Tag Archive for: Foreign policy white paper

Foreign policy white paper 2017: if the EU is vital, then …?

The 2017 foreign policy white paper declares that a ‘strong European Union (EU) remains vital to Australia’s interests and will be an increasingly important partner in protecting and promoting a rules-based international order’. But Europe faces serious internal and external problems, and it isn’t fanciful to suggest that in a decade or so the supranational EU might not look the same.

The EU’s domestic political scene has become uncertain and volatile. Internal contradictions in the EU model—exacerbated by the slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, mass unauthorised migration, and rising nationalism and nativism—have fostered political fragmentation and the failure of the traditional centre-right and centre-left parties in Europe.

Reactionary political forces were on full display in Poland recently as far-right nationalists, xenophobes and racists marched in their thousands. This was an extreme manifestation of the general political shift to the right in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Poland, and to a lesser extent in the rest of Europe. Europeans in general, not just right-wing or nationalist groups, have concerns about loss of sovereignty and the current structure and performance of the EU. The desire for a return of decision-making to national governments is strong. This unrest is fuelled by growing income inequality across the EU.

There’s significant variation in public opinion among the 28 EU member states on important issues. To see the EU simply as a single entity is misleading. Although recent surveys show slight improvements in public attitudes towards EU institutions, in nine European states a majority of the population don’t trust EU institutions. In five states, a majority have a negative view of globalisation, and over a third of all EU citizens perceive globalisation negatively. Politicians are acutely aware of these sentiments.

Although the white paper expresses an awareness that in Europe ‘doubts about openness to the world have grown, as have concerns about the effect of globalisation—mainly immigration—on cultural identity and social cohesion’, it also holds out the prospect of negotiating ‘an ambitious FTA with the European Union’.

Even without the problems outlined above, the history of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the persistence of a substantial core of an anti-free trade faction in the EU suggests that Australia shouldn’t approach the FTA negotiations with any Pollyanna-ish optimism. The European Court of Justice has ruled that any new trade agreement that goes beyond external tariff cuts, which is the case for all modern trade agreements, ‘must be ratified not only by the European Parliament, but also by all national—and some sub-national—parliaments across the EU (39 in total)’. That’s a very high bar.

As for external pressures, Russia continues to challenge the EU in a number of ways. By annexing the Crimean peninsula and encouraging ethnic Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated the EU’s and NATO’s impotence in defending Europe’s interests on its eastern borders. The incorporation of Crimea is irreversible without a major war, and the Donetsk People’s Republic proto-state is becoming a reality on the ground. The EU’s response to Russia is complicated by its reliance on Russian energy imports. Vulnerable eastern European nations with significant Russian minorities or that border Russia look on with anxiety.

A new triple entente involving Russia, Iran and Turkey is taking shape. From Murmansk on the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Oman, there’s a wall of illiberal or undemocratic nations on the EU’s eastern flank—Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Iran—with limited commitment to the current US-dominated rules-based international order. Turkey’s rapprochement and Iran’s cooperation with Russia are based on closely aligned and complementary interests in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf.

The end of the war against the ISIS caliphate is opening up new fault lines across the broader Middle East and encompassing the Levant and Asia Minor. Russia and the US are lining up with their clients, partners and allies in the struggle for dominance and influence. This is a struggle that EU members can’t ignore because of colonial history and geographic proximity. The dilemmas cut awkwardly across traditional loyalties and associations for the Europeans. As Saudi Arabia (with Israeli support) vies with Iran for regional supremacy, EU relations with Turkey continue to deteriorate over human rights, and differences persist with the US over the Iranian nuclear agreement.

So, although it’s not about to implode, the European Union confronts grave challenges and uncertainties. If the EU is indeed vital to Australia’s interests, then Europe’s overall trajectory should be of great concern to policymakers.

Foreign policy white paper 2017: Australia and the looming power shift

Australia’s latest foreign policy white paper is—like the geostrategic region it purports to describe—complex and challenging. White papers usually are, because they are the product of many hands. But in this case there are other drivers—disagreement over the policy settings that best promote Australia’s interests, plus a willingness to pursue multiple pathways in the hope of finding one that works. In this post I want to explore the different recommendations contained in the paper for how to manage the principal strategic challenge of the age, the looming power shift in the Indo-Pacific.

A graphical representation of that shift is given on page 26 of the white paper, in a chart which indicates projected economic growth for key regional countries out to 2030. For those convinced that China’s run is about to come to an end, the chart’s a timely reminder that Chinese growth still has considerable upside. Australia’s own economic fortunes seem puny by comparison. True, strategic weight isn’t just about GDP size. But nor is economic size irrelevant. The prime minister’s introduction underlines the seriousness of what’s unfolding across the broader region: we face a challenge ‘unprecedented’ in modern times.

So what is Australia proposing to do? Well, if the white paper offers any indication, we’re proposing simultaneously to strengthen the current rules-based order, nurture the ties of economic interdependence, act to support a favourable balance of power in the region, and promote national resilience both here at home and across our Pacific neighbours. That suite of policies is meant to be complementary rather than competitive, because they all pull in a common direction.

Let’s start with the rules-based order. Thankfully, that phrase doesn’t appear quite as frequently as it did in last year’s defence white paper, but the sentiment is still unmistakably there. Rules temper power. Australia, a middle-power country, doesn’t wish to see the region slide into a contest of mere power. Nor, it suspects, do most other regional countries that find themselves in the same boat. So there’s a residue of hope around the notion of a rules-governed Indo-Pacific; in particular, the hope that rising great powers—including China—will be willing to buy into a system of rules and norms that codifies and constrains their own behaviour.

That policy grafts naturally to one which runs in parallel to it: encouraging economic interdependence. Yes, the white paper contains a warning that such interdependence carries with it the risk of economic coercion. But the core belief is still that competing strategic rivalries are less likely to arise in an economically integrated Asia than they are in an economically disintegrated Asia (see page 4, for example). The problem, of course, is that with China pushing its One Belt, One Road, and the US withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, economic integration is starting to look both tatty and competitive. For Australia, a renewal of the regional commitment to open trade is a critical part of the strategic glue going forward. Indeed, the white paper even claims that ‘our economic and security interests are converging’, a statement better seen in this light than as an indicator of any impending switch of our strategic loyalties to match our trade balance.

The third policy setting—power balancing— is a large and important one. At page 27, the white paper reads:

In the decade ahead, Australia will seek security and prosperity in a region changing in profound ways. We are likely to face higher degrees of uncertainty and risk. We will need to be more active and determined in our efforts to help shape a regional balance favourable to our interests.

Some readers of the white paper might well have been taken by surprise by that paragraph. Certainly there’s little in the preceding pages to hint that Australia’s about to embark upon a strategy of power balancing. The idea doesn’t find its way into the five ‘objectives’ listed on page 3, for example. Moreover, the topic is bound to provoke debate—first, over whether it complements or contradicts an order-building strategy, and second, over how such power balancing is best done. After all, the quickest way to achieve a regional balance ‘favourable to our interests’ is either to partner more closely with the US or to pursue ‘game-changer’ options in relation to our own military capabilities. In the white paper, the phrase ‘supporting a regional balance favourable to our interests’ typically appears in relation to the ANZUS alliance and growing webs of security cooperation in Asia.

Finally, we come to the fourth policy setting: enhancing national resilience both in Australia and across the arc of comparatively vulnerable Pacific islands to our north. Of the four settings, this one is obviously the most defensive. It would have minimal effect on a shifting power balance in the region. Rather, it would be aimed at diluting the political effects within Australia and the Pacific islands of the growth of coercive power elsewhere. It’s a form of hardening the target, as it were, intended—in the prime minister’s words—to ‘reduce opportunities for coercion’.

All four policy approaches aim at a single end—a regional order more favourable to Australian interests. Although different, they actually show a degree of single-mindedness about Australian foreign policy that’s not been seen for many a year.