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Abstract
As a close US ally, Australia is often seen as a recipient of US extended deterrence. This article argues that in recent decades, Australian strategic policy engaged with US extended deterrence at three different levels: locally, Australia eschews US combat support and deterrence under the policy of self-reliance; regionally, it supports US extended deterrence in Asia; globally, it relies on the US alliance against nuclear threats to Australia. The article argues that in none of these policy areas does the Australian posture conform to a situation of extended deterrence proper. Moreover, when the 2009 White Paper combines all three policies in relation to major power threats against Australia, serious inconsistencies result in Australia's strategic posture—a situation the government should seek to avoid in the White Paper being drafted at the time of writing.
Notes
1. This article was written as part of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project on ‘Australia's Nuclear Choices’, and partly draws on a conference paper prepared for a Nautilus Institute research workshop. The author is indebted to Benjamin Schreer, Paul Dibb and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts.
2. The alliances between the USA and South Korea and Japan are notably different in this regard from the ANZUS alliance or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, since they do not establish reciprocal commitments.
3. The Defence Committee chose to present the issue rather differently to the Whitlam government, stating in the 1973 Strategic Basis that: ‘In the remote contingency of a general war, Australia may come under threat for various reasons, including the presence of defence facilities. However, only in the highly improbable event of general nuclear exchange would it seem likely that the significant US defence facilities in Australia might be attacked’ (Defence Committee 1973, in Frühling Citation2009, 466).
4. Such measures were, however, never implemented (Paul Dibb, personal communication).
5. Although Soviet embassy officials often implied such threats in the 1970s (Paul Dibb, personal communication).
6. For a discussion of ‘triangular deterrence’, see Harkavy (Citation1998).
7. For a detailed discussion of the circumstances under which the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Australia would be a credible possibility, see Frühling (Citation2010). Rather than being of a technical nature, the main constraints on the development of fission weapons are found to be the reaction of Indonesia and the USA to an Australian nuclear program.
8. Several elements of the force structure laid out in the 2009 White Paper, such as the acquisition of land-attack cruise missiles and the possible role of air warfare destroyers as platforms for SM-3 ballistic missile defence interceptors, also make more sense if the Australian Defence Force is to operate as part of a US-led naval coalition, rather than as a self-reliant force.
9. Notably, the White Paper refers to ‘nuclear attacks’ rather than ‘nuclear threats’ or ‘nuclear coercion’ in the context of a conflict with a major power. The latter terms would have raised the essentially political, rather than military, nature of extended deterrence in a much starker manner.