Australian foreign policy

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of regionalism and regional initiatives in the Southwest Pacific, driven primarily by the Australian government. There is little doubt that the new regionalism has largely been prompted by the Australian government's realigned security agenda following the September 11 and Bali terrorist attacks, and broader concerns about 'non-traditional' security risks. However, what is novel about this recent drive for regionalism in the Southwest Pacific is that rather than constituting a transformation of the interstate terrain, it is primarily aimed at the transformation of the state itself. The spaces where the new regionalism is found are mainly located within states. Earlier forms of regionalism, which to some extent continue to exist, typically involved intergovernmental agreements to facilitate freer trade or establish defence alliances between states. In contrast, the new regionalism constitutes various modes of multilevel governance that work to selectively dislodge the linkages between territory and political authority and/or jurisdiction, building transnational forms of regulation and surveillance into the state. This is not simply a descriptive issue but one that has considerable implications for our analysis of the social and political implications of such regional programs, as well as the kinds of coalitions emerging to support or resist these.

A number of recent events – especially attempts to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement and Australia’s participation in the conflict with Iraq – have thrown Australia’s relationship with the United States into sharp relief. While this relationship has historically enjoyed strong bilateral endorsement, this uncritical support is beginning to unravel. At the very least, the relationship is being subjected to a renewed, more critical scrutiny. This paper argues that a dispassionate analysis of the relationship is appropriate and overdue. Not only are the benefits that accrue to ‘Australia’ from the relationship debateable, even when judged within the limited calculus of the ‘national interest’, but Australia’s uncritical support for US foreign policy is also helping to entrench potentially damaging aspects of American foreign policy and – somewhat ironically – undermine the legitimacy of its pre-eminent ‘hegemonic’ position.

Australia’s diplomatic relations with Italy date back to the 1883 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Britain and the Italian Kingdom. This ‘Anglo-Italian Treaty’ was made in the spirit of liberal trade relations and in the context of economic imperialism. It encompassed Great Britain’s colonies and dominions, and was particularly relevant for the white settler societies of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Although a commercial treaty, its recognition of most-favoured nation status meant that Italians could hold equal status to that of British subjects in terms of reciprocal travel, residency and land-ownership rights. The history of the Treaty in Australia – in effect until Italy entered the Second World War in 1940 and only made defunct in 1947 – presents a series of diplomatic negotiations for withdrawal from and political scuffles over interpretations of the Treaty. More than a means towards independence from Britain, analysis of archival records shows that these dealings reflect Australia’s changing perceptions of Italian migrants, particularly in relation to Italian migrant workers in North Queensland. This chapter engages with the developments that punctuate the Treaty’s history with a focus on imperial ties with Great Britain and frictions between the Commonwealth and the state of Queensland.

Operations recounts the Australian peacekeeping missions that began between 1947 and 1982 and follows them through to 2006, which is the end point of this history. International relations in the period following the Second World War was dominated not only by the Cold War but also by the great movement of decolonisation. In 1945, almost a third of the world's population lived in non-self-governing regions. In many places the transition to independence led to conflict. Peacekeeping as we know it developed out of the need to help those involved reach peaceful settlements or at least to minimise the level of violence. The operations described in The Long Search for Peace-some long, some short; some successful, some not-represent a long period of learning and experimentation, and were a necessary apprenticeship for all that was to follow. Australia contributed peacekeepers to many major decolonisation efforts: for 35 years in Kashmir, 53 years in Cyprus, and more than 60 years in the Middle East, as well as shorter deployments in Indonesia, Korea and Rhodesia. This volume also describes some smaller-scale Australian missions in the Congo, West New Guinea, Yemen, Uganda and Lebanon. It brings to life Australia's long-term contribution not only to these operations but also to the very idea of peacekeeping. In The Long Search for Peace, Peter Londey, Rhys Crawley and David Horner weave a rich and compelling tapestry from official government files and personal narratives of peacekeeping veterans to present this authoritative account of the origins of Australian peacekeeping. Peter Londey has taught in Classics at the Australian National University and worked as a senior historian at the Australian War Memorial. At the Memorial he wrote the first history of Australian peacekeeping, Other People's Wars (2004).

Dealing with refugees is one of the most contested political issues in Australia. We examine how media images of asylum seekers have framed ensuing debates during two crucial periods over the past decade. By conducting a content analysis of newspaper front pages we demonstrate that asylum seekers have primarily been represented as medium or large groups and through a focus on
boats. We argue that this visual framing, and in particular the relative absence of images that depict individual asylum seekers with recognisable facial features, associates refugees not with a humanitarian challenge, but with threats to sovereignty and security. These dehumanising visual patterns reinforce a politics of fear that explains why refugees are publicly framed as people whose plight, dire as it is, nevertheless does not generate a compassionate political response.

The 1962 “Cuban Missile Crisis” is recognised as the Cold War episode that brought the world closest to nuclear catastrophe. Despite innumerable publications on the subject, only recently have scholars considered the global dimension of the Crisis. Using newly declassified government records, this paper examines Australia’s experience of the Crisis. The paper argues that Australia’s prompt, public expression of support for the US was intended to achieve two aims: first, to maintain Western solidarity to counter the threat of Communist expansionism; and second, to see the UN manage the Crisis as far as possible. Australian officials considered the US quarantine had no basis in international law, and were concerned it could negatively impact Australia’s ambition to host US nuclear weapons. However, such concerns were considered secondary to maintaining alliance unity. Although technological developments had ushered in an age of global nuclear vulnerability, and although the Australian Government was aware the Crisis might escalate into global war, it perceived no direct threat to its territory. This paper provides insight into nuclear-age alliance dynamics, and in particular, the strategies of non-nuclear armed states. It contributes to the growing international history of the Crisis.

This historical chapter investigates two examples of racist political consumerism in early-20th-century Australia. It found expression in a locally particular form as the ‘White Sugar’ campaign, which declared consumption of cane sugar a moral duty for everyone in support of White Australia. Meanwhile, the ‘Buy Australian-Made’ campaign called on Australian consumers to express their national pride by consuming locally manufactured products. Both campaigns drew on broader logics of commodity racism that, praising ‘white supremacy’ and subscribing to ideologies of national progress, welded together everyday culture with the political programme of the time and contributed to the emergence of an imagined racist community of consumers.

"On November 11, 1965 the colony of Southern Rhodesia unilaterally and illegally declared itself independent from Britain, the first and only time that this had happened since the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. After fifteen years of international ostracism, economic sanctions, and civil war Rhodesia finally walked the path to legal independence as the state of Zimbabwe in 1980. Interdisciplinary in its scope and international in its coverage, this book analyzes the weaknesses in Britain's Rhodesian policy in the 1960s and the strains that Rhodesia's UDI imposed on Britain's relations with the Commonwealth, the United States and the United Nations.

Advance praise for Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence: An International History

“Carl Peter Watts has written a comprehensive and definitive history of Rhodesia’s path of rebellion. His use of material from several archives has resulted in new knowledge and new nuances of understanding that transform our views of what happened in the last white colony of Africa.”—Stephen Chan, Professor of International Relations, School of Oriental and African Studies

“Carl Peter Watts has written a remarkably wide-ranging and lively analysis of the international repercussions of Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence in the mid-1960s. Drawing on archives from a number of countries and applying international relations theories as well as a sound historical grasp, he questions a number of assumptions about the crisis, arguing that UDI could have been avoided and that, once it took place, the British government could have ended it by using military force.”—John Young, Professor of International History, University of Nottingham

“By placing the Rhodesian crisis in a genuinely international perspective, Carl Peter Watts offers important new insights into one of the most intractable problems thrown up by the process of decolonization. This rigorously researched and thought-provoking study should be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why the issue proved so difficult to resolve.”—Philip Murphy, Professor and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London"

Abstract:
Restrictive border protection policies directed toward managing the flow of refugees coming into neoliberal democracies (and out of failing nation-states) are a defining feature of contemporary politics. In this book, Verónica Tello analyses how contemporary artists--such as Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Rosemary Laing, Dierk Schmidt, Hito Steyerl, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green--negotiate their diverse subject positions while addressing and taking part in the production of images associated with refugee experiences and histories. Tello argues that their practices, which manifest across a range of contexts including Cuba, the United States, Australia and Europe, represent an emergent, global paradigm of contemporary art, 'counter-memorial aesthetics'.

Counter-memorial aesthetics, Tello argues, is characterized by its conjunction of heterogeneous signifiers and voices of many times and places, generating an experimental, non-teleological approach to the construction of contemporary history, which also takes into account the complex, disorienting spatial affects of globalization. Spanning performance art, experimental 'history painting', aftermath photography and video installation, counter-memorial aesthetics bring to the fore, Tello argues, how contemporary refugee flows and related traumatic events critically challenge and conflict with many existing, tired if not also stubborn notions of national identity, borders, history and memory.

Building on the writings of such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, this book offers a useful concept of 'counter-memory' for the twenty-first century. It shows how counter-memorial aesthetics is not only central to the nexus of contemporary art and refugee histories but also how it can offer a way of being critically present with many other, often interrelated, global crises in the contemporary era.

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In recent years, a perception has emerged among many policymakers and commentators that the deepening of the People’s Republic of China engagement in the Pacific Islands Region, predominantly through its expanding foreign aid programme, threatens to undermine the existing regional order, in which Australia is dominant. In this article, it is argued that China’s apparent ‘charm offensive’ in the Pacific is mainly driven by commercial, not political, imperatives and is far more fragmented and incoherent than is often assumed. Hence, its (real) political effects hinge, not on any Chinese strategic designs for regional domination, or even a more limited resource security agenda, but on the intent and capacity of Pacific governments to harness deepening aid, investment and trade relations with China towards their own foreign and domestic policy objectives, which include limiting Australian interference in the internal governance processes of Pacific states. This argument is demonstrated by the case of Fiji after the December 2006 military coup.

Polar Regional politics and international relations. He has previously taught in Canada, China, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and has researched throughout the Arctic region, as well as on Antarctic politics and legal issues in Argentina, Australia and NZ. Lars Vargö is former Swedish Ambassador to Japan (2011-14) and South Korea (2006-11). He holds a Ph.D. in Japanese studies (history) from the University of Stockholm (1982). He graduated from Uppsala University 1972 with a major in sinology. In 1972-76 he was a repeat Mombusho scholar at Kyoto University. As a diplomat Vargö has returned to Japan four times, but has also served in Libya, Lithuania and the United States. 2001-2005 he served as Ambassador and Head of the International Department of the Swedish Parliament.

Security dynamics in Asia in the 21st century has been a widely discussed phenomenon. The rising power of China, its impact on neighboring countries and the international system, as well as its reception by the United States, have been of key importance to the development of security and international studies. As a result, this monograph analyzes the current security challenges in Asia in its broader i.e. Indo–Pacific meaning, aiming at capturing major shifts in the balance of power which involve regional actors. Through the lenses of IR theory, we have sought to provide insights into the consequences of the transition of power from the United States to China. By presenting case studies of regional security challenges from a multidimensional perspective, we analyze both the stages of the maturity of powers and their satisfaction within the existing system. Therefore we find it significant to discuss the role of regional actors who are hedging their bets between the United States and China, as well as different security dimensions and problems reshaping the regional architecture.

The purpose of this article is an in-depth analysis of the Australia's involvement in ANZUS since its foundation in 1951. The author scrutinizes perception of this military alliance in the Australian establishment throughout contemporary history, as well as understanding of its basic principles.

In the face of the current proliferation of existential threats – the risk of nuclear war, anthropogenic climate change, COVID-19, and (arguably) disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence – it is imperative that Australia embrace the notion of shared responsibility in international politics. Individual states have limited capacities to effectively tackle such large-scale, complex emergencies on their own. Highlighting the moral implications of the philosophical notion of joint action, this commentary makes the case for a particular type of responsibility, which can only be discharged when states deliberate and coordinate their actions. Moreover, it explores what this notion of shared responsibility means for Australia – and its international relationships – with respect to responding to climate chaos and COVID-19. 

Even though Australia, acting on its own, can neither significantly mitigate climate change nor halt the current global pandemic, it nevertheless has demanding moral responsibilities to respond to both. This is because the capacities necessary to affect meaningful change can be created through collaboration with other institutional agents. In the absence of intergovernmental organizations able to respond effectively to such crises, Australia has shared responsibilities to contribute to establishing, and then acting as part of, informal, purpose-driven, climate change and COVID-19 ‘coalitions of the obligated’.

The "white Australia policy" has so far largely been discussed with regard only to its political-ideological perspective. No account was taken of the central problem of racist societalization, i.e. the everyday production and reproduction of "race" as a social relation ("doing race") supported by broad sections of the population.
This comprehensive study of Australian racism and the "white sugar" campaign shows that the latter was only able to achieve success because it was embedded in a widespread "white Australia culture" that found expression in all spheres of life.

After a five-decade establishment, the relationship between Vietnam and Australia has been developed significantly, rapidly, and substantially. From the first humanitarian aid packages in the years of 1973-1979, through the freezing period of 1979-1989, economy and trading became the first remarkable flourishing field in the relationship between Vietnam and Australia. Entering the twenty-first century entails some new prosperities in the relationship between Vietnam and Australia. The scientific agricultural and educational relationships have been founded to become a central pillar. In the context that many challenges to Asia-Pacific security resulted from the rise of China, many rapid adjustments in the relations between major powers, and many developments in the strategic competition between powers in this region; Australia and Vietnam both have the need to promote bilateral relationship, affirming their positions of middle powers in the international stage, in the purpose of maintaining national interests themselves. Additionally, both the economic-political-social development of Australia and of Vietnam not only do not challenge the security interest and the stable development of Southeast Asia but also contribute to tightening the stable cooperation and development of this region. Therefore, the key trend in the relationship between Vietnam and Australia is to strengthen cooperation to develop on the basis of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefits.

‘Is War Now Impossible?’ wrote Russian banker and self-taught military analyst Ivan Stanislavovich Boch in 1898. Comprehending the implications for humanity of old military doctrines and ethics mixing with the new, mechanised and industrial scale weapons technologies, Boch’s warnings were ignored at the Hague Peace Convention in 1899. They were fully realised in 1914.

So too, the modern intelligence practitioner stands at a unique cross road in light of the rapidly changing technological, globalised security environment of our present day. Do we ignore these realities and accept Duan R. Claridge’s belief that “…intelligence ethics is an oxymoron. It’s not an issue. It never was and never will be, not if you want a real spy service” (Gill, 2009, p. 89)? Or do we see the ethical failures of Iraq and WMDs, the Abu Ghraib tortures, the fall out from the Snowden and Wikileaks affairs and even the Skripal chemical weapons incident as premonitions of catastrophe, akin to the Boer and Russo-Japan wars that preceded the horror of World War One?

However, an ethical intelligence practice can exist, this paper will argue that it must emanate from a model that has great versatility to overcome the litany of contemporary problems. These problems consist of the post-modern fragmentation of the threat environment; the subsequent epistemological shift from truth seeking to rights protecting; the failure of universal philosophical models and the disparity between societal ethics and institutional ethics.

Once these issues have been examined, ethical positions of key adversaries China and Russia will be compared with Australia in order to contextualise the threat environment that a satisfactory model would need to operate in. Finally, the Barret and Shelton versions of Kohlberg’s Matrix of Moral Development will be suggested as possible candidates for ethics education and ethical decision making.

In the 1970s, the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and future Prime Minister of Australia, Robert J. Hawke, was an informer of the United States of America. Using diplomatic cables from official archives, this article shows that Hawke gifted information about the Australian Government, the Australian Labor Party and the labour movement, fueling the intelligence gathering efforts of the foreign power. In turn, the relationship influenced the development of Australian policy, including the abandonment of Keynesianism and embrace of neoliberalism. His discreet actions – discussed in detail for the first time – were not unusual among elites in the post-war period. However, he was especially entrenched in the practice. Many people in politics, the bureaucracy and news media were similarly providing useful information. This paper will also show through historiography and memoir that the act of informing by elites began in the 1940s, when the United States became Australia’s key strategic ally.

Enter the Dragon critiques the proposed Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific (AIFFP), arguing that the rationale for the scheme is based on faulty premises; that the proposed architecture is inadequate; and that the process in bringing legislation to make the scheme a reality has been rushed. It also looks at Chinese presence in the Pacific to demonstrate how Australian fears of creeping Chinese influence tend to be exaggerated.  The report recommends that no further steps be taken to progress the AIFFP until after the upcoming Federal election, until a more complete and public assessment of infrastructure needs in the Pacific is done, and until a more complete and thorough investigation of the appropriate mechanisms for an infrastructure financing program can be explored.

The rise of Asia’s two giants, China and India, is forcing Australia to re-examine its understanding of the regional order that has existed since the 1940s. There has been much debate about the choices that Australia faces with a rising China, but there has been less discussion about the strategic consequences of India’s emergence. 

Many are beginning to see a rising India as a major element in the Indo-Pacific strategic balance.  Australia’s security relationship with India has been growing much closer over the last decade, driven by concerns about China as well as a host of other shared interests.  In the long term, India is likely to become a key security partner in the Indian Ocean and possibly one of Australia’s most important security partners in the Indo-Pacific region. 

But there has been little consideration how this burgeoning strategic relationship with India will fit with Australia’s core security relationship with the United States or with the US alliance system. India is not a traditional ally or customary partner for Australia. This report looks at the choices faced by Australia in building its strategic relationship with India in a way that fits with the US alliance and the broader regional order.

A great deal has been written about how global affairs and the international ambitions of other nations have shaped Australia, but almost nothing has been written to address the question of just how effective Australian Governments have been at devising and pursuing their own visions for how the world should be organised. In response to this question, this thesis explores instances in which Australia tried to shape the world and it presents the argument that these instances were guided by ideological motivations that came to form 'traditions of internationalism'. To support this proposition, this dissertation chronicles the history of Australia's tradition of Imperial Internationalism, which guided Australia's approach to the world from Federation to the late 1960s. This history demonstrates a remarkable ambition and ideological consistency at the heart of Australia's approach to the world. By exploring Australia's past to identify its traditions of internationalism, this dissertation not only presents an alternative approach to documenting Australia's past, but it also reveals an understanding of Australia's impact on world affairs that is altogether different from the established literature. A number of historians have reinforced the notion that Australia's historical relationships with the British Empire and the United States made Australia's international endeavours derivative of, and dependent upon, these great powers, leading some to even dispute the true independence of Australia. Concurrently, others have argued that an independent Australian approach to the world was apparent even prior to Federation. This piece seeks to reconcile these disparate views by demonstrating that the forces of Australian nationalism and British imperialism were in fact complimentary to Australia's international ambitions. This history of Australia's tradition of Imperial Internationalism reveals that successive Australian Governments were effective at using great power relationships to project Australia's own self-devised international ambitionsambitions that were often bold and disruptive. It explains that Australia's chief ambition during this period was to entrench British and American power in its neighbourhood for the purpose of reinforcing Western hegemony over the developing nations of the Asia-Pacific region. This thesis therefore demonstrates that Australia had a significant impact on global affairs in the twentieth century that is disproportionate to the historical perception of Australia as a smaller power. Not least of all, this impact was accomplished because of the ability of successive governments to shape and influence the behaviour of two great powers with whom Australia shared powerful ideological affinities. …o0o… iv This thesis has been enabled by support from the following organisations and programs:

Neoliberal institutionalists frequently see regional organisations such as the EU, ASEAN or the EAS as expressions of the desire for economic integration, political cooperation and the resolution of collective action problems. In this formulation , the creation of inclusive regional identities is seen as one of the potentially desirable consequences of institution-building. The Indo-Pacific, by contrast, has since its inception been driven by a rather old-fashioned concern with the balance of power in a part of the world in which China is once again playing a dominant and destabilising role. We argue that realists still have much to tell us about the material forces that are not only transforming the region-however, it is defined-but also which underpin the rise to prominence of the Indo-Pacific idea in particular. The so-called 'Quad' countries are both the main drivers of the Indo-Pacific concept and a clear manifestation of its underlying goals and principles. In such circumstances, we argue, the Indo-Pacific is unlikely to reproduce even the rather modest levels of institutionalisation achieved by other organisations, primarily because this vision of the region is one that is not intended to address the sorts of collective action problems neoliberal institutionalists highlight. On the contrary, the Indo-Pacific rescales the region to include India and strategically aligns certain regional states in an old-fashioned quasi-alliance to the strategic threat posed by China.

The foreign and defence policies of Australia have been marked by periods of continuity and change since the country slowly decoupled from the UK and forged a more independent international posture from the postwar period to the present. This short introductory chapter cannot do justice to the full scope of Australian foreign and defence policy, which is a process of immense complexity, but rather seeks to highlight the key actors, events and enduring issues that face Australian policy makers from the present and into the future. By necessity, an introductory chapter cannot be comprehensive, and examples are therefore chosen representatively and selectively. We examine the historical context; Australia’s foreign and defence policy machinery; Labor versus Coalition leadership and foreign policy traditions; Liberal internationalism; Economic diplomacy; Defence strategy; Non-traditional security challenges; ‘Asian engagement’; Foreign aid; The rise of China; and the US alliance.

The UN response to situations of conflict around the world has, over the years since the end of the Cold War, varied considerably and the UN Security Council, as the only legal authority responsible for mandating peace support and humanitarian intervention missions, has increasingly come under close scrutiny in this regard. At the centre of this issue is a cumbersome UN structure, the lack of any uniform interpretation of the UN Charter and an inability to circumvent the self-interest of individual member states in enforcing the human rights ideals of its legal instruments. In contrast, regional actors, e.g. NATO, ECOWAS and the African Union, as well as coalitions involving loosely aligned self-motivated allies, because they have a higher stake in ensuring peace and security close to their own borders, have been highly effective interventionists. Utilising a comparative case study approach and a hypothetico-deductive model of investigation, this thesis examines four interventions from the 1990s: UNOSOM in Somalia, UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia, ECOMOG in Liberia and INTERFET in East Timor. It calls into question the use of UN versus regional entities in the composition of intervention forces, and discusses the impact of mandates and resources on mission outcomes. The motivation behind this thesis is, not just to identify the root causes of success and failure but, to point to an appropriate range of defendable benchmarks that could influence future interventions for the better. The overwhelming evidence of my study supports the view outlined in the literature that there is considerable merit in having regional organisations partner the UN in peacekeeping operations or, like INTERFET in East Timor, in acting as first responders to prepare the ground for more long-term UN nation-building missions.

This research uses a conceptual framework based on border studies combined with a comparative approach taking into account the borders of U.S.-Mexico, the European Union and Australia. The study analyses the effects on the populations living on those borders and the immigrants trying to cross them, of militarization with a main focus on Unmanned Aerial Technologies.
The research explains the different characteristics of the borders analysed and the borderization process, taking into account the effects and the different kind of immigrations in which these regions are involved. A study on the deployment of drone technology for border control follows.
The three case studies have three different outcomes, enabling the reader to understand the policy failures and the best practice to follow in the application of a security technology whose effects on borders are the main topic of investigation of the research. The comparative approach and the conceptual framework allows for an understanding of the differences between borders and populations, the kind of immigrations and the response of the political actors involved.

The 'common sense' view of Australian foreign policy in the South Pacific is that it is aimed at securing a stable and friendly near neighbourhood for Australia. Contrary to this view, this thesis argues that Australian foreign policy in the South Pacific is based upon an ideology of institutional neo-liberalism and is therefore mostly concerned with transforming governance structures within and around states in line with neo-liberal models of statehood. The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is an Australian-led intervention and state-building initiative designed in response to the violence experienced in the Solomon Islands from 1998 to 2001 and the following years of state bankruptcy and criminality that plagued the South Pacific state. RAMSI has been commonly represented as a success story of international interventionism and state-building, however, I will argue that this representation is seriously flawed because of fundamental oversights in two key aspects of the intervention, caused by RAMSI’s ideological underpinnings. Firstly, causes of instability and violence in the Solomon Islands are reduced to ethnic conflict, poor governance and slow economic growth, while political and historical causes are ignored or seen as secondary. Therefore the central 'solutions' to the 'failure' of the state revolve around the implementation of 'good governance' and private sector led economic growth, whilst long standing grievances are ignored. Secondly, RAMSI is replicating, or even exacerbating, many of the same political-economic conditions that led to the violent conflict to which it is responding. The implications of this argument are that Australian foreign policy in the South Pacific is actually undermining its stated objective of promoting stability.