Australia and the Middle East

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has today released a Special Report on Australia and the Middle East with contributions from Dr Rod Lyon ASPI’s Strategy and International Program Director and Professor William Maley, Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy.  ASPI is embarking this year on a major project that looks at the key strategic issues arising from the current tensions in Middle East security.  This Special Report is the first output of this project.

Readers will be struck by the different approaches they have each taken to the broad question we set them: what are Australia’s interests in a changing Middle Eastern security environment?  Dr Lyon’s approach is that of a strategic analyst, with a fascination for power shifts and conflict. Professor Maley’s approach is that of the regional expert, enriched by a close knowledge of the countries and cultures of the Middle East. 

Bill Maley, surveying a region marked by ‘an atmosphere of almost unparalleled gloom’, argues for a ‘rethinking’ of approaches and instruments to be used in the Middle East  He believes soft power has been ‘a neglected asset’ which urgently needs to be revived.  And he thinks that Australia is well-placed to embark on a more ‘carefully-constructed engagement’ with ‘a very important part’ of the world.

Moreover, Maley suggests that Australia should revisit the issue of its alliance relationship with the United States, to maintain an effective alliance relationship but one where Australia is less tied to participation in ‘wars of choice’.

Rod Lyon argues that Australian interests will remain closely engaged in the Middle East during an ‘era of strategic realignment’ within the region.  That’s because the region is important to global security, ‘simultaneously the driver of the world’s economic engine and the source of many of its greatest security threats.’  Further, Lyon argues that three geopolitical trends—a continuing eastward shift in the region’s centre of gravity, the rise of sectarianism as a potentially critical fault-line, and the increasing move towards non-conventional forms of conflict—are driving the Middle East towards new security arrangements.  He says Australia cannot pretend it has no interest in how the region manages the challenges confronting it.