It’s Still the Neighbourhood, Stupid

Threats to Australian security in the post-Iraq period

A Labor response to the 2003 Foreign Policy White Paper



Kevin Rudd, MP

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs



An address to the European Australian Business Council



Friday 14 February 2003

Sydney





Please note: Embargoed until 1pm

A White Paper must do three things.

It must define our objectives. It must describe the terrain within which those  objectives are to be realised. And it must detail the policies by which  objectives are to be achieved - given the opportunities and constraints  presented by the terrain.

A Foreign Policy White Paper is no different. It must define our national  objectives. It must describe the rapidly changing global and regional  environment in which we operate. And it must detail the policies and  programs to be implemented if we are to secure our future in a competitive  and increasingly combative world.

So how does the Government’s Foreign Policy White Paper measure up  against these three basic tests? My judgement is as follows:

On the definition of objectives it is fair.

On the description of the terrain it is flawed.

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And the on the delineation of policy and programs it is just plain fatuous.

I say these things not out of acrid oppositional politics. But rather as a result  of sober analysis of our national security circumstances - both now and in  what can broadly be described as the post-Iraq period.

My argument is simple: Australia faces greater threats to our security in our  own region, our own neighbourhood and our own backyard than at any time  since World War II; that this Government’s foreign policy is compounding  rather than ameliorating those threats; and that in the post-Iraq period, these  threats will be compounded further - particularly in Islamic South East Asia.



Defining Objectives

So how does the White Paper define Australia’s foreign policy objectives?

The opening sentence of the White Paper states “the purpose of Australian  foreign and trade policy is to advance the national interest - the security and  prosperity of Australia and Australians”.

As I said before, this is a fair description of the core tasks of an effective  foreign policy: maximising national security and maximising national  economic prosperity. A fair definition. But nonetheless an incomplete one.

Because for Labor, we also have a vision for our place in the world that  doesn’t simply stop dead at the narrowest definition of national self-interest.  We also believe that a civilised country also has about it an aspiration to  create an international order that is just and secure - even if such an  international order is of no particular benefit to our more immediate and  narrowly cast national interest.

National security is non negotiable. Without it there can be nothing else.  Without it there can be no prosperity. Security is foundational to everything  else that Governmetn seeks to construct for its citizens.

National economic prosperity must be our second objective. For without  prosperity, there can be no hope of a just society. Poverty is never ennobling -  irrespective of whether that poverty is national or individual.

But Labor from the beginning has also argued a third objective: namely the  enhancement of the international order. This is partly driven by self-interest.  There is nothing wrong with that. But it is also driven by a view that a just  and secure international order is valid in its own terms. If we are concerned  about poverty and insecurity among our own people, it follows that we must

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have concern for poverty and insecurity wherever we find it. Although we  will always be constrained by the resources of a smallish state.

Labor, therefore, believes in a secure Australia; a competitive Australia and a  compassionate Australia. For Labor, these objectives are as valid for our  domestic policy as they are for our foreign policy.

They are both realist and idealist. We believe that both these traditions are  alive in the Australian character. And certainly both are alive in the character  of the Australian Labor Party.





The Foreign Policy Environment

The greatest failing, however, of the White Paper is its description of the  regional and global environment in which we now find ourselves.

Leave aside the fact that we are now confronting a revolution in US foreign  policy and US military policy in the post-September 11 world.

Leave aside also the rolling impact of economic globalisation - although it is  less newsworthy this decade than it was in the last.

Leave aside also the analysis of the third, great global dynamic this is  redefining the strategic and economic environment in which we will have to  make our future - namely the rise of China.

The immediate and near-term analytical deficiencies of the White Paper are its  presentation of the immediate threats to Australian security in our own  region, our own neighbourhood and our own backyard.

The nuclear threat from North Korea, the al Qaeda threat through South East  Asia, the destabilisation of East Timor, the rolling implosion of domestic  security across Melanesia, not to mention the holes in our homeland security.  These collectively represent the most fundamental of challenges in our  present-day national security circumstances.

There is a tendency (arguably a strategic intention) in the White Paper to  downplay the magnitude of the problem.

In fact, there is nothing much more than a “business as usual” approach to the  new challenges we face.

Our view is that it is not business as usual because this country now finds  itself exposed in a way we haven’t known for more that a half a century.

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In North Korea we face a regime which in the space of three months has  confirmed the continuation of its nuclear weapons program; withdrawn from  its membership of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; expelled the inspectors of the  International Atomic Energy Agency; renounced its moratorium on testing its  long-range missiles (including missiles that can reach northern Australia); and  now North Korea threatens to attack US forces in South Korea.

George Tenet, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, confirmed in  testimony to the US Senate only yesterday that North Korea currently  possesses sufficient plutonium to have developed between one and two  nuclear devices and now has the capacity rapidly to add to that number.

Yet despite all this, Defence Minister Robert Hill tells us that North Korea  does not represent any direct threat to Australian national security.

North Korea today is arguably exhibiting more bellicose behaviour than at  any time since the cease-fire in 1953.

And North Korean bellicosity has the capacity to fundamentally impact the  security and prosperity of our friends and partners in North East Asia -  principally South Korea, Japan and China.

None of this urgency, however, is reflected in the text of the Government’s  White Paper.

The same could be said for the terrorism threat in South East Asia.

Nowhere does the White Paper own up to the fact that when Australia  committed to a military campaign to eliminate al Qaeda from Afghanistan,  Australia simultaneously exposed itself to al Qaeda’s second largest  operational base outside of Afghanistan/Pakistan - namely South East Asia.

Australia (and Australians) are the single largest western presence in South  East Asia. In the 12 months before Bali, 860,000 Australians are recorded by  the ABS as having registered South East Asia as a principal destination for  travel.

There is little analysis in the White Paper of the extensive network that the al  Qaeda network (and its associated terrorist organisations such as Jemaah  Islamiah) have established across South East Asia over the last decade.

These are well documented in recent academic studies by Zachary Abuza, as  well as the International Crisis Group. Yet little of the gravitas of these reports  is reflected in the White Paper.

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Page 17 of the White Paper blithely informs us that “al Qaeda retains much of  its capability, funding and determination, despite setbacks in Afghanistan  and elsewhere. In the past, an estimated 12,000 people, not all of them al  Qaeda members, received some terrorist training in Afghanistan”.

But what the White Paper does not go onto say is that beyond  Afghanistan/Pakistan, Islamic South East Asia has become such a significant  operational base for the organisation directly responsible for Bali.

Australia is arguably the most exposed western country on the planet to  Islamic terrorism.

We are 19 million people lying adjacent the world’s largest Islamic country.

Within that country, Wahabism has made inroads into mainstream Indonesia  Islam. And, of course, it is not just in Indonesia. The academic reports dwell  extensively with the al Qaeda network in Malaysia, the Philippines and  elsewhere.

There is almost an unreality in the Austrlaian political debate about the  dimensions of the emerging threat to Australians and Australian national  interests in this region from militant Islam. The foreign policy of this country  is often conducted as if we were just another normal, western country. That  we are just like Britain. Or even the United States.

The reality is that our geo-strategic circumstances are so radically different as  to require a different set of strategic priorities.

Elsewhere within the region, security challenges are equally real.

In East Timor, we see the first signs of substantial incursions by militia units  seeking to destabilise a fledgling democracy.

Elsewhere in Melanesia, the breakdown of law and order has accelerated,  transnational crime has ballooned, just as “soft” security threats (eg AIDs)  begin to threaten the indigenous and other populations of his country.

Add to all of the above the absence of adequate airport security - and the  picture that emerges of the national security front is scarcely one of “business  as usual”.





Security threats in the post-Iraq period

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What I’ve just described is the spectrum of the threat environment that  Australia confronts at present. In the period ahead, this is likely to become  worse. Particularly in the post-Iraq period.

It is on this point that the Foreign Policy White Paper is inexcusably silent.

Australia’s prospective military participation in a military action against Iraq  not sanctioned by the UN Security Council does not occur in a vacuum.

Australia has become the object of terrorist attention over some years now.

It began with East Timor. It should be noted that Australia’s military  intervention in East Timor, the removal of Indonesia armed forces and the  successful conclusion of a UN-sponsored ballot on East Timor’s independence  provided the grounds for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to first target  Australia.

That doesn’t mean that Australia should not have embarked upon the East  Timorean enterprise. The policy was correct. And Labor supported it on a  bipartisan basis.

But we should never pretend that that decision was without cost. The costs  should be acknowledged - not ignored.

And part of the cost was the alienation of parts of the Islamic community in  Indonesia and elsewhere in South East Asia. The East Timor action began to  create a recruiting base for radical and militant Islam within the region. That  is a simple fact.

Following East Timor, the Prime Minister’s proclamation of the so-called  Howard Doctrine (that is, Australia acting as the Deputy Sheriff of the United  States in South East Asia) compounded our difficulties with regional Islamic  constituencies. Australia increasingly was seen to be nothing more than the  tool of the United States in the region. And the language of the Deputy Sheriff  played directly to the script.

Then came September 11, al Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghanistan. As with  East Timor, Australia was right to militarily engage. And once again, the  Government’s actions enjoyed Labor Party support.

But the absolute failure of the Government was not to inform the Australian  people of the likely consequences to their security of Australia taking an  active part in the campaign to destroy al Qaeda in its base. From that point  on, Australians in South East Asia, where al Qaeda had for more than a  decade established an extensive network, faced unprecedented risks. Just as  they continue to face them today.

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To this cocktail we add the Prime Minister’s most recent addition to  international relations and strategic theory - the second Howard Doctrine on  regional military pre-emption.

The Prime Minister blurted this out in the course of an interview with Laurie  Oakes last December. It was hoped by all and sundry, the Foreign Minister  included, that the Prime Minister would take the opportunity in Parliament to  clarify precisely what he meant.

No one seriously believes John Howard intended to announce such a bizarre  doctrine in a Sunday morning television interview. But he did. Even worse,  when presented with the opportunity to correct the record in Parliament, he  declined.

As with other actions before it, this particular announcement received  saturation coverage in regional and local newspapers across Islamic South  East Asia. It was a message that reached beyond the elites of the capital. It  permeated the cities and towns and villages of the region.

Just as before, the Prime Minister’s statement compounded the view of  Australia as an arrogant, crusader country intent on aggression against its  Islamic neighbours.

The potential recruiting base for Wahabism was expanded yet again.

It is against this background that the current debate on Australian policy on  Iraq takes place.

We cannot see this debate in a vacuum. It occurs after a period of several  years in which Australia moved from simply being marginal to the targeting  priorities of Islamic terrorist organisations to being significant - to the point of  almost becoming pre-imminent, at least within the region.

Under the Howard Government, Australia has moved from being about  “2”on the Richter Scale of regional terrorist priorities to about “7”. Some of  the factors causing this have been unavoidable (ie Timor and Afghanistan).  Others have been entirely avoidable (ie the first and second Howard  Doctrine).

Of the latter, the least forgivable was the statement on regional military pre-emption which of itself caused Australians in South East Asia to become  much more of a target than they otherwise needed to be.

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Australia’s vulnerability to terrorism in South East Asia underlines the  importance of Australia obtaining a UN Security Council mandate before  Australian military participation in an action against Iraq.

As with the Gulf War of 1991, it is important for the Islamic world to see that  it is the international community that is resolved to take action - of whatever  type - against Iraq. The “Coalition of the Willing” in 1991 included a  significant number of Islamic countries.

The same must occur in 2003 - even more so given the significant expansion  of the Islamic terrorist network in South East Asia in the intervening decade.  If Australia ends up of being one of only several Anglo-Saxon (or  predominantly European) countries contributing combat forces in a military  action against Iraq, we are deluding ourselves if we do not think this will  have an impact on the level of terrorist profiling of Australia and Australians.  This week in Parliament, the Government conspicuously avoided answering  specific Opposition questions on this point.

In the aftermath of the Afghanistan engagement, this Opposition will not be  silent in forcing this Government to tell the Australian people directly what  impact their Iraq will have on security. If the nation is about to embark upon  an Iraq campaign without the UN, let it do so with its eyes wide open.

On Iraq, therefore, our policy must be driven by international law and our  commitment for over half a century to the role of the United Nations Security  Council.

But our policy must be equally mindful of its regional consequences, where  Wahabism may once again be the beneficiary - in addition to the Islamic  terrorist organisations for which it provides such a significant recruiting base.





Reconstruction of Iraq

The political and economic reconstruction of Iraq following the military  removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime will also shape the future direction of  Islamic politics.

The debate has barely begun as to what form of political structure should be  established in Iraq in the aftermath of a military conflict.

How should Iraq’s ethnic minorities be accommodated? How could its  profound religious differences be accommodated? How could Iraq be  “democratised’?

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And in the interim, who should administer Iraq, the US, the UN or a  combination of the above?

These are critical questions that will not only shape the future of Iraqi and  broader Middle Eastern politics - but also the future shape of political Islam  more broadly.

A related question is how will the economic reconstruction of Iraq be funded.  How will the economy be managed? How will the immediate humanitarian  impact of a war be funded, implemented and executed?

The UN estimates that in the event of a war there will be up to 100,000  civilians casualties; between 4.2-7.2million internally displaced persons and  up to 900,000 refugees.

This is the task which the international community has barely begun to  engage. On 5 December last year, the United Nations Office of the  Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs launched its initial appeal for donor  countries to contribute to an international fund of about US $ 37 million to  cover the upfront humanitarian cost of conflict during the first week. As of  the end of January, not a single dollar had been contributed to this fund. And  nothing from Australia.

Then there is the question of refugees. I’ve already referred to the UN’s  conclusions on this question. What will the resettlement countries operating  under the UNHCR decide amongst themselves as an appropriate quota of  Iraqi refugees to be received into the country following the conclusion of a  war - assuming continued political uncertainties made the return of refugees  impossible.

There is a question for Australia to be answered in each of the above. What is  our view on the appropriate form of the political administration of a post-war  Iraq? What should our contribution be? How should we influence the  contributions of others in the reconstruction of Iraq? And as how much do we  propose to spend on a humanitarian effort to save as many human lives as  possible in the event of war? Labor intends to lead this debate. Just as we lead  it in this country over the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan. And just as  we will lead it again on the economic reconstruction of East Timor once the  Government loses interest - for which there is already an emerging body of  evidence.

These have never been areas of great interest to our conservative political  opponents. By contrast, they form a rich part of Labor’s foreign policy  tradition - what Gareth Evans rightly described as “good international  citizenship”. For Australia, however, it is good international citizenship

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reinforced with an acute interest in how the future of other Middle Eastern  and broader Islamic politics will be shaped.

For this, in turn, will shape the politics and security of our immediate region  as well.



Foreign Policy Implementation

I said at the beginning that an effective Foreign Policy White Paper defines  our foreign policy objectives; describes the policy environment in which we  must operate; and details the policies and programs that need to be  implemented.

It is against this latter measure that the 2003 Foreign Policy White Paper is not  just flawed - but completely fatuous. On the unprecedented security threats  that Australia now faces within our region, the White Paper is silent on any  new proposal to deal with these threats.

On North Korea, the White Paper talks of more “dialogue” with other  “concerned” countries in the region. Labor has argued for some time that  Australia should have acted to internationalise the North Korean nuclear  crisis by bringing it to the United Nations. By bringing it to the United  Nations Security Council (it now appears that the IAEA will do that on its  own accord) we engage those best placed to assist it in bring about change.  Such an action will require both China and the Russian Federation (each of  which have their own leverage with the DPRK regime) to engage this  challenge directly - rather than simply leaving it to the United States.

Beyond the UN, Labor has also called for some months for Foreign Minister  Downer to convene a regional meeting of APEC Foreign Ministers in order to  determine an agreed regional diplomatic strategy for leveraging Pyongyang.

And beyond all that again, because of the immediacy of Australia’s strategic  interests in this matter, Mr Downer, as Foreign Minister of one of the few  western countries with full diplomatic relations with the DPRK, should have  visited Pyongyang himself - rather than send a delegation of three public  servants for that purpose.

On the terrorist threat in South East Asia, Labor has proposed a regional  summit on terrorism.

This was a cogent proposal in the immediate aftermath of Bali. The Prime  Minister at that stage undertook to examine it. He has done nothing about it  since.

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Part of the reason why he has done nothing about it is because of the regional  political impact of his December declaration of the new Howard Doctrine on  regional military pre-emption. It was at that time that diplomatic protests  were made from Jakarta, Manila and Kuala Lumpur. The Philippines stated  that it would suspend its negotiations with Australia on a counter-terrorism  agreement. Whereas Malaysia indicated that it might suspend cooperation of  the basis the agreement it had already negotiated.

The bottom line is that dealing with terrorism on the ground in South East  Asia will require intensive cooperative efforts with regional governments and  security forces. Whatever the delusions of the Prime Minister, Australia  cannot act unilaterally.

As for East Timor and the South West Pacific, once again we have silence  from the Government in terms of detailed practical policies. We have seen  nothing but inertia from the Government on the question of the ratification of  the agreement between Australia and East Timor on gas - inertia that creates  problems not just for East Timor but also for the Northern Territory and for  the companies concerned.

At present, the sub region fails to attract the Foreign Minister’s attention. And  we will all soon pay a very high price for a policy of sustained inertia - as the  impact of transnational crime is felt not just within the region but also  between the region and Australia.

Other regional policy initiatives must involve Radio Australia - which has  been emasculated under the conservative government - and on which the  Foreign Policy White Paper is virtually silent. Under Labor, short wave  transmission could be heard clearly across the South Pacific and all of South  East Asia. Now that is simply not the case.

This absence of regional policy is also reflected in the decision by the Howard  Government end funding for the teaching of Asian languages in Australian  schools. After eight years of implementing a 12-year program designed to  create a generation of Asian literate Australians, the Howard Government has  acted unilaterally to cease funding for it. The consequences will be borne by  the 750,000 Australian children currently in the school system currently  studying one or more of the principal languages of our region - now facing  the prospect of the termination of their studies.

The bottom line is that on policy, when it comes to the region, the Howard  Government simply doesn’t get it. It is a Government that continues to pay lip  service to a policy of comprehensive engagement with Asia. Just as it a  Government which pays lip service to Australia’s proper role as a member of  the United Nations - and the range of its constituent organisations.

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Conclusion

For Labor, Australia’s foreign policy and national security policy rests on  three pillars - our alliance with the United States which we helped shape in  1941 under Curtin; our membership of the United Nations which we helped  shape under Evatt in 1945; and our policy of comprehensive engagement with  Asia which was shaped under Whitlam and prosecuted under Hawke and  Keating.

As a matter of philosophical orientation, we differ fundamentally from the  conservatives who rely on one pillar and one pillar alone - that is, the alliance  with the United States. For Labor, the alliance is fundamental to our security  policy and our foreign policy. It is not, however, the totality of our security  policy and our foreign policy.

And therein, once again, lies the difference between the conservatives and  ourselves.

I’ve spoken today of foreign policy objectives. Of the foreign policy  environment in which we now operate and of the policies that are necessary  to work within that environment - particularly in relation to the  unprecedented security policy challenges we now confront. This is not the  end of this debate. It is barely the beginning.

There was a bipartisan consensus in this country on most aspects of foreign  policy and security policy. Regrettably that is no longer the case.

We would argue that that is not because we have moved. The Government  has moved. It has moved on Asia. It has moved on the UN. And it has moved  in a manner which potentially comprises our security interests in our own  region, our own neighbourhood and our own backyard.

Labor will take this debate further when next year we develop our own  Foreign Policy White Paper in the lead up to the next election - assuming this  term runs its full course.

Let the debate begin in earnest.

