaPacific Strategic Studies, works at the Strategic and Defence Studies Center at the Australian National University.

I believe their book, China Matters: Getting It Right For Australia, was written to inform those working in the Australian think-tank community, the nation’s universities and media, and inside the Australian Government about what is happening in China.

It presents a detailed picture about China’s juggernaut economy, its growing military strength, and its emergence as the dominant power in East Asia. And how Australia must deal with this reality without being consumed by irrational fears, or by an all consuming sense of trepidation. It was not created to provoke a new era of “yellow peril” paranoia about Australia’s Asian neighbours, or China specifically. Quite the contrary, Jakobson and Gill have produced an informative piece of scholarship that will prepare Australians to live, exist and prosper within a new Indo-Pacific order.

Another new book by Graham Allison, a Harvard University professor, who is the director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? It has garnered a great deal of attention in America’s foreign policy community and inside the US Government.

Intuition tells me that the Australian foreign policy community will also read it with great interest, if not with some occasional anxiety.

Prof Allison’s book is a cold, harsh reminder that things can go badly awry between competitive major powers who instinctively mistrust each other. If they are too reckless in their geopolitical decisions, or if they are careless or indifferent about the perceived tectonic shifts of global power, a frightening collision could

end up destroying both, and altering the course of history.

Prof Allison studied 16 cases where competing great powers dealt with the Thucydides Trap over the past 500 years. That is, two great powers dealing with a situation where the established power’s hegemony is openly challenged by an emerging power. Prof Allison discovered that in 12 of the 16 cases, war was the endgame. In other words, 75 per cent of the time the two competing major powers settled their difference by war. The historic evidence leaves one with a significant degree of unease.

Can the US and China beat the odds?

We will learn of history’s ultimate judgment, probably, sooner rather than later. My growing sense of concern is heightened by the reading of James Bradley’s excellent work, The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American

Disaster in Asia. This provides a historic overview of America’s often rocky and stormy relations with Asia, particularly with China, since its inception as a nation after signing the Treaty of Paris in 1783. After I finished reading it, I can only pray that some degree of knowledge, and wisdom, has been absorbed and retained by the modern-day practitioners of US diplomacy.

In the age of nuclear weapons, and other weapons of mass destruction, perhaps a historic epoch is in order for us all. With the hope of maintaining a liveable and sustainable Earth for future generations, let’s sincerely hope and pray that history will not repeat itself — at least 75 per cent of the time.