Brookings: Experts - Michael Fullilove

China's Biggest Challenge Isn't Military or Economic, It's Basic Governance

Michael Fullilove — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 -0400

For at least a decade, think tanks and government offices have echoed with tales of China's rise.

The narrative is familiar. China has remade its economy and is now eating America's lunch. The country is growing rapidly, laying roads and high-speed rail at a frenetic pace. The Chinese authorities sit atop a hoard of foreign exchange reserves that symbolize the country's new financial clout.

Increasingly, China's economic strength is mirrored in its military capability. It is, according to its boosters, destined for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific. Soon, they say, it may even be a peer-competitor of the United States.

China's recent performance has certainly been impressive. Yet recent official conduct in China, by turns baroque and brutal, should give observers pause for thought.

We now know that Bo Xilai, former Communist Party secretary of mega-city Chongqing and a rising star in the party, systematically terrorised and rorted his municipality. Bo and his wife allegedly sent hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country; she is the prime suspect in the murder of a British businessman; he is said to have plotted to kill his own police chief. Abuse of power was practised throughout their extended family, of which Bo Xilai was merely the capo di tutti capi.

Exploring the growth of a massive economy See full coverage Bo Xilai's behavior may have been more extreme than that of most senior officials. But corruption is widely entrenched throughout the country. There are Bo Xilais in other cities and provinces, too. This has deleterious consequences for government revenues, business efficiency, and social harmony -- all important elements of national power.

Read the full article at theatlantic.com»

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Atlantic

Image Source: David Gray / Reuters

U.S. Engagement Key to Handling a Rising China

Michael Fullilove — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Last November, President Barack Obama spoke to the Australian Parliament about a “deliberate and strategic decision” he had taken to engage more fully in Asia. When it came to this region, the president said, the United States was “all in.” He also announced that by 2016, 2,500 U.S. marines will be on rotation in the north of Australia.

Obama’s Canberra speech and other elements of this reweighting have raised concerns that America is going down a containment path toward China, setting up the risk of new bilateral tensions in Asia.

It is certainly true that one of the motivations for America’s “pivot” toward Asia is the rise of China. China’s economic transformation in the last three decades has been remarkable. Increasingly the country’s new economic strength is mirrored in its growing military capabilities, which boost its ability to project power within Asia and around the world.

China has a strong hand, yet it is not clear how it will play that hand in the future. There is a notable dualism to China’s approach. On the one hand, Chinese foreign policy is neither expansionist nor extreme; in many ways, China has been slow to claim the influence it deserves.

On the other hand, it is impossible to miss China’s rising confidence and international ambition, even though they sit alongside strains of caution and insecurity. Sometimes, Chinese assertiveness spills over into bluster. Many long-time observers are pessimistic about the direction of Chinese foreign policy.

There is an uneven quality, then, to China’s international stance: usually quiet but occasionally strident; usually cautious but occasionally combative; always prickly; and never entirely predictable.

In this context, Obama’s new concentration on the Asia-Pacific makes sense. During his first year in office the president persistently sought to accommodate Beijing’s interests. Yet Beijing failed to clasp his outstretched hand.

Obama is still seeking to develop the bilateral relationship with China, but he is doing so from a position of strength. His policy is not directed at containing China, but neither is he prepared to vacate the field. The president seeks to cooperate with China. But he also intends to renew America’s presence in Asia and maintain a balance of forces in the region at a time when there is significant uncertainty about China’s future behaviour.

How should Australia try to manage the strategic triangle formed by Washington, Beijing and Canberra? Hugh White has written of the dangers of U.S.-China competition, suggesting that the region needs a concert of powers, comprising China, the United States, Japan, India, Indonesia and other countries. For our part, he suggests, Australia should try to encourage the United States to award China new prerogatives. We should also be more circumspect about speaking our mind to China on issues such as human rights and Tibet. I’m not persuaded by this argument.

The U.S. alliance is a valuable national asset for Australia. It entails the promise that we would be protected from a strategic threat, unlikely though that may be; the interactions with U.S. military forces that keep the ADF sharp; privileged access to the fruits of U.S. intelligence; and entrée to some of Washington’s inner councils – presuming we have interesting things to say. Apart from anything else, the alliance saves us billions of dollars a year in defence expenditures we would otherwise have to make to guarantee our security.

Before downgrading such a valuable asset, we need to be clear-headed about what we hope to achieve, and what we risk in doing so. When it comes to national security, I agree with the injunction contained within the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. By all means, Australia should seek to influence events and power structures in Asia. But we also need to be realistic about our ability to shape the power relations of a region of billions.

If we cool our alliance with the Americans, do we really increase ability to affect events? How likely are we to change the trajectory of the United States, even if we wanted to? How easy would it be to rig up a concert of powers in Asia? And what are the downsides of cooling the alliance?

Given the uncertainty about China’s future policies, it would seem strange to pre-emptively move toward Beijing. Surely it is more sensible to balance against the risk of future Chinese recklessness by keeping the United States deeply engaged in the region and strengthening, not weakening, our alliance institutions.

I have never heard a Sinologist say that the one thing the Chinese respect is weakness. In my observation, unsolicited gifts to rising great powers are rarely reciprocated. Usually they are simply pocketed. Of course we should not try to contain China, which would be utterly impossible in any case. But neither should we back off from defending our own interests and values.

The leaders in Zhongnanhai may not have been happy with President Obama’s Canberra speech. But neither its message, nor the Darwin announcement, would have been surprised them. Beijing knows that Australia has been a U.S. ally for sixty years. We already host the joint facility at Pine Gap.

In any case, just as we should not overestimate our influence, we shouldn’t underestimate it either. We have a good deal to offer China, as a mature and wealthy country and a stable source for the strategic resources it requires. It is in our interest that the relationship between Canberra and Beijing should be strong, positive and cooperative. This is also in China’s interest.

Alliances are not always easy relationships to manage – especially alliances with the most powerful country on earth. Even like-minded countries sometimes see things differently. And less powerful allies often spend a lot of time worrying about the temper of their alliance – that it is close, or too distant.

But to paraphrase Winston Churchill: “The only thing worse than having allies is not having them.”

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Australian

Perspectives on the G-20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:23:00 -0500

On February 19-20, the Mexican government hosted the first ever meeting of the G-20’s foreign ministers. This is an important development in the international architecture for managing the evolving relations between the established and the rising powers. We invited scholars and officials from the G-20 nations to write, in their personal capacity, about the meeting, what it should do, and what it portends in global governance and the management of the changing global order.

United States

Bruce Jones
Senior Fellow and Director, Managing Global Order Project at Brookings
Director, Center on International Cooperation, New York University

This weekend, the Mexican government will host a meeting of the G-20’s foreign ministers, in Los Cabos. The meeting has been overshadowed by the drama at the UN Security Council, where the US and its allies have clashed with China and especially Russia over violence in Syria. But the Los Cabos meeting constitutes a step change in the governance of global issues.

The G-20 Summit of leaders itself has played a crucial role since November 2008. First, and vitally, in avoiding a global depression, through it’s coordinated stimulus program and refinancing and remandating of the IMF. Second, since the crunch phase of the global financial crisis, the G-20 has made important headway in laying the groundwork of financial regulation, economic surveillance and oversight to reduce the risks of the next crisis. That is an unfinished business, and the Eurozone crisis highlights continuing challenges. Superficial journalism has highlighted ongoing disputes, or less than dramatic Summit outcomes; but overall, the G-20 is a major success story.

One of the more subtle successes of the G-20 is that it has started to foster the habits of cooperation among a set of countries that have not yet had to develop those habits. The G-7 western allies have forty years of experience of working together, and shared values that bind. The critical insight that President Bush had in his last days in office was that the global financial crisis was a bigger problem than the West alone could handle. A wider group was going to be necessary for the crisis response; and moving ahead, building the infrastructure for cooperation between the established and emerging powers is the necessary condition of managing global order. It’s a historical irony that it was President Bush rather than the more globally minded President Obama that made the decisive moves on the G-20 and the IMF, but the pattern was well set and the Obama administration has deepened the work on both fronts.
Because of the scale of the global financial challenge, G-20 managers resisted early calls – including from this project – to widen the agenda of the G-20. They were right. Had the G-20 diverted focus from its core function of protecting the global financial system and maintaining a stable international economic order, not only would we not now be in an incipient global recovery, relations between the major and the emerging powers would have deteriorated rapidly. A continued concentration on core issues is warranted. Over time, though, the G20’s managers have found some bandwith to begin working together on other issues, from development to fossil fuels subsidies.

What’s left behind is foreign and security policy. There are several issues where the established and emerging powers have differences of view on that agenda – Syria is only the most acute and most obvious of them. But there are a raft of other issues where the major powers have shared interests or, more commonly, where they have a shared interest in avoiding a deep crisis – like in Iran. China may not agree with the U.S. approach on Iran, but they have a fundamental interest in avoiding a deep crisis that closes the Straits of Hormuz – and they warned Iran on this in sharp terms in January 2012. There’s perhaps no more important challenge in global order than beginning to set the pattern of finding areas of common agreement, and working through differences short of crisis, between the major and the rising powers. That will not encompass all issues – there will still be many areas that are simply subject for bilateral relations, or for ongoing dispute. It’s surely in all our interests, though, that that set of issues be as small as possible, and that we build up similar habits of cooperation, or at least habits of deconfliction, where fundamental values aren’t in conflict.

In this regard, the G-20 foreign ministers meeting in Los Cabos represents the first real opportunity we’ve had to begin that work. Yes, the emerging powers have happened to be in the Security Council over the last two years, and China has a permanent seat there. But the Security Council is a tool for crisis management and negotiation, not for forging new habits and not for building confidence. Broader confidence building processes will results in a narrowing of the gap in the Security Council, not the other way around.

Several countries resisted the Mexican initiative, or hesitated in accepting the invitation. Among the first foreign ministers to say yes was US Secretary of State Clinton. The rest quickly followed.

It was the right move. Perhaps not much will come out of the Los Cabos meeting – and the Mexicans have wisely tried to downplay expectations by emphasizing that it’s an “informal meeting”, rather than a Summit. That’s the right move too. A search for formal agreements or communiqués would simply push this back into a space of unproductive negotiations. Far more important is relationship building, building shared perspectives on key security issues, and an informal space for back room negotiations. I suspect that Secretary Clinton will use quite a lot of her time in Los Cabos cornering her Chinese and Russian colleagues on the Syria question – and that’s very much to the good.

So, Felicidades to Mexico on an important initiative. With modest expectations, and some creative leadership, a foreign ministers process for the G-20 can fill an important gap. We may still face a “G-Zero” future of unmanaged problems and centrifugal tensions between the major powers; but we’re not there yet. The Mexican initiative is a step in the right direction.

Brazil

Celso Amorim
Writing in a Personal Capacity

Not too long ago, some months after the Lehman Brothers débacle, I was invited to talk to French and international students at the Science Po in Paris. I was then the Brazilian Foreign Minister. Among other things, I remember having said that the G-8 was dead, a statement that generated a lot of criticism in the media, not least in Brazil. A few months later, the President of the United States, expressed essentially the same view, in softer words. During the Pittsburgh summit, President Obama said that the G-20 had become the main international forum for economic matters. And a process of change, still incomplete for sure, took place in formal financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. Today, after a succession of crises in Europe, no one with a minimum knowledge in international economics would dare contradict that view. Indeed, how can world economic problems be solved without the participation of the BRIC countries? As a consequence the world governance in financial and economic affairs was drastically reformed in a period of not more than two or three years.

Nothing remotely similar to these momentous changes happened in the field of peace and security. After two decades of intense and often tedious discussions in the UN, the Security Council remains exactly with the same format designed sixty years ago in San Francisco. Given its lack of representativeness and legitimacy, it is no wonder that the Council cannot deal appropriately with such important subjects as the several dimensions of the so called Arab Awakening,or, more pointedly, with burning issues such as the Iranian Nuclear Program, not to speak of a more structural response to the problems of Africa. One of the reasons that made the changes in the governance of international economic affairs possible was the relative informality of fora such as the G-7/G-8 as well as the more flexible procedures for reform in the international financial institutions (in contrast with the ultra-rigid requirements for reforming the UN Charter).Without exaggerating the scope of the changes that may begin with the February meeting of Foreign Ministers in Mexico, one is allowed to hope that it can at least initiate a process which someday will impact on the more formal institutions that deal with political and security matters. In order that such a process may take place, it essential that the FM meeting focuses on concrete questions - such as the ones mentioned here - and does not lose much time and energy on more abstract issues of institutional nature. Nor should it bother too much with other subjects - important as they may be - which have already found an appropriate locus for debate, such as climate change. In other words, for a political G-20 to become a relevant forum it must not develop a theory about walking. Like the Greek philosopher who rebutted the sophistic argument on the logic impossibility of movement, it must simply walk.

China

Shen Dingli
Professor of International Relations, Director of the Center for American Studies, and Executive Vice Dean of the Institute of International Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai

The G-20 emerged from global financial crisis in 2008 to bail out the market as an informal ad hoc grouping. Thus far it still has utility as the debt of both the United States and eurozone has to be cut and global trade rebalanced. This type of global governance entails new institutions such as the G-20 to play a constructive role which the UNSC and G-8 could not play effectively.

The Summit meeting and Financial Ministerial Level meeting of the G-20 addresses present economic and financial dimensions but to better institutionalize the G-20 has to structure more formally and tackle broader international affairs. Bringing international political and security affairs to the G-20 agenda could empower G-20 in a structural way.

The upcoming G-20 Foreign Ministers’ informal meeting from February 18-20 in Mexico renders such an opportunity for the most influential established powers and most important emerging nations to timely address issues of common interest beyond global economic recovery and rebalancing. The foreign ministers could plausibly set a new paradigm of the organization and offer a chance of consensus on crucial issues.

Syria and Iran are two such crucial matters that the Foreign Ministers’ meeting will find it hard to ignore. As the G-20 is not the G-8, it gives more authoritativeness and representativeness of the world powers to approach to the two crises in a balanced manner. Also, as the G-20 is not the UNSC, which has to make critical decision when needed, it tends to allow sufficient deliberation without splitting the organization. Rather, it permits more time for consensus building before the UNSC would vote on Syrian, and Iranian, cases. Established powers would have more chances to hear the common voices of Russia, China and India while the emerging powers could also debate among themselves, which is more ideal than the UNSC itself.

Ambassador Wu Jianmin
Professor of International Studies, China Foreign Affairs University
Chairman, Shanghai Centre of International Studies

The G-20 is a reflection of the profound changes underway in world affairs. These changes are far from over. As a new group on the international arena, the G-20 is still evolving. The informal meeting of the G-20 foreign ministers, to be held on February 18-20 in Mexico, is a natural development of its evolution, since economics, politics and security are all interrelated.

The very existence of the G-20 is closely tied to financial crises. The G-20 was set up in 1999 in the aftermath of Asia Financial Crisis. The G-20 summit was born in 2008 out of the current financial crisis. In the Chinese language, crisis consists of two characters: danger and opportunity. Indeed, the mankind advances from crisis to crisis.

The performance of the G-20, since 2008, proves to be positive. Some believe that the “heroic phase” of the G-20 is over. I disagree. The evolution of the G-20 is a long process. We have to judge it in a comprehensive way. Thanks to the G-20, the current financial crisis didn’t turn into a great depression. This is a remarkable achievement. We all know the current crisis is deepening. This is a global problem. A global problem requires global solution. A global solution requires international cooperation.

The composition of the G-20 is not homogeneous. Among the G-20 countries, the situation varies from one to another. They have different political systems, different cultures, different histories and they are in different stages of development. It is quite natural that they have divergence of views. To advance the G-20’s work, one has to focus on shared interests. This is the key to success. On the basis of shared interests, G-20 can build up consensus, which leads to action. It was true of G-20 summit in the past. It will also be true of the forthcoming informal meeting of the G-20 foreign ministers.

Australia

Michael Fullilove
Director, Global Issues Program, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, Australia
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, The Brookings Institution

Australia is a wealthy nation with a small population occupying a large continent located a great distance from our historical sources of security and prosperity. As a result, all Australian governments have been concerned to join (and, if necessary, erect and strengthen) institutions through which they can influence global decisions and touch the global flows of power – including the United Nations, alliance institutions and APEC.

Australia’s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, served as prime minister during the global financial crisis and was one of the forces behind the designation of the G-20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation.

As one of the progenitors of the G-20, Australia is keen to see the institution develop and strengthen further. Last year saw the first meeting of G20 finance and development ministers; now G-20 foreign ministers are convening for the first time. For Canberra, the fact of the meeting itself is important: it shows the stitching together of the group.

Foreign ministers will assemble in Los Cabos at a time of great stress and concern about the global economy. Growth prospects are down; Europe’s financial problems are affecting other national economies; capital flows to developing countries have withered. Foreign ministers are particularly well-placed to engage on the human and social costs of the global crisis.

Australians are a practical people. The government wants a good discussion on the meeting’s agenda items, including global governance, green growth and human development. More importantly, though, Canberra hopes for some sharp, clear positions.

Food security is an area demanding extra action, including the implementation of pre-existing commitments as well as addressing the long-term trends. The Australian government would like to explore innovative ways of leveraging private-sector funds for development. It also looks for recommendations on dealing with youth unemployment that can be put to G-20 leaders later in the year.

We don’t know how the G-20 will develop in the future. The best way to preserve its position is to make every post a winner – including this first meeting of foreign ministers.

Spain

Giovanni Grevi
Senior Researcher, Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), Madrid

The first informal meeting of G-20 Foreign Ministers in Mexico should be welcomed for three reasons. First, the G-20 is a process promoting shared responsibility. As such, it should afford some flexibility to tackle important issues related to its core economic agenda. This has been the case, for example, with development and food security. Second, while foreign policy issues can prove divisive, disagreements are not cast in stone but are subject to evolving assessments and perceptions. Those are the two levels at which informal meetings in the G-20 context can make a difference over time. Third, informally discussing foreign policy issues within the G-20 process would help underpin the authority of the UN Security Council. The G-20 could perform as an important platform for confidence building or de-confliction, paving the way for debates at the UNSC level, where decisions belong.

That said, given the different sensitivities of G-20 members on addressing foreign policy in the G-20 context, this should be done in a prudent and incremental way. It will be up to G-20 leaders to decide whether any item discussed by Foreign Ministers will climb up to summit level. Two criteria should guide this decision, namely a clear chance of successful agreement and a clear link between political, security and economic concerns. In short, added value. The agenda put forward by the Mexican Presidency may benefit from a more targeted approach to common transnational challenges and vulnerabilities. Relevant issues could include so-called flow security (keeping material and virtual commons such as the cyberspace safe and open); resource governance; the security implications of climate change in specific regions; and countering illegal trafficking of drugs and people. Foreign Ministers could address controversial geopolitical issues more comfortably in ad hoc side-meetings than in plenary debates.

The G-20 will thrive or wither away based on its capacity to cope with the permutations of the financial and economic crisis. But it would be delusional to think that focusing on economics while cross-border risks spread and geopolitical crises fester will preserve the prosperity of G-20 members. The G-20 need not shift its core focus. Likewise, it should not compete with other bodies. But to the extent that it can help coping with shared political challenges threatening economic security, it should.

South Korea

Dong Hwi Lee
Professor, Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, South Korea

A G-20 foreign ministers' meeting will be convened for the first time in Mexico, where the next G-20 summit will be held, during February 19-20, 2012. It is an encouraging development, for it improves the prospects for the G-20 process to evolve into a truly premium forum as global governance undergoes significant changes.

Foreign ministers' talks are expected to make three key contributions to upgrading the G2-0.

First, the G-20 foreign ministers' talks can provide a venue for addressing so-called "hybrid issues," for example energy and climate change, which characterize international relations in the 21st century, and to which both economy and security are inextricably linked. By tackling such issues, the G-20 can continue to broaden its scope of agenda and thereby cement its raison d'etre.

Second, the foreign ministers' talks can function as a forum for the world's major economies to effectively respond to the political uncertainty that may very well result from global economic instability. The G-7 is a case in point. It started out as an economic forum, but ultimately G-7 foreign ministers' meetings offered a useful safety net as the world struggled to overcome the political fallout from the collapse of the Cold War structure. The advantages of G-20 foreign ministers' meeting will only be redoubled this year, for a series of leadership transitions around the world will fuel uncertainties, let alone the turbulence already apparent in the Middle East.

Third, if the foreign ministers' talks do evolve into one of the systemic pillars of the G-20 process, the meetings will serve as an essential mechanism for efficiently innovating the G-20 process. The larger membership compared to the G-8, disparate cultural backgrounds among member states, and demand for record- keeping/evaluation are some of the many practical needs that need to be met, resulting in calls for further expanding secretarial function in the future. All in all, the G-20 foreign ministers' meetings will be significant on their own merit. More importantly, they will play a significant role in advancing institutionalization of the G-20.

Argentina

Rut Diamint
Professor, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires
Researcher, National Council of Scientific and Technologic Research (CONICET)

The emergence of the G-20 forged expectations of a possible democratization of the international order. Several elements came together to strengthen that illusion. First, there was evidence that the G-8 was no longer able to determine the rules of the international system. Second, there was widely spread and harsh criticism directed toward the legitimacy of the United Nations Security Council. The third was the emergence of middle powers with prospects of sustained growth and respect for international norms and values. The fourth was a national and global civil society more involved in the claim for national and universal standards of justice. The fifth was the emblematic supremacy of human rights laws. The final element was a recognition that major blunders, such as a financial meltdown, are not exclusively committed by developing nations.

In this context the G-20 was supposed to open a more inclusive and egalitarian dialogue. Unfortunately, the G-20 did not achieve convincing efforts towards global security. It is true that we could argue that behind the notion of global governance supported by the G-20 meetings is the paradigm of peace and a peaceful conflict resolution. But, when talking about specific proposals, security is too tied to economic interests. Encouraging protective measures to prevent colossal disasters, like the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, or condemning all forms of terrorism are, without a doubt, valuable initiatives but they also may be seen as mere rhetorical and bombastic announcements. The scope of the dialogue changed, but the logic is still the same—a realist one extremely related to the balance of power.

The expectation of an egalitarian and pluralistic G-20, representing a greater diversity, and at the same time restricted to the most powerful international actors from the perspective that they will assume greater responsibility for stabilizing the world and assist especially needy countries, but without the typical vices of the specialized bureaucracies of most of the multilateral agencies, is regrettably absent.

The reform of financial institutions that ignores the crucial importance of developing a comprehensive program of stability and security has no future. It is time to attach to G-20 cooperation policy, specific clauses that clearly induce to the respect for human rights, the elimination of double standards, and the
compliance with international agreements. Undeniably, the vocation of being more global and plural leads to the establishment of commonly accepted standards of conduct in the international security field. There is not global economic governance without global security.

India

WPS Sidhu
Senior Fellow, Center for International Cooperation, New York University

Like the G-7/G-8, which began life as a purely economic club of the world’s biggest economies, the G-20 too is evolving from an ad-hoc gathering of select nations to fix the world’s financial and economic woes into an institution concerned with international peace and security. The first ever meeting of G-20 foreign ministers in Los Cabos, Mexico this weekend marks this crucial transition.

This shift could not have come at a more appropriate time. With post-Gaddafi Libya in disarray, the bitter dust-up over Syria in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and the looming war clouds over Iran, there is an urgent need for a forum like the G-20 to try and carve out a common, cooperative approach on all these issues amongst its members.

But is it, perhaps, too optimistic to assume that the G-20 will succeed where other forums have failed? Yes and no.

It is certainly optimistic to assume that a single meeting, even in the tranquil setting of Los Cabos, will be able to overcome the deep divisions between the established powers and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in particular. Nonetheless, the G-20 meeting does offer a useful venue to try and bridge these differences and would be an opportunity for the established and reemerging powers to engage at two levels: strategic and tactical.

At the strategic level the G-20 members could try and explore normative areas of convergence, especially over the concepts of responsibility to protect, given that there was a broad support for the principle (as apparent in UNSC resolutions 1970 and 1973) but serious disagreement on how it should be implemented.

In addition, the group could also consider the Brazilian idea of “responsibility while protecting” which needs to be further elaborated outside of the charged atmosphere of the UNSC setting. Moreover, there is also need to explore the responsibility for post-conflict reconstruction. As the Libyan case has amply demonstrated, a successful (albeit prolonged) military campaign and regime change alone does not guarantee greater security or better governance for the populace.

Against the backdrop of these broader normative debates, which are likely to continue beyond Los Cabos, there are several tactical issues that require urgent attention. Syria is prominent among them.

Given that there now appears to be overwhelming (if not unanimous) support for a political transition in Syria could a common agenda be worked out within the G-20 framework, especially one that takes on board the Russian and Chinese sensitivities as well as lessons from the Libyan experience? If such an understanding could be reached in Los Cabos, it could contribute to a more cooperative approach among the key powers in the UNSC.

Here, it is worth remembering that it was a similar G-8 meeting in Berlin in June 1999 that helped to resolve the tensions, particularly between Russia and the United States, over the bombing of Kosovo and paved the way for the consensus UNSC resolution 1244 and post-conflict reconstruction. While it could be argued that a G-8 consensus was easier, given the smaller membership, if the G-20 were to achieve a similar breakthrough, it would carry greater conviction given the more representative and diverse nature of the bigger group. The more representative nature of the G-20 would be an important asset in dealing with the gathering storm over Iran.

Finally, given the present stalemate over the UNSC reform process and assuming that this is first of regular G-20 foreign ministers meetings, this forum would be the only venue where the permanent members of the UNSC and the aspirant members, notably Brazil, India and South Africa would be able to interact on a regular basis on international peace and security issues.

Authors

Celso Amorim
Rut Diamint
Shen Dingli
Michael Fullilove
Giovanni Grevi
Ambassador Wu Jianmin
Bruce Jones
Dong Hwi Lee
WPS Sidhu

Image Source: © STRINGER Mexico / Reuters

Obama’s Australian Visit and the Australia-United States-China Strategic Triangle

Michael Fullilove — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: In remarks to the American Australian Association, Michael Fullilove discusses U.S.-Australia relations and the future of the Australia-U.S.-China strategic triangle.

I last spoke to the American Australian Association eighteen months ago. Since then I’ve spent some of my time writing a book about President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the course of that research, I came across a wonderful story about alliances.

Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his entourage made their way to Washington to confer with Roosevelt and his advisers on the waging of the war. The visitors were accommodated at the White House. One morning, Roosevelt accidentally surprised Churchill in the middle of his morning bath. FDR apologised and made to leave, but Churchill rose like a sea monster from the bathtub and stood before him, naked, plump, pink and dripping. Unashamed, he declared: ‘The prime minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the president of the United States.’

I am a supporter of the Australia-U.S. alliance, but any alliance can get too close. For me, that’s too close.

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Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: Remarks to the American Australian Association

During President Obama's Visit to Australia, Focus on Bonds with Asian Region

Michael Fullilove — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Barack Obama's visit to Australia this week will attract some frenzied reporting. We will hear about Obama's limousine, his "body man" and his Blackberry. There will be reports on the wingspan of Air Force One and the number of Secret Service agents in his party. Twitter will go nuts.

Meanwhile in the American press, no Australian cliche will be left behind. But beneath the glitter, there are four pieces of good news to consider during the visit.

First, it marks the 60th anniversary of Australia's alliance with the U.S., an alliance which means Washington gets a reliable ally and Canberra gets a powerful one. There will be significant announcements on closer military co-operation, but the historical fact is just as important.

Second, Obama's presidency has strengthened Australians' regard for the alliance, which sagged badly during the Bush administration. Australians supported Obama's election in 2008 by a ratio of nearly five to one, and our esteem for him has now spread to the alliance with his country. This year's Lowy Institute Poll found 82 per cent of Australians say the alliance is important for Australia's security and 83 per cent say they trust the U.S. to act responsibly in the world.

The atmospherics of the debate have also changed since Obama's inauguration. Alliance bashers no longer argue, as they did until recently, that the U.S. is a "rogue state" or "the world's most dangerous nation". With George Bush out of the picture, we can see the U.S. more clearly. Perhaps the relationship at the summit is not quite as close as it was a few years ago. But that's no bad thing. You can love an alliance to death; respect and affection are probably more appropriate mindsets for sovereign states.

Third, Obama has been a prudent commander-in-chief. Given Australia's record of fighting beside America in every major conflict of the last century, this is good for us.

Future historians will shake their head as to why, during a period of remarkable global change, Washington decided to invade an Arab country for no obvious reason and spend a decade occupying it. The same historians will despair that Australia went along with this folly, without so much as a peep of official protest.

The Obama template for projecting American power has proven vastly superior to the Bush template. For example, the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound was a patient, intelligence-led, lightning operation against an enemy which had done America enormous harm. It was the opposite of the Iraq operation, which was an instinctive, military-led, lingering invasion.

Finally, Obama's administration is proving attentive to the region in which we live. The president and his officials have been highly conscientious about spending time in the Asia-Pacific. They recognise the U.S. has been too focused on the Middle East and that their future, like ours, will largely be won or lost in Asia. Now the administration is doing its best to extricate itself from the former and concentrate its energies on the latter.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Daily Telegraph

China and the United Nations: The Stakeholder Spectrum

Michael Fullilove — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:46:00 -0400

Introduction: In December 2009, representatives of 192 nations—not to mention thousands of journalists, activists and business executives assembled in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The goal was to strike a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012—one that would lead to meaningful reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Expectations were great, and it was evident that one of the key players would be the People’s Republic of China. After all, China—the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases—has taken huge strides in the past decade, toughening up its environment protection laws, fighting pollution, planting forests, and investing aggressively in renewables and energy efficiency. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, China announced it would cut its carbon intensity by 40-45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

In the end, Copenhagen was a flop. No binding treaty covering both developed and developing countries was established, nor was a deadline set for reaching such an agreement. No global target for 2050 was created. Major emitters reached an accord that committed the world to halting the rise in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius, but the measures it contained were insufficient to deliver that outcome.

There were many reasons for the disappointment of Copenhagen, but in the public mind at least, China bore a good deal of responsibility. Beijing’s aversion to quantifiable commitments led it to oppose one that didn’t even apply to China directly, namely the critical pledge that by 2050 rich countries would cut emissions by 80 percent compared to 1990 levels. China and other high-emitting developing states opposed the principle of international verification, agreeing only to "international consultations and analysis." The Chinese argued for removing references to Copenhagen as a way-stage on the path to a legally binding treaty. China’s representatives hardly acquitted themselves well in the conference venue either, with Premier Wen Jiabao dodging important meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and sending a more junior official instead. Britain’s then-Climate Change Minister, Ed Miliband, called China out on its behavior, leading China’s Foreign Ministry to reply: "The remarks against China by an individual British politician contained obvious political schemes to shirk responsibilities toward the developing countries and provoke discord among the developing countries." That politician is now Britain’s alternative Prime Minister. A widely-cited article in The Guardian was headed: "‘How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room."

China’s predicament in Copenhagen illustrated in miniature many of the features of China’s awkward relationship with the United Nations: the high hopes; the genuine, often startling, progress; the continuing disconnect between China’s weight and its strategy; the conflicting desires to be seen as a great power and a poor country; the tacking between arrogance and uncertainty; and the hurt feelings on both sides when expectations are crushed. Copenhagen put the following question in front of the international community: how far has China progressed toward achieving the status of a ‘‘responsible stakeholder,’’ urged on it by then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick in 2005?7 Examining China’s approach to the UN could help answer that question. The research for this article, which was supported by the Australia—China Council, included two dozen confidential interviews conducted in 2009 and 2010 in Beijing, New York and Washington, D.C.

Read the full article >>

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Washington Quarterly

The Australia-United States Alliance

Michael Fullilove — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

This week the Australia-U.S. alliance enters its seventh decade. Old age, as usual, is proving a challenge.

The ANZUS Treaty was signed in the distant days of the Cold War. The West's principal adversary at the time, the Soviet Union, no longer exists.

The United States has also lost some of its global dominance. In 1951, it had only recently emerged from World War II as the world's leading power. It produced a large proportion of the world's output and enjoyed naval and nuclear weaponry preponderance.

Of course, talk of U.S. decline is not new. It was rife during the 1970s, following the Vietnam war and economic ''stagflation''. It even seeped into the American debate in the early 1950s, a time now considered the apogee of U.S. power.

In these earlier eras two Republican presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, worried that the United States would not be able to endure the open-ended and rising Cold War defence budgets. In both cases their response was telling. Rather than thinning out the United States's alliances they sought to thicken them.

Eisenhower's response was ''pactomania'': extending security commitments to new allies to reduce the ''exorbitant cost'' of the country's defence needs. Nixon's answer was to devolve more responsibility for containing communism to selected allies.

U.S. decline, in short, did not translate into neglect of its alliances. On the contrary, it resulted in efforts to re-energise certain partnerships.

''History doesn't repeat itself,'' Mark Twain is supposed to have said, ''but it does rhyme.'' Washington's alliance strategy in the next decade will likely rhyme with its earlier ones.

Barack Obama is well placed to attempt this. Far from the weak-willed liberal of the conservatives' imagination, he is a pragmatist. Like his Democratic forbears Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy, he views the world as a complex place, which requires many different international arrangements to deal with economic, social and political problems. But he is hard-headed enough to recognise that traditional security concerns must take precedence.

He showed patience and steel in the successful hunt for Osama bin Laden. His decision to let the United States's NATO allies take the lead in Libya looks, in retrospect, prudent and effective.

Obama is keen to shift the U.S. focus from the Middle East to Asia, given the challenges posed by China's rise. Washington has been troubled by the uneven quality of China's foreign policy, its stance on its currency, and its recent propensity to arc up over relatively routine matters. Beijing has also refused to take a broader view of the dangers posed by the behaviour of its own ally, North Korea.

In response, Obama has moved to toughen up with China and strengthen the country's ties with its Asia-Pacific allies, including Australia. Last year, for example, the two countries established a force posture working group to explore ''options for enhanced joint defence co-operation on Australian soil.''

In public, Washington and Canberra deny they are seeking to balance against China. Off the record, officials admit that U.S.-Australian discussions now revolve around the rise of China.

Most Australians seem comfortable with these plans to strengthen the alliance. Recent Lowy Institute polling found that more than 80 per cent of respondents think the U.S. alliance is very or fairly important for our security, with almost 60 per cent saying it is very important. Some 55 per cent of Australians are in favour of allowing the United States to base military forces here.

As the Asian balance of power shifts, the auguries for the Australia-U.S. alliance are good. Faced with economic woes and new rivals, Washington will not walk away from its allies. Quite the opposite: it will seek to hold them closer. This is the great opportunity, and the great challenge, facing Canberra.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: Sydney Morning Herald

Obama as Hardheaded Liberal on International Alliances

Michael Fullilove — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Critics of President Obama are always banging on about his commitment to America’s alliance system. Yet the success of the NATO operation in Libya is the latest evidence of the effectiveness of his alliance approach.

It is true that during his campaign for president, Obama de-emphasized the role of alliances. He did not always draw bright lines between allies and other states. Instead he bracketed alliances with other, less intimate relationships, writing of his intention to rebuild “alliances, partnerships and institutions.” As the first president to come of age politically after the end of the Cold War, Obama did not seem to view alliances as special.

Republican provocateur John Bolton even claimed that Obama had “a post-alliance policy.”

However, President Obama has turned out to be much more alliance-friendly than candidate Obama. The “special relationship” with Britain has cooled somewhat, and he has reached out to new powers such as Indonesia. Yet despite the attacks of his critics, Obama’s approach to alliances sits squarely in the tradition established by his predecessors Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

Conservative commentators have mocked Obama’s belief in the efficacy of international rules. Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope that “nobody benefits more than we do from the observance of the international ‘rules of the road.’” Many of these rules were established by Roosevelt and Truman, who believed that a rule-based system amplified U.S. power rather than constraining it. And it was the propensity of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to break international rules and agreements that hardened those two presidents’ determination to contain and defeat them.

In the Middle East, Obama has been criticized for walking away from America’s long-term friend President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a step that worried officials in countries from Saudi Arabia to Israel. In fact, Obama’s response to the Arab Spring, though initially uncertain and clumsy, came to be characterized by a blend of caution and hardheaded liberalism. He now places a lesser premium than most of his recent predecessors did on the stability provided by Middle East allies, and a greater premium on their people’s right to democracy. But some of those allies can no longer provide stability anyway.

In the Egypt case, Obama is said to be insufficiently committed to allies. In the Libyan case, the opposite charge is leveled: that he ceded too much ground to allies, by allowing Britain, France, and other NATO allies to take the lead. Yet it would have been risky for the United States to lead another major military operation in the Middle East when it is already fighting two bloody wars nearby. It is especially galling when former officials of the Bush administration, which mismanaged the Afghanistan War, initiated the wrong-headed Iraq War, and blew out the Federal budget, refuse to acknowledge their own responsibility for the constraints that have limited America’s role in the Libya operation.

Viewing Libya another way, Obama has revived an old American tradition—exemplified by FDR’s foreign policy in the early stages of World War II—of using European allies as proxies to wage war when the United States is unable to take the leading position.

Events this week indicate that Obama’s approach in Libya has managed to cripple the Gaddafi regime in a way that maximizes the Libyan people's ownership of the victory and minimizes the risks and costs to the United States. The contrast with George W. Bush’s approach in Iraq is stunning.

Obama’s Libya approach has managed to cripple the regime in a way that maximizes Libyan ownership of the victory and minimizes risks and costs to the United States. The contrast with Bush’s Iraq approach is stunning.

Obama’s critics also fail to acknowledge that he is much more popular with allied publics than was his predecessor. This has not translated into greater assistance for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan. On the other hand, it has restored drooping public support in allied countries for the idea of allying with Washington. For example, the number of Australians who believe the U.S. alliance is very important to their country’s security has shot up by 23 percent since the nadir of the Bush administration.

Of course, the biggest challenge to America’s position in the world comes not from the Middle East but from East Asia. And there, the president’s approach to China, and his commitment to America’s Asian allies, has strengthened significantly over his first term.

Initially Obama set out to accommodate Beijing’s interests and its claims. Yet the Chinese leadership failed to clasp his outstretched hand, disappointing the world at Copenhagen, failing to rein in its North Korean ally, and throwing its weight around in the region. Obama responded in kind, pushing back against the Chinese, taking two major trips to Asia, with significant stopovers in Tokyo and Seoul, and moving to deepen further America’s defense ties with Australia.

Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, the founders of America’s alliance system, were hardheaded liberals. They would certainly recognize Barack Obama as their heir.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Daily Beast

Comparing News of the World and WikiLeaks

Michael Fullilove — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The activities of the News of the World and WikiLeaks may seem, at first blush, to be poles apart. Yet the distance is not as great as it first appears.

There are, of course, significant differences between the two organizations.

Accessing a dead girl's voicemails is wholly different from publishing a record of important diplomatic discussions. One is an attack on the weak; the other is an attack on the strong.

British tabloids pursue low-level gossip; WikiLeaks pursues high-level policy. Most of the tabloids' stories are worthless; some of WikiLeaks' documents are very valuable.

Hacks and hackers cultivate different styles. The redtops are staffed by dodgy geezers; WikiLeaks is headed by an elusive Bond-villain type living in a stately home.

The two institutions draw different reactions from celebrities. Hugh Grant is the tabloids' chief tormentor; Jemima Khan is Julian Assange's biggest groupie.

Of the two institutions, the tabloids are worse. Assange has certainly not sunk so low as to eavesdrop on terrorism victims and war widows or publish the medical records of infants.

Yet in some ways, the two outfits share the same M.O.

Both adhere to the same dangerous rationale, that no one is entitled to confidential information. As Assange said in April: "The government doesn't have a right to secrets." But would the world be safer or saner if governments could not hold confidences? How could wars be averted in such a world? How could peace agreements or trade deals be negotiated?

Read the full article at theatlantic.com »

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Atlantic

WikiLeaks: Fruit of an Unhealthy Tree

Michael Fullilove — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

A version of the following article originally appeared on lowyinterpreter.org .

The WikiLeaks imbroglio is still in its early stages. However, we can say five things about its impact on the international system:

1. The randomness of the State Department dump is disturbing. Such a disclosure will inevitably have some good consequences; it will also have many evil ones. US contacts will be identified by security services that are less fussy about human rights than the FBI or the Justice Department. Peace processes will be compromised. Representatives of civil society in harsh places will be less willing to speak with foreign diplomats.

I have no confidence that Julian Assange and his anonymous colleagues have exercised their duty of care to maximise the good and minimise the evil. Mr Assange's scary Orwellian diktats to his browbeaten colleagues reveal that robust, collaborative internal decision-making processes are foreign to WikiLeaks.

2. The rationale for the dump is incoherent. What is the justification for dropping a quarter of a million cables, from diplomatic missions all over the world, on every topic under the sun? It's one thing for a whistleblower to expose a particular piece of information relating to one abuse of power: even that is a serious act entailing a very heavy responsibility.

But with this dump WikiLeaks is not uncovering a particular secret; it is outlawing secrets altogether.

Does Mr Assange really believe no-one is entitled to secrets? Would the world be safer, saner or more pleasant if nothing could be held in confidence? How could wars be averted in such a world? How could peace negotiations take place? Would news sources talk to journalists? Would business be done and jobs created? Could families enjoy each other's company? (I wonder whether the recent posting of Mr Assange's online dating profile will alter his view that transparency must trump every other right and every other interest. I will not link to the profile because I believe people have a right to privacy.)

3. It seems that Mr Assange has something against diplomacy. During the Bush Administration's years, especially in its first term, the left was rightly critical of George W Bush's over-reliance on military force. Now WikiLeaks is setting out to punish Washington for pursuing its aims through peaceful means — and undermining those peaceful means in the future. Thanks Julian, but I'd take the late Richard Holbrooke over you any day.

4. The playing field WikiLeaks has established is not a level one. It is much easier to steal information from open, democratic societies than from closed, authoritarian ones. WikiLeaks has hinted about future Russian leaks, but so far the vast preponderance of material is American in origin. Therefore the world sees the frailties of US diplomacy in much sharper focus than that that of, say, China or Iran. Do US diplomats look good in every exchange on which they report? No. But WikiLeaks doesn't allow us to compare them fairly to their foreign counterparts.

5. Even though WikiLeaks has rigged the game against the Americans, they don't come out of it as badly as you might think (and as Mr Assange doubtless hoped). If you squint your eyes and look at the totality of the information released so far, it turns out that the international problems about which Washington complains (for example, the Iranian nuclear program) are real and dangerous; that other capitals broadly agree with this; and that the American diplomats who are trying to address these problems often get little assistance from the rest of the world, including from those who egg them on privately. In other words, despite its clear intentions, WikiLeaks undercuts the view that America is arrogant, unilateral and bellicose.

I can't deny that WikiLeaks is fascinating. For a foreign policy think tank, it's great for business. Though many of the documents tell us nothing new, some are genuinely interesting and enlightening. Yet none of this takes away from the essential recklessness of WikiLeaks' conduct.

Even a sick tree can bear fruit. But we shouldn't pretend that the tree is healthy.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Do We Really Want China to Be a Responsible Stakeholder in Global Affairs?

Michael Fullilove — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

North Korea’s recent provocations – showing Western scientists a new uranium enrichment facility and launching a deadly artillery barrage at South Korea – may soon be considered by the United Nations Security Council. That would provide a test for the Council – and for its only permanent Asian member, China.

The last such test occurred in March, when North Korea sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan, with 46 fatalities. Beijing made the implausible claim that Pyongyang’s responsibility was unproven. U.S. and South Korean naval maneuvers off the Korean peninsula followed, but Chinese diplomatic maneuvers in New York confined the Security Council’s response to a weak statement from its president.

Thus the international organization’s response to the unprovoked sinking of a warship with substantial loss of life – a definite threat to international peace and security, one would have thought – was a presidential statement that did not even directly name the attacker. This was bad for the credibility of the United Nations; but it was worse for the credibility of China.

'China has to be on the right side of history'

China has its reasons for giving succor to its North Korean ally, and they are not all historical. It is anxious to avoid a collapsed state on its eastern border – or, for that matter, a strong state on its eastern border in the form of a reunified Western-aligned Korea. Yet is North Korea a worthy burden for Beijing to carry especially given the thickness of China’s economic ties with South Korea and Japan? Who wants to live next to an unhinged, family-owned regime that, sooner or later, will go under? A Chinese strategist described the choice to me starkly: “North Korea is the bad guy and South Korea is the good guy. China has to be on the right side of history.”

Growing savvy at the United Nations

North Korea fits the pattern of China’s broader UN relationship. In the past quarter-century, China has become a more skillful player in New York, represented by abler diplomats and behaving with more confidence in the Security Council chamber. Yet its approach to difficult security issues often seems more suited to a poor country than a great power.

Beijing regularly teams up with Moscow to weaken action in the Security Council relating to Iran’s nuclear program, thereby privileging its short-term commercial relationship with the Iranians over its long-term interest in a stable Middle East and a functioning nuclear non-proliferation regime. It provides cover in the Security Council to states widely regarded as pariahs, such as Sudan and Burma (Myanmar). On the other hand, on issues that do not trespass directly on its core interests, for example Afghanistan, China remains strangely disengaged.

In other words, it is occupied largely with protecting its narrowly-defined interests and those of its allies rather than projecting its influence.

Beijing wants respect, not responsibility

China wants respect, but not responsibility. It is reluctant to bind its own freedom of movement and subsume it within international institutions in the way the United States did after the Second World War, even though Washington’s relative power was far greater then than Beijing’s is now.

None of this is to say that China’s interests coincide exactly with Western interests. They do not, and we should not expect China to act exactly as we do. Nor should we ask China to promote global interests at the expense of its national interests. But as China’s wealth and power grow, its interests expand. A middle-power foreign policy is inadequate for a great power.

If China is to help run the international system, it must help strengthen the international system. Beijing needs to strike a new balance between its traditional economic and security concerns and the broader imperatives it must now satisfy, including stable great-power relations, nonproliferation, and the development of international prestige. China’s UN performance has largely escaped scrutiny in the past two decades, with the world’s head turned by American power and then American overreach. That pattern will not hold, as China may well discover in coming days.

Stepping up – but how?

On the other hand, the West needs to be careful what it wishes for. Western capitals want Beijing to be more responsible and active, but they don’t like it when Beijing is more assertive. China’s version of “stepping up” at the UN will not necessarily be the same as the West’s. How would Washington feel about China involving itself in the Middle East peace process, for example, or establishing “coalitions of the willing” in order to intervene in another country?

World Bank president and former Bush administration official Robert Zoellick famously called on China to be a “responsible stakeholder.” In its performance at the UN, China has so far failed to clear that bar. China’s leaders would probably respond that the responsibilities – and prerogatives – of a stakeholder are open to interpretation.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Christian Science Monitor

President Obama Still Strongest for 2012

Michael Fullilove — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0500

It's been a bad week for Barack Obama and the Democrats who copped, in the U.S. President's words, ''a shellacking'' in the U.S. midterm elections.

Republicans won back a majority in the House of Representatives, gaining some 60 seats in the biggest shift since World War II. They increased their numbers in the Senate by six, although a Democratic rearguard action and Tea Party foolishness cost them a majority. They also won a slew of governorships and state legislatures, which will help them in the black art of redrawing electoral boundaries.

Obama and the zeitgeist are no longer in perfect sync. Even Shepard Fairey, designer of the ''Hope'' poster, is losing hope. Even ''Obama girl'', who lip-synched the 2008 viral hit I've Got A Crush on Obama, is unimpressed. But it's too early for Obama to open his veins into the White House bathtub. We need to keep last week's results in perspective. They were not as bad as the blow delivered to Bill Clinton and the Democrats in 1994. In that year, the Democrats lost both houses of Congress, real estate they had then owned for the better part of four decades.

Obama has to make hard choices in the next two years - but so do congressional Republicans. Should they meet the expectations of their overcaffeinated base, or dash them by becoming real legislators? Tea Party leaders expect them to throw bombs, some of them at Obama's healthcare legislation. Yet when the Republican revolutionaries of 1994 stuck to their hard-line principles, they helped Bill Clinton to an easy re-election.

Obama is in reasonable shape to be re-elected himself. Yes, his opinion poll numbers have taken a tumble. True, Republicans are energised and Democrats are disillusioned. The U.S. economy remains listless and unemployment is stuck at 9.6 per cent. On the other hand, Republican control of the House means the party now shares responsibility for the country's problems. If it fails to deliver, Obama can run against them, as Clinton and Harry Truman did before him.

Presidents usually get re-elected, unless they face a serious primary challenge from within their party. The only Democrat in a position to mount one is now in Australia, serving as Obama's loyal Secretary of State. It is inconceivable that Hillary Clinton would challenge her boss.

Incumbency gives Obama significant ability to control events, as well as access to the best sound stages in the world: the White House, Air Force One and Marine One. To this, he adds his own intrinsic strengths: a base of African Americans and liberals who will come back to him, and the remarkable political skills that took him from the Illinois state House to the Oval Office in four years flat.

Obama has a good case for re-election, even if it is currently obscured. He capitalised the banks, reformed the financial system, rescued the car manufacturers and got the stimulus package through Congress. His healthcare act is a historic achievement that eluded other Democratic presidents. He has made few mistakes in the foreign policy sphere, certainly compared with his predecessor. Obama's record is not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Finally, the possible Republican candidates for his job are underwhelming. Several, including Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, ran for president unsuccessfully last time around. Sarah Palin is not up to the psychological and intellectual rigours of a presidential campaign. Newt Gingrich was the guy who mucked things up for Republicans the last time they were in this position.

Cases can be made for other candidates - the Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour; the Texas Governor, Rick Perry; even the independent Michael Bloomberg - but they are not convincing. Given the size of the Republican field and the power of the Tea Party, the eventual Republican nominee will probably have moved to the right, just as Obama tacked to the centre.

I am sometimes accused of being an Obama booster. It is true I thought he would run when most were sure he wouldn't; and that I thought he would win when the experts pronounced that Americans would never elect a black man. There are plenty of ways Obama could lose the White House in 2012, but I'm doubling down on him.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: Sydney Morning Herald

A Strong Case for Afghanistan Deployment

Michael Fullilove — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Today the Federal Parliament will hold its belated, but welcome, debate on our contribution to the Afghanistan war.

Now that Tony Abbott and the Coalition have pulled back (for the second time) from arguing for an increased deployment, the focus shifts to the position of parliamentary progressives such as the Greens and Andrew Wilkie, who have signalled their opposition to the war.

In addition to national interest grounds, including terrorism and the stability of southwest Asia, we believe there is a strong progressive case for the ADF’s current mission. That mission is to train local security forces in Uruzgan province for the next several years, as part of coalition efforts to ensure Afghans can take responsibility for their own security in a sustainable way.

The argument rests on three pillars.

First, Afghanistan was launched for reasons most progressive could and did support. It is the antithesis of the Iraq war, the war progressives love to hate. Afghanistan is a war of self-defence, launched after Al Qaeda’s attacks of 9/11, rather than a war fought to prevent a possible future attack. It was initiated pursuant to international law. It was sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, the piece of international machinery that progressives hold to be so important. It has been blessed by countless statements of supports from leaders of the international community.

If Australia pulls out precipitously, what does that say about our commitment to the UN, international law, and a decent and orderly international system?

Second, although the U.S. alliance is not necessarily popular among progressives, Afghanistan is the kind of alliance commitment progressives should support. The left marched against American unilateralism at the time of the Iraq war. In the case of Afghanistan, however, Washington is acting multilaterally, in concert with allies and friends. If Australia turns away from America now, when a progressive president is trying to maintain international support for a difficult struggle - if we insist that Americans should now bear this burden alone - then we validate the argument of American conservatives that it is better for Washington to act on its own.

Third, we have moral responsibilities to Afghans - not least the most vulnerable Afghans. There is an ethical dimension to this problem that progressives should not ignore. True, the coalition did not topple the Taliban to liberate Afghan women, but this does not change the fact that Afghan women can now work, go to school, vote and run for parliament in ways that were impossible under the Taliban.

Nor can we ignore the fears expressed by Afghan women that these relative improvements will be sacrificed in any deal between the current Afghan government and the insurgents. Such a deal may well be a necessary condition of peace, but the coalition still has the ability to influence the details of those negotiations - but not if we are heading for the door.

Will Western governments make the protection of women a condition of any agreement between Kabul and the insurgency? Maybe, maybe not. But this is precisely why it is incumbent on progressives to make this point in the debate about Afghanistan and not simply rest on empty slogans like ‘troops out now’.

Despite the contention of some progressives, coalition troops in Afghanistan are doing more good than harm. They help prevent civil war or the return of the Taliban to power; they make it more likely that the insurgents will be forced into a negotiation on terms more attractive to the current government; and by training the Afghan Army, Afghanistan’s one real national institution, they give the country a chance of keeping neighbours and transnational groups at bay in the future.

It is naive to assume that were the coalition to leave, the violence would stop. It is more likely that we would see a new civil war like the one that preceded the Taliban’s rise, as insurgents, warlords and what remains of the central government fight over power.

Progressives point to the Australian lives lost in this war - a matter that deserves the very gravest consideration. On this matter, both sides should be wary of conscripting dead soldiers and their families, friends and comrades in a cause which they may or may not share.

None of the above is an argument for open-ended or overly ambitious nation-building commitments in Afghanistan. It is an argument for giving Obama’s new strategy time to work and for giving Afghans the opportunity to build their own nation.

Progressives have long supported the Afghanistan war, and for good reasons. Most of those reasons still pertain. We should not rush for Afghanistan’s exits: rather we should make sure that when we leave we have discharged our responsibilities to the international community, our allies and most importantly to the people of Afghanistan.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: ABC News (Australia)

In Australia, Labor Party's First Term Successful by Historical Standards.

Michael Fullilove — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

I was on paternity leave for most of the post-election hiatus. I spent much of the break reading children's stories to my two older sons, including all of Dr Seuss's classics. I also saw some of the media commentary on the Gillard government's international prospects. It turns out the two genres have a good deal in common. Neither is based in reality. Both require an appreciation for the ridiculous.

A casual observer would get the impression that the Labor government's first-term foreign policy consisted of nothing but setbacks and humiliations. This is completely inaccurate. In fact, its performance was creditable compared with historical precedents.

First-term governments usually have a scratchy start in this area, but the Rudd government achieved a good deal. Australia's alliance with the US was strengthened in the public's esteem because it was redefined around ideas and interests rather than misty-eyed enthusiasm. The Group of 20, of which we are a member, was designated as the leading international forum for economic co-operation. Australia was a purposeful and effective player in international talks on the global financial crisis and climate change. Sense was restored after a decade of pointless UN-baiting and Canberra re-engaged with the multilateral institutions in which it does business.

Some bilateral ties, such as that with Indonesia, fared well. Others, such as Japan, could have been handled better. The China relationship had its ups and downs - as have all of Beijing's international relationships in the last couple of years.

The laziness that characterised Australian foreign policy in the late Howard era was replaced by a new energy and a search for fresh answers to problems. Perhaps it was all too much, too soon: more might have been achieved had the focus been narrower. Nevertheless, there is a good platform for this parliamentary term.

What about the Gillard government's international team? Starting at the top, Julia Gillard is a tough, decisive politician with a strategic brain and substantial personal charm. She comes to the job without a lengthy foreign policy curriculum vitae. So did most of the previous occupants of The Lodge, including John Howard and Robert Menzies.

Gillard's announcement of the Timor solution was not ideal. On the other hand, her stewardship of the post-election period, in which she comprehensively outmanoeuvred her opponents, shows her potential as an international negotiator.

In Kevin Rudd, Gillard has a Foreign Minister with experience and wide international networks. People are always moaning that Australia doesn't use its former prime ministers properly - well, here's our chance.

There may well be friction between Gillard and Rudd but they are both professionals. In any case, this is not entirely unprecedented. Bob Hawke and Bill Hayden differed on arms control; Robert Menzies and Percy Spender had furious disagreements over the Korean war and ANZUS. Both Hayden and Spender had their prime ministerial ambitions denied yet worked well under their leaders.

Gillard's and Rudd's interests are aligned: both want the government's international policies to succeed. This will require them to find a working rhythm and to give each other some space. Gillard will be at the centre of foreign policymaking, as are all heads of government these days. But she will give her Foreign Minister more elbow room than her immediate predecessor did.

Rudd will have carriage of most day-to-day foreign policy issues; Gillard will intervene when issues rise to a certain level or touch on themes she chooses to keep for herself.

There is an obvious precedent for such a relationship. After Barack Obama won the job Hillary Clinton wanted, he appointed her Secretary of State. She knuckled down to work, and Obama treated her respectfully.

Australia's Defence portfolio has been filled by one of the government's most reliable performers. Stephen Smith has a big job ahead of him directing affairs in Afghanistan, implementing the defence white paper, purchasing major pieces of kit and driving substantial savings.

The experienced and economically savvy Craig Emerson takes on the Trade portfolio.

The Gillard government is fortunate in its opponents, too. Tony Abbott ran an impressive campaign race, but he is as thin on foreign policy as he is on economics. That would be all right if he had a strong team behind him but he hasn't.

Julie Bishop is the least convincing shadow foreign minister in memory.

In the mid-90s Alexander Downer took skin off the Keating government's shins over French nuclear testing in the Pacific; a decade later, Rudd was lethal over the AWB oil-for-wheat scandal. Bishop is best known for flouting a long-established national security convention and criticising the granting of a visa to a Chinese dissident. Abbott's decision to keep her in foreign affairs rather than replacing her with Malcolm Turnbull or Greg Hunt - and indeed to give her responsibility for trade, as well - is mystifying.

The Coalition's defence spokesman is senator David Johnston, who is rarely mentioned in dispatches.

There are certainly factors that could derail the Gillard government's approach, including internal strife. But a fair-minded observer would see foreign policy as a strength for the government and a weakness for the opposition.

On the other hand, you don't read Dr Seuss for fair-minded observations.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Australian

President Obama: The World's Community Organizer

Michael Fullilove — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

President Barack Obama comes to New York this week to visit the United Nations. He will address the General Assembly, meet with Asian leaders, and participate in a clutch of meetings on issues concerning the international community, including development and the situation in Sudan. His trip coincides with the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, at which the great and the good pledge to help address international problems.

But if his work in New York this week throws light on his approach to international affairs, so does the work he did in Chicago back in the day. What he presents to his fellow world leaders this week -- a progressive foreign policy, a willingness to engage with adversaries, a commitment to following the rules and making others do the same -- reflects his background as a community organizer.

The foreign policy styles of presidents sometimes show traces of their previous careers. Former actor Ronald Reagan liked a simple plot and a few good lines. Bill Clinton displayed a lawyer’s fondness for arguing both sides of an issue. George W. Bush, former managing partner of the Texas Rangers, believed that changing a single regime could solve the problems of the Middle East, just as a single hit can win a game of baseball.

Barack Obama often relates how after college he became a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Community organizing is a social movement pioneered by activist Saul Alinsky which mobilizes communities to work together to improve their circumstances.

As president, Obama is trying to become an international community organizer.

There are some immediate objections to this comparison. Community organizing is about domestic policy, not foreign policy. It is a tool for the powerless, yet the White House is a global center of power. Community organizers usually take a confrontational approach and get in their opponents’ faces; Obama does not. Community organizing handbooks say that things should be run by local networks, not charismatic outsiders like Obama, with his soaring speeches to mass rallies.

Nevertheless, the parallels are strong. First, community organizing is a fundamentally progressive enterprise concerned with bringing about change. There is a strong progressive streak in Obama’s foreign policy, seen most powerfully in his signature initiative to reduce global stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Second, community organizers are preoccupied with power. They don’t aspire to the purity of the impotent. They identify who holds power, and they set out to engage them.

As president, Obama has engaged with all sorts of troublesome regimes. He shook hands with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and pressed the reset button on America's relations with Russia. He was slow to stand up for protestors in Tehran and to meet with the Dalai Lama, in order to better engage with Iran and China. He set aside the freedom agenda of the right and the human rights agenda of the left, and has earned their criticism for it. In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, he gave a community organizer’s world-weary response: “I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation.”

Community organizers will engage anyone if it furthers the interests of the community. This tough-minded focus on interests is the final bridge between the two ends of Obama’s life.

In 1988, a young Obama wrote that the task for community organizers is to “knit together the diverse interests” and thereby “shape a sense of community not only for others, but for themselves.”

This same theme emerges in Obama’s most important foreign policy statements. In his Nobel lecture, he accepted that the United States must restrain its own power and abide by international standards of conduct. Americans cannot “insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves.” A community only holds together if everyone follows the rules.

Yet there is a flipside to this principle, as he explained at the United Nations last year: “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone.” When a state shrugs off efforts at engagement and breaches the rules, the community must be tough in enforcing them.

Obama is trying to organize a community of like-minded nations who are prepared to act in areas where their interests overlap – even where that action comes at the price of, say, trade lost with Iran, or lives lost in Afghanistan. “Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable… Intransigence must be met with increased pressure – and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.”

Obama’s foreign policy attracts criticisms that closely track those leveled at community organizing. Just as Margaret Thatcher said “there is no such thing as society,” so John Bolton claims “there is no such thing as the United Nations”. There is no meaningful international community, they argue, and endless apologizing and philosophizing won’t bring one into being.

Yet what is the alternative to international community organizing? The Bush presidency revealed the limits to America’s power when it acted alone.

Many years ago, Obama explained why he agreed to become a community organizer given that the pay is low, the hours long, and the appreciation minimal. His answer then applies equally to international community organizing now on issues such as nuclear weapons, Afghanistan, and Iran:

“It needs to be done, and not enough folks are doing it.”

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Daily Beast

In Australia, Foreign Policy Falls Flat in Campaign

Michael Fullilove — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Today's debate between the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and the opposition spokeswoman, Julie Bishop, will mark almost the first discussion of foreign policy during the campaign.

In the leaders' debate, journalists asked only one foreign policy question, at the end of the night, when time was running out.

Compare that with the US presidential election in 2008, when Barack Obama and John McCain had a whole debate on international affairs.

So what is the foreign policy choice in this election? Neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott has served in an international portfolio, in government or opposition. However, we can discern their basic world views. The Prime Minister would probably continue the three themes of Labor's foreign policy over the past term: a strong emphasis on the US alliance; a focus on Asia; and continuing engagement with the UN.

The Opposition Leader would probably take John Howard as his model, with an emphasis on alliances and bilateral diplomacy. Abbott has a particular twist on the Howard approach with his interest in "the Anglosphere" (the community of English-speaking nations). It is not clear how he would operate this concept in government. If the Asia Pacific community has been hard to launch, how much harder would it be to organise a community of states in different corners of the earth, with interests that diverge at least as much as they converge?

If Gillard is re-elected, she would need to overcome the perception that she is not engaged on national security questions.

Abbott's challenge would be to show the same discipline in his conduct of foreign affairs as he has in the campaign.

Much has been written about whether Gillard would appoint Kevin Rudd as foreign minister. Her choice would come down to the role she wishes to play in international affairs and the nature of her relationship with Rudd at the campaign's end. But Abbott, too, would face a dilemma: should he keep Bishop in the foreign affairs role, despite her poor performance, or appoint someone such as Malcolm Turnbull, who could shine in the job?

Both sides deserve kudos on Afghanistan. Gillard has recommitted her government to a difficult war (and important alliance commitment) despite its unpopularity with Labor's base.

Abbott has declined to play politics on Afghanistan, despite recent Australian fatalities. Bipartisan agreement on such a difficult issue is welcome precisely because it was not inevitable.

Both Gillard and Abbott have signalled the importance of the US alliance. However, either would have to work hard as prime minister to establish a close relationship with US President Barack Obama, known for being distant with foreign heads of government. Abbott might find this more challenging than Gillard, as the ideological gulf between his government and the Obama administration would be wide.

The other major bilateral relationships are a mixed bag. The Coalition's approach to China while in opposition -- criticising the government, for example, for providing a visa to prominent activist Rebiya Kadeer -- has been mystifying. On the other hand, the government has not handled Japan well, allowing the awful practice of whaling to dominate a significant relationship.

Both countries are determined to do more with India, but the Coalition is less equivocal about the sale of uranium to New Delhi, a matter of high importance to the Indians. No side has a decisive advantage on Indonesia.

Climate change, which will increasingly intrude on foreign policy, is similar. The two parties come at this issue from different directions, but at this election they have each arrived in a similar place. Labor has been more consistent on the big climate picture and the integrity of the climate science. It accepts there will need to be a carbon price but does not propose to set it immediately. The Coalition displays bipolar tendencies when it comes to the climate science, and appears to be against a carbon price in principle. Both sides propose a mix of regulation and subsidies this time around.

One of the surprising differences has been the Coalition's vow to discontinue Australia's campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council. Such a move would raise eyebrows in capitals such as Berlin and Ottawa, where conservative governments promote their nations' candidacies. It is hard to think of other countries where there would be partisan disagreement about the advantages of belonging to the world's premier security forum.

Foreign policy has been marginal to this campaign but it is not marginal to our national interests.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Australian

In Australia, More Finesse Needed in Abbott's Foreign Policy

Michael Fullilove — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The leaders' debate featured almost no foreign policy. There was more discussion of Nauru's diplomacy than Australia's diplomacy; more talk of green armies than real armies.

This continues a pattern. There have been a few campaign reviews of Julia Gillard's foreign policy, mainly negative. But even though Tony Abbott may be prime minister in a few weeks, almost no-one has checked out his diplomatic chops.

Unlike some politicians, Abbott is interested in ideas and he has a good pen. However, the foreign policy section of his book Battlelines is short – a mere five pages – and pretty thin. Its emphasis on the importance of English-speaking countries – "the anglosphere," described by Abbott elsewhere as "the heart of the Western alliance" – sits oddly next to his praise for the Dutch contribution in Afghanistan, or the importance of Australia's relationship with Japan. These days, the anglosphere is simply not enough.

Abbott has real political gifts, but he also has certain weaknesses that can be damaging in diplomacy. The first, illustrated by the anglosphere example, is his tendency to see a difficult and complicated world in stark black and white. A proper sense of history and values must inform a nation's foreign policy. Courage is essential. But unlike U.S. presidents, Australian prime ministers cannot change the world by pronouncement. They have to deal with the world as they find it – not as it once was, or as they would prefer it to be.

Another weakness is Abbott's taste for the easy line. In Battlelines, for instance, he defends [former Australian Prime Minister] John Howard on the charge of being too close to Washington. "Far from being America's 'deputy sheriff'," he writes, "Australia ran a kind of neighbourhood watch scheme in support of Western values." Given the Howard government's gentleness in dealing with China's human rights performance, this characterisation is clearly inaccurate. But even if it were true, why would you say it? Given that Howard was dogged for years by the "deputy sheriff" tag, why would you choose to employ more law-enforcement language?

On the U.S. alliance, Abbott's instincts are broadly right. He has been a responsible opposition leader when it comes to the alliance commitment in Afghanistan, declining to make opportunistic mischief in the aftermath of Australian casualties. He deserves significant credit for this.

Yet it is not clear what kind of relationship Abbott would be able to establish with President Barack Obama. In part, this is bad timing: unlike Julia Gillard and most recent prime ministers, Abbott would be out of synch ideologically with the incumbent U.S. administration. However, ill discipline is also to blame. In 2008, Abbott allowed himself to freelance on the American election, saying of Obama: "He sounds terrific but I don’t know what’s really there." It is natural that politicians should have their personal favourites in foreign elections. But when it comes to candidates running for election to the office of head of state of our closest ally, Australian political leaders should maintain a public neutrality befitting the Swiss.

There are doubts about other aspects of Abbott's international program. What should we draw from the fact that Abbott remains bullish about the wrong-headed decision to invade Iraq? In similar circumstances in the future, would he make a similar decision?

The opposition leader has recanted his view that climate change is "absolute crap," but this feels more like political repositioning than a Damascene conversion. How actively would Abbott participate in international negotiations on a comprehensive response to climate change, on which Australia's long-term interests depend?

The opposition has withdrawn its support for Australia's campaign for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2013-2014 – a move that most conservative world leaders would find strange. Two leading candidates for the Security Council next year, for instance, are Germany (led by the Christian Democrats’ Angela Merkel) and Canada (led by the Conservative Party’s Stephen Harper).

Neither Merkel nor Harper are members of the Fabian Society. They are conservative pragmatists. They understand that the Security Council is the world’s pre-eminent crisis management body; that membership is a source of national prestige, which helps a country to further its interests and values. Finally, there is the opposition's plan for a two-year public service hiring freeze. In Abbott's Budget Reply, diplomats were conspicuously left off the list of "uniformed and frontline service positions" that would be exempted from the freeze. The assumption must be, therefore, that over the first two years of an Abbott government, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – already much depleted over the course of the last decade – would lose several hundred more officers. How does this square with Abbott's ambition for Australia to be "an international power in its own right?"

You don't have to be a foreign policy wonk to be an effective foreign policy prime minister. But there is a question whether Abbott is well prepared to meet the international demands of the prime ministership: to advance Australia's interests by working through the full range of relationships and institutions; to make sustained, measured arguments to multiple and diverse audiences; and to balance ends and means.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: Australian Financial Review

In Australia, Prime Minister Gillard Has Different Global View

Michael Fullilove — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Now that last week’s political horse race is over, what are the implications for Australia’s role in the world? How should we rate former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s foreign policies – and what can we expect from Julia Gillard? In the months leading up to the spill, the commentary on Rudd’s government was manic: every snafu was a scandal; every pause or setback was a humiliation. In retrospect, his international achievements were impressive given the length of his tenure in office.

Rudd constructed a network of connections with world leaders that was unusual in its breadth and depth. He developed an unlikely friendship with Barack Obama, a president who is notoriously reserved with other heads of government. He took a position on the Afghanistan war that was principled and not lacking in courage. Rudd’s role in urging the designation of the G-20 as the world’s leading forum for international economic cooperation will be remembered as his most important foreign policy win. This battlefield promotion squeezed Australia into the world’s inner councils and added significantly to our national prestige; it will bring Rudd’s successors into regular contact with the world’s most powerful leaders and turn their thinking toward global issues.

Rudd was a committed and effective international player after the global financial crisis. He increased Australia’s soft power through his apology to the stolen generations and his repudiation of the Pacific solution. He beefed up Australia’s hard power with a tough-minded Defence White Paper. His re-engagement with the United Nations, after a decade of pointless grandstanding, has restored balance to Australian foreign policy.

Bilateral relations with Japan and India were troubled during Rudd’s prime ministership. Australia-China ties never attained the level of harmony promised by his familiarity with that country, although the problems emanated mainly from the other side. Indeed, Beijing’s bipolar policies have caused similar friction in its relations with Washington, with capitals in Europe, South America and Asia – even with Moscow.

Rudd played too dominant a role in foreign policy-making. This gummed up the works; it undercut the authority of Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and other officials and made them overreliant on his judgments, which he did not always have sufficient time to reach. He came up with too many foreign policy initiatives. Yet these weaknesses were the defects of his qualities: namely, his enormous knowledge, energy and ambition, all of which came as a relief after the smug and reactive policies of the Howard era.

Rudd’s record looks strong when laid next to the first terms of other popularlyelected prime ministers. Few of the highlights of Bob Hawke’s foreign policy, for example the establishment of APEC and the upgrading of US-Australian defence ties, occurred in his first term. John Howard’s early tenure had a Keystone Kops feel: awkward relations with Washington; conflicts with Beijing; difficulties with developing nations; leaked intelligence assessments of Pacific leaders; international concern at the botched response to Pauline Hanson’s rise. Howard eventually righted his ship, but it took him several years to develop the assuredness Rudd displayed on day one.

Like all recent prime ministers except Rudd, Gillard comes to the job with little direct foreign policy experience. We don’t know much about her views on the world. As Deputy Prime Minister, she located herself in the mainstream of Australia’s diplomatic tradition with well-received visits to the United States and Israel. She knows Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and she impressed leaders in Iraq. Starting from first principles, we can hazard three guesses at Gillard’s foreign policy approach. First, she will be a natural at the personal diplomacy that greases the global wheels. She is smart, funny and persuasive; a good listener as well as a good talker.

Second, as a brisk pragmatist with an eye to the main game, she may slough off a couple of Rudd’s less successful foreign policy initiatives, such as the Asia-Pacific Community.

Finally, she is likely to establish a more normal relationship with her foreign minister than has obtained recently. Gillard is a skilful professional politician who knows that prime ministers rise and fall principally on their domestic performance. She will allow the foreign minister to manage the government’s international agenda, only intervening when issues rise to a certain level, or when they touch on one or two international themes that she intends to claim as her own. Even in her first days in office, it is clear she has a good feel for when to exercise her authority and when to allow others to make the running.

Who she selects to make the running on foreign policy, should Labor win the looming election, will be crucial. The extension of Smith’s mandate to cover trade (at least temporarily) indicates that Gillard trusts him and may wish to keep him on. On the other hand, the transitional nature of these arrangements also preserves the option of Rudd’s return to foreign affairs down the track. Like national politics, international politics can be treacherous and brutal as well as creative and inspirational. Game on, indeed.

Editor's Note: This is the original version of the opinion article published in an edited form in Australian Financial Review, 1 July 2010, p 67.

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: Australian Financial Review

A Place at the Top Table: Australia's Bid for the UN Security Council

Michael Fullilove — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:14:00 -0400

In March 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that Australia would be a candidate for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2013–14. The bid has attracted many exaggerated and inconsistent criticisms. However, it would clearly be in Australia's national interest for us to win a seat on the council – and it would be in the UN's interest, too.

The Security Council consists of fifteen members: five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) and ten members elected for two-year terms. The ten rotating seats are divided among the UN's various geographical groupings. Australia has sat on the council on four previous occasions, but has not been present since the end of the Cold War. Now it is running for one of the two spots on the council reserved for the members of the Western European and Others Group. The election will take place in October 2012.

Australia has started behind the eight ball: its declared opponents, Luxembourg and Finland, announced their candidacies in 2001 and 2002 respectively. At least fifteen countries have publicly pledged support for Australia's bid and a number of others are thought to have given private indications.

Getting elected will not be easy. Finland has a good story to tell, given its strong human rights record, generous aid budget and the UN work of prominent Finnish nationals such as Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Luxembourg is significantly smaller than Australia, but as a well-respected contributor which has never sat on the council it is also a formidable opponent. This is not to say that Australia's task is impossible. Government sources report that it will be a difficult contest but the campaign is off to a credible start.

The truth is, though, that it is difficult for outsiders (and perhaps even for insiders) to draw conclusions about Australia's chances, given the opaque process and the vote being three years off. There is simply too much campaigning in smoke-filled rooms – or, given that this is the UN, smoke-free rooms – still to come. We can, however, decide whether the candidacy is in the national interest.

Read the full article at www.griffithreview.com »

Authors

Michael Fullilove

Publication: The Griffith Review