Since 1951, when the ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the US was signed, the alliance with the US has been the cornerstone of Australian defence policy. From the public’s perspective, it’s one of the best recognised and understood aspects of contemporary Australian defence and attracts regular media attention and discussion.

The immediate post-war period also coincided with the rise of opinion polling in Australia. Borrowing techniques pioneered in the US in the 1930s by George Gallup, Keith Murdoch and his then employee, Roy Morgan, had introduced opinion polls in Australia in 1941. The organisation they created dominated Australian polling until the 1970s. Thanks to those and later polls, we possess a wealth of material about public views of relations with the US.

Post-war public opinion

Australia’s experience in World War II underscored the importance of the US to Australian security. While public opinion didn’t play a leading role in initiating the negotiations that led to the ANZUS Treaty, national sentiment about Australia’s position within the region was important in freeing the government to pursue a foreign policy shift away from Britain and towards the US.

That change resonated with the public. Three opinion polls conducted between 1944 and 1948 show increasing public concern about the possibility of a war with the Soviet Union within the next 25 years (Table 1). In 1944, the view that there would be war was held by 42% of the survey respondents, increasing to 67% by 1948. Interestingly, the proportion who didn’t have a view on the topic declined from almost a quarter of the respondents in 1944 to just 4% in 1948. This reflected the increasing frequency of public debate about the potential threats that were emerging in the region.

Public concern about the Soviet Union’s military intentions, as well as unease over the possibility of resurgent Japanese militarism, was accompanied by widespread dissatisfaction with the UN.

Table 1: Likelihood of another world war, 1944 to 1948 (%)

	1944	1946	1948
Will be war	42	62	67
Will not be war	34	18	29
Undecided	24	20	4

The public was therefore very receptive to the idea of a security treaty with the US. A survey question in June 1950—shortly before the North Koreans invaded South Korea—asked about a possible treaty. The survey showed that an overwhelming majority of the respondents—87%— supported Australia signing such a treaty, and just 7% opposed it (Table 2).

Table 2: Attitudes towards a treaty with the US, 1950 (%)

Attitude	%
Favour	87
Oppose	7
Undecided	6

Public support for the ANZUS Treaty

What’s the level of public support for the ANZUS Treaty today? Since the early 1990s, when the question was first asked in an opinion survey, a large majority of the public has viewed the treaty as important for protecting Australia’s security. Between eight and nine out of every 10 respondents have seen the treaty as either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ important to Australia’s security, with peaks of support in 2001, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, and in 2009 (Figure 1). The lowest levels of public support were recorded in 1993, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in 2019, during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Figure 1: Support for the ANZUS alliance, 1993 to 2019 (%)

‘How important do you think the Australian alliance with the United States under the ANZUS Treaty is for protecting Australia’s security?’

Sources: Australian Election Study; Survey of Defence Issues; ANUpoll.

Does the public have confidence in the US to meet its treaty obligations if it’s asked to? The extent to which the Australian public has trust in the US to defend Australia if we were attacked shows that the public has greatest confidence when the US has demonstrated a willingness to engage in overseas conflicts and play a major role in world affairs. Consequently, there was greatest trust immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when the US committed to the invasion of Afghanistan and then to the invasion of Iraq.

The trends also show several periods when trust in the US declined. The lowest level of trust occurred in 2000, just before 9/11 (Figure 2). That momentary decline may have been partly a public response to the US ruling out direct military involvement in the 1999 East Timor crisis.

The lower levels of trust in the mid-2000s also reflected the unpopularity of the free trade agreement with the US, ratified in 2004. The election of Trump and its full implications for US military involvement around the world were evident in 2019, when just 23% of respondents said they had ‘very great’ trust.

Figure 2: Trust in the US to defend Australia, 1971 to 2019

‘If Australia’s security were threatened by some other country, how much trust do you feel Australia can have in the United States to come to Australia’s defence?’

Sources: US Information Service; Australian Election Study; Survey of Defence Issues (question wording varied slightly).

The future of the ANZUS Treaty

While the ANZUS Treaty attracts widespread public support, social changes are one mechanism by which that support could erode. One source of change is generational and, as those who have personal experience of World War II and its aftermath leave the electorate, overall public support for the treaty may decline. A second source is immigration: as the ethnic composition of the population changes, that may have implications for public support for the alliance.

Analysis of the surveys suggests that, while age is a factor in support for ANZUS, its effect is less generation-than age-related. The passing of the World War II and immediate postwar generations wouldn’t appear to represent an existential threat to ANZUS. By contrast, being born overseas significantly reduces support for ANZUS, most notably from those born in Asia and Northern Europe. It would appear that large-scale immigration, particularly from within our region, is indeed changing overall support for the alliance, albeit gradually.

Much more important than immigration, however, is political leadership. This underpins the importance of elite consensus on the alliance. Calls to subject ANZUS, and the force deployments that arise from it, to greater public scrutiny and debate are opposed by political leaders for that very reason. For ANZUS to continue to attract widespread public support, politicians must resist turning it into a partisan battleground.

Conclusion

Australian public attitudes to the US–Australia alliance have been strongly consistent; even at times when the polls have reflected some concern or doubt about the role of the US in the region or, more broadly, in world affairs, the public has continued to express high levels of support for the alliance. As a result, while the election of Trump had a tangible effect on Australian public opinion of the US as a world leader, the changes observed in the surveys start from a high base when a large majority had an optimistic view of US relations, making the observed decline relative.

That observation is further strengthened when considering support for ANZUS over the full period for which polling data on these issues is available.2 Where there were observable changes over that time, they have been in the degree of support for the alliance. Respondents have shifted between ‘very important’ and ‘fairly important’ in their responses, rather than moving in the direction of seeing the alliance as unimportant. Moreover, the trends show that those taking a strong position in favour of ANZUS are proportionately greater than those who take a strong stance against it.

The elite, bipartisan consensus that we witness in Australian politics over the centrality of the US alliance to Australian foreign policy is both reflected and reinforced in the stable and continuing support the public has for this security relationship.

This article draws on Chapter 3 of Danielle Chubb and Ian McAllister, Australian public opinion, defence and foreign policy: attitudes and trends since 1945, Palgrave, London, 2020, where more details about the sources used are provided.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

Amid the debate last week over the merits of travelling to Washington for the annual AUSMIN talks and donning face masks during a global pandemic, the defence and foreign ministers of Australia and the United States delivered a direct and persuasive joint statement.

Predictably, Covid-19 features prominently. The geographical focus on the alliance moving squarely back to the Indo-Pacific is at the forefront. The boilerplate statements on strengthening alliances and cooperation with other states, and the region being ‘rules-based’, ‘stable’, ‘prosperous’ and ‘inclusive’, are all there. The key issues of China, economic coercion, cyber threats, the Pacific islands, the women, peace and security agenda, and critical minerals were highlighted.

In the vein of always keeping your audience wanting more, we were teased with the announcement of the ‘Statement of principles on alliance defense cooperation and force posture priorities in the Indo-Pacific’. We then were denied an appreciation of the document’s potential importance by its classified status.

But what’s often just as important is what’s left out or not said. While an AUSMIN statement can’t cover everything in the bilateral relationship, it should shine a light on both immediate concerns and the medium- to long-term agendas.

What was glaringly absent was climate change—both as a potential driver for security issues in the Indo-Pacific and in its broader role as a global geopolitical challenge. Other than rare earths, trade and investment were also underdone, with the main focus being in the context of the Covid-19 crisis. These core areas are especially important as the geopolitical environment provides a new set of concerns for the US–Australia bilateral relationship.

This means that modernising while continuing to strengthen the alliance is more important than ever.

Over the decades, the alliance has proven itself to be incredibly adaptive. Each new generation of Americans and Australians facing changing circumstances need to question their engagement and discuss how they will shape the relationship. In addressing this challenge, the Perth USAsia Centre, in partnership with the Griffith Asia Institute, La Trobe Asia and the National Security College, ran a series of workshops in 2019–20 with ‘next-generation leaders’ in the US–Australia alliance. Forty-six young professionals and graduate students participated in workshops in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and Canberra.

The outcome of this program is a report in which the emerging leaders chart out a series of recommendations for the alliance. It is a window into how young Australians view the future.

The single biggest feature is their focus on investment—economic, intellectual and research—to reshape the traditional alliance. These range from a joint space innovation centre, to youth-led research and development, diversification of trade through an economic ‘step-up’ with Southeast Asia, and a joint workforce for developing clean energy and responding to climate change in the Pacific islands.

While these young people have an appreciation for the traditional security relationship, they also conceptualise the alliance in terms of new frontiers of strategic cooperation. These broadly fall into two categories.

The first is leveraging the alliance for pursuing shared geopolitical interests in the Indo-Pacific, which was also evident in the AUSMIN statement. The young leaders’ report highlights the new importance of the Pacific islands, including an analysis of Australia’s whole-of-government efforts in the region as the new diplomatic battleground of major-power relations between China and the US. However, as the report highlights, and the AUSMIN statement overlooks, engagement must take place on the terms of Pacific island states rather than on our terms. It is ‘time to listen up, not just step up, in the Pacific’, especially on the humanitarian and environmental aspects of security concerns.

The second is the opportunity to leverage the alliance to advance shared interests in overcoming non-traditional security threats—such as climate change and energy—as well as cooperating in the creation of new values and norms in non-traditional areas such as space. Again, these recommendations are not in the AUSMIN statement, yet are a significant opportunity for bilateral cooperation between Australia and the US.

This means young people are taking a long-term view of the alliance and how it might be leveraged to solve complex regional and global challenges. As they navigate the road ahead, they are searching for innovative policy solutions for traditional security threats that intersect with non-traditional concerns such as global pandemics, cybersecurity and a changing climate.

Last week’s AUSMIN took place at a critical juncture, highlighting significant and unprecedented challenges that the next generation of custodians of Australia’s most important bilateral partnership face. This is an opportunity to leverage the strength of the existing US–Australia relationship, while modernising it in ways that strengthen and build on non-security foundations so that it continues to be relevant in the decades ahead.

Charles Edel and John Lee’s comprehensive report, The future of the US–Australia alliance in an era of great power competition, exposes evident gaps in the way both Australia and the US think about European engagement in the Indo-Pacific.

The report, published in June by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, is an erudite analysis of the challenges and opportunities ahead for the US–Australia alliance as each country navigates its increasingly complex relationship with a rising China in the region. The authors delve into areas of convergence between the US and Australia, illustrate divergent perspectives within the alliance on the China question, and make an effort to ‘bridge’ the gap. But, surely, any serious attempt to put the US and Australia on the path ‘to recapitalising their alliance and modelling how to revitalise other alliances in the region’ requires engagement from the outset with the European Union.

The region is of critical strategic significance to the EU, and yet the report is devoid of any mention of the EU or of European undertakings in the Indo-Pacific. The EU’s 2016 Global Europe strategy illustrates the centrality of the region to Brussels’ overall global security outlook. The 2018 strategy focuses at length on the EU concept of a ‘connected Asia’:

There is a direct connection between European prosperity and Asian security. In light of the economic weight that Asia represents for the EU—and vice versa—peace and stability in Asia are a prerequisite for our prosperity. We will deepen economic diplomacy and scale up our security role in Asia.

Given its references to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific and the primacy of international law, the report could have engaged with various EU strategies that are geared towards protecting such concepts in the region. Europe’s commitment to upholding international law and norms, as well as human rights, overlaps with the security issues at play in the region.

Obvious examples include the South China Sea and concerns about climate change and increased congestion in the Strait of Malacca. On the basis of these mutual security interests, the US–Australia alliance has plenty of room for engagement with the EU when it comes to the Indo-Pacific.

Economics is a significant driver of the alliance’s interest in a stable and secure Indo-Pacific. The report indicates the need for the US and Australia to better coordinate their economic policies in the region. This is also an area of great interest to the EU. The EU is the world’s largest trading partner, and, as such, China is an indispensable market for Europe. The report discusses the policy imperative to diversify markets in the Indo-Pacific. While this may be a priority, it cannot be achieved in any real terms without engagement and collaboration with the EU.

In particular, the EU is interested in economic engagement with the developing economies and countries in the region. The alliance has a strong interest in fostering developing economies’ engagement with EU markets if not with the US or Australian economies, as opposed to potentially falling prey to China’s debt-for-asset loan arrangements.

The absence of the EU in the Australian and US Indo-Pacific strategic debate also speaks to a challenge Brussels has with communicating its strategic interests far beyond Europe. Similarly, the report picks up on the challenge more broadly for the US and Australia of delivering targeted and consistent messaging about the Indo-Pacific region.

It’s not only important for regional players to understand the strategic interests and positions of the US and Australia in the Indo-Pacific. It’s also crucial for engaged actors (like the EU) to know what the strategic priorities are. Clear messaging communicates expectations of all players in the region. How actors then respond is another matter entirely. Engaging the EU in a collaborative effort on strategic messaging should be a priority for the US and Australian alliance.

The report also recommends that the US and Australia explore new networks of alliances and partners to improve the region’s security outlook. Beyond the obvious potential of broader EU collaboration in this effort, the alliance could engage with individual EU states directly in the Indo-Pacific—such as France. France is wedded to the region and tabled a formal strategy for the Indo-Pacific in 2019.

That document, France and security in the Indo-Pacific, unpacks France’s strategic interests in the region—largely a result of its territory and population within the region. Interestingly, France’s Indo-Pacific strategy also covers Antarctic strategic concerns. Antarctica is an entire continent left out of Edel and Lee’s report, despite the Southern Ocean being linked to both the Indian and Pacific Oceans; the US and Australian stakes in the Antarctic Treaty System; and China’s increased activity in the south polar region.

Overall, ‘leadership’ appears to be the Indo-Pacific currency as we head into 2020. The report urges the US and Australia to do more to expand their leadership remit in the region. Yet, US-style hegemonic leadership is unlikely to be accepted in the region, and Australia still has to demonstrate that it can follow through and lead regionally. To overcome these hurdles, Washington and Canberra must invest in consensus-building beyond the alliance, communicate better with their partners, and develop Indo-Pacific initiatives that include the EU as a key stakeholder.

If we are truly returning to an era of great-power competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, it’s imperative for the US and Australia to engage more deeply with the EU. After all, Europe has weathered its fair share of great-power trials and tribulations throughout the centuries.

If the US and Australia are serious about securing the Indo-Pacific and upholding the rules-based global order in the region, it’s clear the alliance will need outside help. The EU is well placed, experienced and strategically intertwined in the Indo-Pacific. As an added bonus, the EU is like-minded. Given the sheer gravity of the traditional and non-traditional security challenges in the Indo-Pacific, it would be shrewd strategy for the alliance to share the load and foster deeper engagement with the EU.

Australia has long been ‘the lucky country’—basking in endless beaches, summer barbecues, democratic government, and mineral wealth. It’s also been lucky in terms of its strategic policy, able to ride the coat-tails of a global and regional order forged mainly along the Eurasian rimlands. That order ensured Australian security was largely achieved at a distance from its shores, and through a set of arrangements engaging other, stronger Western nations as principal players. True, that occasionally left Australian strategic thinkers stroking their chins and contemplating the relative attractions of ‘forward defence’ versus ‘continental defence’, but that was a luxury countries along the rimlands never had.

The recent joint presentation at the Australian National University by three former senior defence officials (Paul Dibb, Richard Brabin-Smith and Brendan Sargeant)—exploring the question of whether it’s time for a radical shift in Australian defence policy—highlights just how much the ground has shifted. Key assumptions underpinning Australia’s traditional strategic settings have been called into question by the simultaneous empowerment of a range of authoritarian challengers to the existing regional security architecture and the Trump administration’s faltering sense of commitment to that architecture. Strategic competition has moved beyond the rimlands.

So far, 2018 has been a difficult year in Australian strategic thinking. Government, in private, and analysts, more publicly, have begun to speculate on what Australia’s ‘Plan B’ might look like in the event that the ANZUS alliance suddenly becomes less reliable than it has been in the past. In previous years, it has been relatively common to depict the alliance as the central pillar of Australia’s security. Even the idea that Australia might pursue a policy of defence self-reliance typically turns upon an ADF enabled and supported by US high-technology kit, US intelligence, US training and exercising, and privileged access to US logistics stores in time of crisis.

So finding a viable Plan B involves some heavy lifting. Some, indeed, say there is no Plan B; others that Plan B is to find a way back to Plan A. I don’t think that’s entirely true, despite Canberra’s deep attachment to ANZUS. Peter Jennings’ list of 10 projects that an Australian government might pursue to strengthen its regional and national capabilities shows there are options for Australia even in a post-US Asia.

But Plan B has to be more than a muscled-up ADF, for the simple reason that strategic interests are broader than defence interests. A threat to a country’s homeland is typically the last threat to its security, not the first. We want a Plan B that gives us options at an earlier stage as security threats begin to develop.

In essence, that means we want a policy that looks upstream rather than just downstream. Looking upstream means we want to be shapers of our world and not just passive inheritors of a strategic order shaped by others. True, as Anthony Milner has cautioned, we need to be hard-headed in imagining the level of shaping we can do: Asian countries are not about to embark on a wave of alliance-building, either with Australia or each other. Indeed, the region is entering a period of unsettling strategic volatility as Asian great powers start to assume more prominent roles in a—shifting—regional order. Several Asian countries are enjoying a new-found capacity to do some shaping of their own.

Still, the principal guide to Australia’s shaping efforts should be our own strategic objectives. Despite the current disorder in global and regional affairs, those haven’t changed. What Australians want today is the same thing we have wanted for decades: a secure, liberal, prosperous Australia in a secure, liberal, prosperous world.

Our dominant mechanism for pursuing that goal has been maintaining a close strategic partnership with the dominant Western maritime power of the day. But we need to face facts: the coming world is one where Western clout will be felt less. So we will need to be more strategically promiscuous in finding partners for the future, even while admitting to ourselves that the level of overlapping shared interests might not be as great as was the case with ANZUS.

How should we prioritise those overlapping interests? Well, each of the three adjectives in our strategic goal—secure, liberal, prosperous—is important to us. A secure Australia is one where we don’t live under the coercive shadow of a great regional power. A liberal Australia is one where we take the core tenets of democracy and human rights as articles of faith. A prosperous Australia is one where its people aren’t obliged to live in sackcloth and ashes. Moreover, we want to see a world where similar aspirations enjoy widespread support in other countries.

Because all three adjectives are important, our strategic loyalty does not automatically default to whichever great power promises us affluence.

So, yes, we should be thinking about our strategic future. A stronger defence force is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for achieving the sort of world we want. Partnerships have in the past been central to our strategic success. They will remain so as we go forward. But they must be partnerships we have chosen because they contribute to our objectives. Statecraft will be key here, not just military force.

Today, ASPI released our report on Time to start worrying again? Cross-strait stability after the 2016 Taiwanese elections (PDF). It argues that the Australian government would be well-advised to pay greater attention to the emerging cross-Strait strategic situation, following Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections on 16 January 2016.

The Taiwan Strait has long been one of the key flash points in the Asia–Pacific which could trigger a military escalation between China, Taiwan, the United States and (quite possibly) Japan because of the Republic of China’s (ROC) unresolved status. During the administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, cross-Strait relations experienced eight years of stability as well as improved political and economic ties. As a result, some analysts believe that the possibility of a military escalation between mainland China and Taiwan is now extremely remote. However, the Taiwanese elections resulted in the control of the legislature to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and Ma’s China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) losing the presidency to the pro-independence DPP candidate, Tsai Ying-wen.

Is it time to ‘start worrying about Taiwan again’ as defence strategist Hugh White has warned? And what are the strategic implications for regional security and Australia?

Our report argues that the election did indeed mark a watershed in Taiwan’s political evolution and will require significant adjustments in Taipei and Beijing to maintain cross-Strait peace and stability. To a substantial extent, the election was a vote against the KMT’s pro-China policies. But more deeply, it reflects a fundamental shift in Taiwanese political attitudes and is consistent with a generational shift among Taiwanese voters who have little or no cultural affinity with the mainland. This shift is likely to change the balance of power within Taiwan and will make it difficult for any future party to advocate policies seen as too China-friendly and as undermining Taiwan’s idiosyncratic identity and democracy. It also means that China’s goal of peaceful unification on its terms (that is, the reintegration of the ‘renegade province’ run by ‘separatists’) becomes a distant prospect. Since China’s strategy rests on the expectation that Taiwan must become part of the mainland, both sides will need to find a new modus vivendi.

How likely is such an outcome? We assess that Tsai’s victory won’t automatically lead to greater instability in cross-strait relations. Both sides have a lot to lose from escalating tensions and even an outbreak of war. And there are indications that Taipei and Beijing are trying to carefully navigate through this uncharted post-election period. However, we also caution against too much optimism. Renewed cross-Strait tensions remain a real possibility. Under President Xi Jinping, China has demonstrated a rather uncompromising approach to territorial disputes and the status of Taiwan is a declared ‘core interest’ of Beijing. As well, China continues to change the cross-Strait military balance in its favour, potentially inviting miscalculations and instability. Taiwan is also likely to become more important in the context of growing Sino–US strategic competition and America’s ‘rebalance’ to Asia.

The Taiwan Strait will thus remain dangerous, and Canberra needs to pay closer attention to the evolving cross-Strait situation. Of crucial importance is the question of whether Australia should support its US ally in a future Taiwan contingency. Naturally, Australian politicians prefer to avoid this decision. As former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and ex-Defence Minister David Johnston stressed in the past, the ANZUS treaty wouldn’t commit Australia to support the US in a Taiwan scenario. Technically speaking that’s correct as the treaty doesn’t oblige Canberra to automatically support Washington in any conflict. The decision for or against participation remains fundamentally political.

However, we believe in the case of an unprovoked Chinese attack on Taiwan and subsequent US involvement, it would be difficult for Australia not to be involved. Washington would certainly look to Canberra for support and in a more contested Asia–Pacific strategic environment the alliance isn’t à la carte where Australia can pick and choose its engagement. As Paul Dibb has established, staying out of such a conflict would significantly damage our alliance with the US. As well, the outcome of a conflict over Taiwan would fundamentally define the future shape of regional security in Asia and thus directly affect Australia’s strategic interests.

As a result, the Taiwan issue should be placed high on the ANZUS agenda. A comprehensive dialogue between Canberra and Washington would be an important instrument to avoid a future ‘expectation gap’ between the two allies. The assumption that in the event of conflict, leaders of both countries would just pick up the phone to agree on a joint strategy could prove problematic, as the stakes across the Taiwan Strait have increased significantly. As well, Australia should acknowledge Taiwan’s potentially constructive role in regional maritime territorial disputes. Finally, Canberra should proactively take steps to enhance Taiwan’s regional political and economic integration as a means to contribute to long-term cross-Strait stability.