AUSTRALIAN EXTERNAL RELATIONS: SPECIAL RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES

 

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

A

ustralia has a strategic location and geography since the mid-1980s. Its location isolated from world trouble spots and the fact that it is an island continent are said to provide certain strategic and tactical advantages which is contributed to its defensibility. The Labour government’s 1987 defense White Paper noted that Australia… naturally protected by vast ocean surrounds and the inhospitable tracts of our own country to the north and north-west… combine to provide with natural defences against conventional attack (Beazley, 1987).

The 1994 defence White Paper again warned that at some time in the future armed force could be used against us and (so)… we need to be prepared to meet it (White Paper, 1994).  This is in spite of the fact that white Australia has never seriously been threatened has said we are unlikely to be for at least the foreseeable future. Such continuing, obsessive, and arguably, irrational fear of military attack has its root in white Australia’s own history and experiences.

Australia has always been a frightened country (Renouf, 1979 and Pons, 1994) by the constant fear of attack or conquest by external and predominantly Asian countries. Australia beliefs that she cannot defend herself against these perceived threats, that’s why she led Australia’s policy makers to look to great and powerful friend for reassurance and protection.  As a consequence, Australia has become a dependent ally (Bell, 1988), borrowing from and ever supportive of the policies and practices of its principal benefactors, and ready to dispatch military forces overseas in support of their imperial objectives (Andrews, 1979; Millar, 1991; and Watt, 1968).

The notion of keeping Australia safe created by maintaining its surrounding region as an Anglo-Australian and later United States-Australian preserve was not restricted to colonial times. It is important to remember that when United States dominance was arguably most legitimate, constructive, and benign in the first couple of decades after the Second World War, it was widely perceived to have assumed a hegemonic position that transcended national interest to provide international public good (Kindleberger, 1973).

Since the Second World War, relations with United States have assumed an increasingly prominent position in the construction of economic and security policies in Australia. Sentiment toward the United States has generally been positive. However, self declared ‘war on terrorism’ of United States and Australia’s participation in a conflict with Iraq in particular, has subjected the relationship to widespread scrutiny and criticism. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has moved to qualify its support, some senior Labor figures have launched fairly splenetic attack on American foreign policy and the Howard government’ support of it (Price, Lewis, and Kerin, 2003).

Even before 11 September 2001 and the subsequent reordering of American foreign policy, the Howard government’s expectations about what the bilateral relationship with the United States could deliver looked likely to prove a triumph of hope over experience: a glance at the recent historical record suggested that the benefits likely to accrue to Australia were likely to be the modest at best. But if we examine closer, more exclusive relationship with the United States may have a significant and generally negative impact on Australia’s long term place in the region, its economic position, its political independence, and even domestic security.

In economic relations with United States, Australia is one of a select band of countries that actually runs a trade deficit with the United States. While American markets have played a pivotal role in underpinning the export-led development of much of region and more sustaining a faltering global economy through seemingly insatiable consumer-led demand, Australia has not been a major beneficiary of either of these developments. There is a range of visible and invisible trade barriers that discriminate against Australian-based producers (Beeson, 2003).

Australia-New Zealand-US alliance, ANZUS was plainly a gesture loaded symbolic than strategic significance, as Australia could add nothing material to America’s overwhelming and increasing military dominance (Brooks and Wohlforth, 2002) but it was a gesture that continued an Australian tradition with a respected heritage. Difficult to say anything sensible about the intelligence benefits but with the sort of threat Australians obviously did face in Bali, this sort of information was either inadequate or not acted upon (Walker, 2002). Indeed, White (2002, 254) argues that it is Australia that is out of step with contemporary strategic realities and that far from being an irresponsible free-rider. We can se that the Howard government’s enthusiastic support for the United States generally and for the ‘war on terror’.

Clearly, Australia has a limited capacity to influence American foreign policy. The United States’ present determination to use its overweening power to pursue more narrowly defined and supported objectives means that policy makers in allied countries like Australia need to balance what are debatable short-term domestic pay-offs against the long-term stability of the International system (Beeson, 2003). But in both of the most important elements of its bilateral relationship, economics and security, Asutralia is clearly disadvantaged by America’s willingness to exploit its overwhelming political, economic, and strategic leverage.

 

References:

Beeson, Mark. 2003. Australia’s Relationship with the United States: The Case for Greater Independence. Queensland: Australian Journal of Political Science, University of Queensland

Cheeseman, Graeme. –. Australia: the White Experience of fear and Dependence. –

 

 

 

 

NARROWING AND BROADENING SECURITY

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

devania.annesya@gmail.com

 

I

nitially, in a narrow realist, or later, neorealist approach, military security was an attribute of relations of a state, a region or a grouping of states (alliance) with other state(s), regions, groupings of states. It was also referred to as “international security”. Security was viewed as an absence of threat or a situation in which occurrence of consequences of that threat could be either prevented or state (region, alliance) could be made isolated from that.

Broadening the neorealist concept of security means inclusion of a wider range of potential threats, beginning from economic and environmental issues, and ending with human rights and migration. Deepening the agenda of security studies means moving either down to the level of individual or human security or up to the level of international or global security, with regional and societal security as possible intermediate points. While broadening can be attributed predominantly to attempts made by representatives of neorealist approach, then parallel broadening and deepening of the concept of security has been proposed by the constructivist approach associated with the works of the Copenhagen School (Buzan et al, 1998). This typology seems representative for most writings discussing reconceptualization of security, e.g. (Krause & Williams, 1996; Knudsen, 2001).

Analytical properties of security should be concentrated firstly on its adequate definitions and interpretations. Following the concepts of broadened and narrowed interpretations of security, each domain – military, political, economic, societal, environmental and informational can have its specificity (Mesjasz, 2004).

“The concept of security must change-from an exclusive stress on national security to a much greater stress on people’s security, from security through armaments to security through human development, from territorial security to food, employment and environmental security” (Human Development Report, 1993 – www.undp.org/hdro/e93over.htm).

For too long, the concept of security has been shaped by the potential for conflict between states. For too long, security has been equated with the threats to a country’s borders. For too long, nations have sought arms to protect their security. For most people today, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily life than from the dread of a cataclysmic world event. Job security, income security, health security, environmental security, security from crime-these are the emerging concerns of human security all over the world. Most people instinctively understand what security means. It means safety from the constant threats of hunger, disease, crime and repression. It also means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the pattern of our daily lives-whether in our homes, in our jobs, in our communities or in our environment (Human Development Report 1994 – www.undp.org/hdro/e94over.htm).

Reviewed from:

Mesjasz, Czeslaw. 2004. Security as an Analytical Concept. Cracow: Cracow university of Economics

Smith, Steve. “The Contested Concept of Security” in Critical Security Studies and World Politics. London: Lynne Rienner Pub

 

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND SECURITY IN POST-COLD WAR ERA

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

devania.annesya@gmail.com

 

F

ollowing the end of the Cold War, many analysts expected that regional security would become separate from global security (Lake and Morgan,1997), especially from the concerns of the great powers. This was because the great powers were no longer involved in an intense competition in all parts of the globe, as was the case during the Cold War. The events of 9/11 show, however, that there is a tight relationship between global security, US national security, transnational terrorism, failed states, and issues of regional conflict (such as the relations among Afghanistan, its neighbors, and trans-border ethnic groups; the Pakistan-India conflict over Kashmir; Iraq, Iran, and Gulf security; the Arab-Israeli conflict; and challenges to the stability of Arab regimes and other weak states).

The US 9/11 Commission, set up by the US Congress to investigate the events leading up to the 9/11 terror attacks, agrees. Among its conclusions: “In the twentieth century, strategists focused on the world’s great industrial heartlands. In the twenty-first, the focus is in the opposite direction, towards remote regions and failing states” (Quoted in Financial Times, July 23, 2004). Thus, regional conflicts and their resolution should be addressed not only for their intrinsic importance, but also in order to advance the cause of international security and stability.

Indeed, one major reason why questions of regional war and peace have assumed added importance in the post-Cold War era is the growing salience of regional conflicts as a result of the end of the superpower rivalry, and the potential consequences of regional conflicts for international stability (Miller and Kagan, 1997: 52). Militarily, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery to different regions may eventually pose a threat, if they do not already, not only to regional security, but to global security as well. Regional conflicts can place access to markets and resources at risk – Middle Eastern oil is a good example.

Some argue that the process of globalization has intensified with the end of the Cold War, and that this process leads to greater global uniformity which diminishes regional differences (Clark, 1997). Others, however, point out that the end of the Cold War produced increasing regional variations, especially in the area of security (Friedberg, 1993/4: 5). Indeed, the end of the Cold War has brought to the surface even greater variations among regions with respect to war and peace. In contrast to post-1945 international norms and practice (Zacher, 2001), Iraq, a state with revisionist aspirations, annexed a sovereign neighboring state, Kuwait, in summer 1990. The Iraqi action led to a major US intervention and to the First Gulf War in 1991. Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States came to see the Middle East, particularly Iraq, as a major source of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This brought about the Second Gulf War, in which the United States invaded and occupied Iraq in Spring 2003. This time the United States had a wider agenda, one which called for bringing democracy to Iraq and, coupled with other US diplomatic initiatives, to the Middle East as a whole. Another example is the Balkans where– after forty-five years of relative calm–the collapse of the USSR led to an eruption of violence which eventually brought about US-led NATO interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999. Violent eruptions also took place in other areas of the collapsing Soviet empire (for example, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan), although they did not bring out Western military interventions.

 

Reviewed from:

Miller, Benjamin. 2007. States, Nations, and Great Powers: The Sources of Regional War and Peace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

 

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND SECURITY IN COLD WAR ERA

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

devania.annesya@gmail.com

 

T

he evolution of the rise and collapse of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union from the end of World War II in 1945 to the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 has several properties that recommend it as a test of currently contending security theories. First, the struggle for global dominance between these two superpowers and their allies, clients, and satellites generated incentives for the development of state military capabilities unprecedented in human history. Moscow and Washington constructed three mutually reinforcing military systems. Central was what Herman Kahn darkly characterized as two superpower nuclear Doomsday Machines, each capable of annihilating its rival in less than a hour–and of potentially destroying much of human life on the planet (Kahn, 1960 and Rees, 2003). Linked to these Doomsday Machines was the creation of enormous conventional and regional nuclear forces in the center of Europe, where Western democratic armies met those of the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. These two competitors for hegemony, much like Athens and Sparta in their struggle for leadership of the Greek peninsula, also enlisted or coercively induced other states and peoples into their global alliance structures. These superpower military systems, if unleashed in a spasm, would have moved rapidly toward the Clausewitz notion of pure war. These three, interdependent military responses to their global struggle were rationalized by both states as mutually reinforcing to support their defense, deterrent, and war-fighting strategies. Dominance at each level of armed conflict was conceived as mutually contingent to produce overall strategic superiority; the synergism was widely believed by decision-makers on both sides to be indispensable to win or prevail in the global competition.

Second, the scientific knowledge, technological innovation, and economic resources mobilized to sustain these superpower systems exposed the shortcomings of classic models of security. Third, the Cold War went well beyond the material dimensions sketched in these security and welfare imperatives. It was also a struggle over legitimacy before the courts of national and world public opinion. Legitimacy as a Cold War imperative compelled the superpowers to justify their conflicting solutions to global security and welfare imperatives and their self-assumed roles as leaders of their competing coalitions. They also had to validate the principles of legitimacy that purportedly conferred on them the authority to rule other peoples and their own populations. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader duringWorldWar II, told Milovan Djilas in 1945: “This war is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise” (Keylor, 2003).

Fourth, the Cold War was truly global, even more extensive in reach and impact than World Wars I and II. Engaged and ensnared were all humans, whether by choice or necessity. This was the first instance in the evolution of the species, since its emergence out of Africa over a million years ago (Diamond, 1992), that all the populations of the world had been drawn into the vortex of a global struggle. For the first time, too, the conflict put into question the very future of the human species, quite apart from the localized national, ethnic, communal interests of the peoples and states striving for ascendancy. The scope of the Cold War engaged all of the actors and principal factors identified (albeit differentially) by the security theories to be evaluated in succeeding chapters. States, the system of state relations, global markets, multinational corporations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and most of the world’s populations–all were implicated by choice or necessity in the Cold War struggle. The Cold War, if viewed as a set of all conceivable interactions between and among relevant actors engaged in security relations in international relations, offers a sufficiently inclusive set of data to test the security claims of contending schools of thought.

 

Reviewed from:

Kolodziej, Edward A. 2005. Security and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

 

WAR IS THE END OF CONFLICT

 

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

Ayu Rachmania/ 070810203

Alathea Amanda Sumanti/ 070710205

 

W

ar is direct, somatic violence between states as the actors of International Relations. War occurs when states in situation of social conflicts and opposition find that the pursuit of incompatible or exclusive goals cannot be confined to non-violent modes (Evan and Newnham 1998). As a form of direct violence, war occurs in different form within social system. Gang war, range war, class war, civil or internal war are distinguishable typologies. Meanwhile others said that war is nothing but a duel on a larger scale, thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will (Clausewitz 1993).

War  is the use of force–because force is very influential in defeating the enemy and indirectly stop the opponent to threat or whatever it is–to make the enemy follow our will. War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will. That force is, phisycal force, for moral force has no existence save as expressed in the state and the law–is thus the means of war; to impose our will from on–the enemy is its object. We object to secure. That must render the enemy powerless; and that in the theory, is the true aim of warfare. Aim takes the place of the object, discarding it as something not Actually part of war Itself.

Force means power, to finished a conflict need some states that have power to involved. More greater power of state can make force more effectively. So theres condition that some big wars involved some big state to have reconcillation, therefore when force came from small state that have low political influence, force became uneffective.

Let’s understand the chronology of war—about how it is happen. First, we must know that war is begun by conflict. Conflict is a situation when interests between two or more countries collide. This conflict, mostly, will not end, before the state actors achieve their interests (national scale interests). In the political world, interests are the fundamental and essential things ever exist. Interests will always be the beginning and the ending motive/ trigger for political actors in doing their (political) actions. Interests determine whether the actors will use the non-violence actions and steps, or otherwise. That image of war pattern is the main point we’re talking about in this writing. Begins with collide of interests between two or more countries, which then continued into the state level conflict. Then, that conflict advanced to the next level, the state level war. Those continuation and advancing levels from collide of interests to conflicts and then to war. That is caused by the reason of the effort in pursuing interests. In conclusion, war is the end of the conflicts.

Influence can also be classified as war, such as embargo in economic influence, a political pressure in resolution to Iran from UN in political influences. It means that war is the end a conflict, it’s a tool to end a conflict war also judged as most effective solution, saving more time rather than negotiation and diplomacy.

Realist argued war should not necessarily be regarded as dysfunctional. War in the international system is not necessarily like disease in the biological system. The fears of war or conflicts have often be used to integrate states. In such circumstance, the search of for enemies assists in maintaining or increasing group solidarity. Violence can be used to create states. For instead in the First World War, Napoleon war was brought United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and a number of German states together against France as one coalition.

 

Analysis

Neo-realists, Kenneth Waltz argue that instead of looking to “natural” causes of conflict, we need to look to “social” ones instead. Following Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Waltz argues that the organization of social relations rather than the nature of man is what determines whether or not we have war. Why? Because good men behave badly in bad social organizations, and bad men can be stopped from behaving badly if they are in good social organizations. States go to war, then, because they are in a bad social organization. And Waltz calls that bad social organization international anarchy. “International anarchy is the permissive cause of war.” So, realists and neo-realists differ on how they conceptualize international anarchy. For realists, it is just the environment in which sovereign nation-states act. For neo-realists, international anarchy describes the social relations among sovereign nation-states that causally explain why wars occur. So every state has a right to go to war if there any unresolved conflict. But if a state goes to war, who’ll be assured that the conflict will end and nothing left to fight of?

 

Reviewed from:

Evans, Graham & Newnham, Jeffrey. 1998. Dictionary of International Relations. London: Penguin Books

Mingst, Karen A. 2008. ‘Contending Perspective: How to Think about International relations Theoritically’ dalam Essentials of International Relation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company

Clausewite, Carl V. 1993. On War (ed & Michael haward and pete, paret), New York : Alferd A Knopf, pp 83-101, 731-737.

Art, Robert J. 2009. International Politics. Enduring Concepts & Contemporary Issues 9^th Edition. Pearson Education, Inc US

 

 

 

ANARCHY

 

Devania Anesya/ 070810535

 

Guiding questions:

-          Anarchy is a result of a system or disorder?

-          Is anarchy still exists until now?

 

A

narchy is a crucial highly contentious concept in international relation. Its literal meaning is ‘absence of government’ but it is often used as a synonym for disorder, disarray, confusion or chaos (Evan and Newnham 1998). In its formal sense, it designates the lack of a central authority and anarchy does happen in which international occur. In this sense it has neither positive nor negative conditions. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive, a general condition rather than a distinct structure. It considered to be ‘the starting point’ of thinking of international relations.

In the classical era, many of the philosophers of relevance to international relations focused on the notion of the basic characteristics of man and how those characteristics might influence the character of international society. Thomas Hobbes the English philosopher (1588-1679), in Leviathan, imagined a state of nature as a world without government authority or civil order, where men rule by passions, living with the constant uncertainty of their own security. Extrapolating to the international level, in the absence of international authority, society is in a ‘state of nature’ or what we identify as anarchy. State left in this anarchic condition act as man does in the state of nature. The solution of the dilemma is a unitary state – a Leviathan – where power is centrally and absolutely controlled.

Rousseau (1712-78) saw a different solution, he described the state of nature/ anarchy as an egocentric world, with man’s primary concern being self-preservation. Rousseau’s solution to the dilemma is to create smaller communities in which the ‘general will’ could be attained. General will can direct the forces of the state according to the purpose for which instituted, which is the common good.

 

 

Anarchy does not imply that violence is common in the international system but rather that the threat of violence is ever present. Anarchy means that the international system is one of self-help. Nevertheless, Waltz sees virtues in anarchy–principally that the high costs of organization in a hierarchic order are avoided and that states can preserve their autonomy.

Analysis

The anarchical condition exist because sovereign states as the most important player in world politics are autonomous and independent. Thus, international politics, each state presumably will behave by their own interests. And states behaviour in pursuing their own interests and their relations to other states respectively shape international politics. State are presumed to act rationally in terms of perception of the national interest but they are not entirely unconcerned with the rules and norms. That’s why conflict and cooperation can and do co-exist within the same social milieu.

Reviewed from:

Evans, Graham & Newnham, Jeffrey. 1998. Dictionary of International Relations. London: Penguin Books

Hobes, Thomas. 1968. Leviathan. Eng: Penguin

Jervis, Robert. 2009. Enduring concepts & Cotemporary Issues 9^th edition. Pearson Education, Inc

Mingst, Karen A. 2008. ‘Contending Perspective: How to Think about International relations Theoritically’ dalam Essentials of International Relation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company