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https://theconversation.com/australias-strategic-infantilisation-by-the-us-is-undermining-our-security-in-asia-278068>
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Review: Blind Spot: Southeast Asia and Australia’s Future: Quarterly Essay
101 – Michael Wesley (Black Inc.)
Agonising about Australia’s place in the scheme of things has been the
principal pastime of policymakers since our notional independence.
As Michael Wesley argues persuasively in
Blind Spot: Southeast Asia and
Australia’s Future, our “government and society suffer from a form of
strategic long sightedness”. We reflexively identify with faraway members of
the Anglosphere, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. But even
more consequentially, we outsource responsibility for our foreign and security
policy to one great and powerful friend or another.
This means, Wesley argues, that “our leaders seem to believe that whatever the
challenge, the solution was investing ever more heavily in the alliance with
the United States”.
Trusting that another nation’s foreign policies will somehow automatically
align with our own – even if we knew what “ours” actually were – is
irresponsible and pusillanimous at the best of times. When Donald Trump is
rupturing the rules-based international order and acting like a “predatory
hegemon”, it is a foolhardy form of wishful thinking.
Wesley describes this a process of “strategic infantilisation”. Little wonder
that many in Southeast Asia view our efforts at “engagement” with scepticism.
Like China, they view us as an appendage of America’s grand strategy, with
little capacity for independent thought, much less action."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
