Major Wars and Regional Responses in Australia and New Zealand: International Relations As Apologetics and Exegesis (And Inadequate)
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Major Wars and Regional Responses in Australia and New Zealand: International Relations as Apologetics and Exegesis (and Inadequate) [Paper presented to the Panel WC76 Memorialization, Public Grieving and War in the Configuring of Political Community: Regional and Local Perspectives 56th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association New Orleans, LA 18 February 2015] Judy Hemming University of Canberra [email protected] Michael McKinley Australian National University [email protected] ABSTRACT Judy Hemming and Michael McKinley Major Wars and Regional Responses in Australia and New Zealand: International Relations as Apologetics and Exegesis (and Inadequate) The respective histories of Australia and New Zealand since the late 19th Century are marked by the frequent wars fought alongside their dominant imperial, or alliance partner, but they are also the means by which both nations have sourced and over-determined their national identities. World War I especially set the tone for the narratives and all subsequent engagements in wars have called it forth – in the process adding to, and embellishing them. Currently, they now comprise a record which is openly spoken of – but in approving terms – as a myth of heroic, but necessary sacrifice despite the fact that, overwhelmingly and in strategic terms, the wars were defeats for the two nations. Indeed, the mythology seems impervious to the historical record constructed around the tenets of International Relations. This paper will argue that the reasons for this have to do with the narratives being only partially located in the discipline of IR – which over time has been complicit in preventing them becoming authorized, canonical, civil religious texts of an inerrant character. Governments, thus, have learned to use them as national litanies: they petition their citizens with them and are met with a recurring and generally enthusiastic responses. 2 A Prefatory Comment This paper speaks of the regional responses by Australia and New Zealand to certain major wars but this does not imply that an ANZAC spirit suffuses strategy and policy to the point of congruence. Certainly, there are close affinities between the two countries – indeed, they are frequently held, in conjunction with New Guinea and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean, to constitute a region known as “Australasia.” Moreover myth, legend and historical narrative have also combined to suggest a remarkable identity of ability and interests in war fighting from the Gallipoli landings through to the Vietnam War. German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, after facing a combined Australia – New Zealand infantry division in North Africa, is reported to have said that, “If I had to take hell, I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it.” And as late as 1983, it was commonplace for both the political leadership and defence and strategic analysts in both Australia and New Zealand to proclaim, “the two countries constitute a singe strategic entity.” They are, nevertheless, also quite distinct – geographically, demographically, culturally, economically, socially, and strategically, and sometimes, perhaps chronically, these differences dominate. They result in differences in style, too: whereas Australia is conscious of its continental size and riches arising from natural resources, and is boastful of “punching above its weight,” New Zealand is generally given to modest interventions on the unassailable basis that its resources are generally modest. Henry Grattan’s observation on the attraction – repulsion nature of another asymmetric dyad, Ireland’s proximity to England is, if geographically modified, applicable: the Tasman Sea precludes union just as the Pacific Ocean forbids separation.1 From the mid-1980s on, notable divergences have come to the fore, caused by such developments as the non-nuclear demarche taken by the New Zealand Labour Government under the Prime Ministership of David Lange. This had the initial effect of excluding New Zealand from the arrangements established under the ANZUS Treaty of 1951, forcing subsequent 1 The distance from Wellington to Melbourne is 1,598 miles, slightly more than the distance between London and Moscow; between Auckland and Sydney the distance is 1,338 miles. 3 Governments in New Zealand to think somewhat more independently, with the effect that previous national, characteristics in alliance and strategic thinking of a critical nature – evident but not emphasized during the Vietnam War - became more pronounced. Reflecting strong public opinion against any military action against Iraq that was not authorised by the United Nations, the New Zealand Government compromised by providing a military contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom in the form of a unit of combat engineers embedded with a larger British contingent of military engineers. And while the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been joined by Australia, as of late January 2015, the New Zealand Government has yet to decide whether New Zealand forces will be deployed. “When” should probably replace “whether.“ In a visit to the UK, Prime Minister John Key advised that his government was “exploring whether we will send a training contingent to probably work alongside the Australians in Iraq." The rationale was that terrorism was a global threat which New Zealand had to help counter and, more importantly it seems, any support from New Zealand for the fight against ISIS is "the price of the club", in being part of the Five Eyes (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) intelligence arrangements.2 In the light of the history of commitments to the British Empire and the Australia – New Zealand – US Alliance relationship, not to deploy some form of military force would be unusual and fraught with anxiety. For the first half of the 20th Century such a decision would have been unthinkable but, even since then, regardless of whether the overall strategy of the US was thought to be in error, or simply questionable, there is a sense in Wellington (as in Canberra) that there is a need for subordinate partners to keep faith with Washington by means and gestures which indicate a less than wholehearted commitment but which, at the same time, are substantial and involve the respective forces of both countries being placed in harm’s way. In the following pages, therefore, if Australia seems to be the focus of attention more than New Zealand, it is because the actions relating to the focus of this paper are more in evidence. 2 “John Key: The price of being part of Five Eyes is joining ISIS fight,” One News, TVNZ, 21 January 2015, http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/john-key-price-being-part-five-eyes-joining-isis-fight-6221595 (accessed 22 January 2015). 4 Introduction This paper is written at a curious juncture in the history of Australia and New Zealand: April 2015 denotes the 100th anniversary of the failed Dardanelles’ Campaign in general, and the abortive Gallipoli landings in World War I in particular, from which popular historical accounts have derived the advent of their respective nationhoods. The same month will see the 60th anniversary of another failure: Australia’s dishonestly justified commitment to the war in Vietnam;3 August will mark the 15th anniversary of the also dishonestly justified Australian commitment to Operation Desert Storm,4 and June will see the first anniversary of the “brazenly cynical” initiatives by the Australian Government to increase the national commitment to the war against Islamic State.5 It is fair to say that none of these events will receive the attention that a self-critical democracy ought to consider when celebrating its war dead. Indeed, status the centerpiece of Australian security strategy, the Australia – US alliance, in which name these deceptions were made, remains essentially untouched, even buttressed by assistance from such pro-alliance organisations as the government-founded and partly funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the Lowy Institute for International Policy (also partly government-funded); the United States Study Centre at the University of Sydney, and the Australia American Leadership Dialogue (AALD), founded in 1992 by Phil and Julie Scanlan, with the support of President George H.W. Bush. The last mentioned, as noted in a recent analysis of its activities, is only “nominally an exercise in informal diplomacy dedicated to fostering mutual understanding,” but in practice: the AALD functions more like a pro-American lobby group as it seeks to preserve orthodox thinking and eschew dissenting perspectives. The AALD performs this 3 For a short account of this decision see Michael Sexton, War For The Asking: Australia’s Vietnam Secrets (Penguin: Ringwood, Vic., 1981). 4 See Michael McKinley, “The ‘Bitterness of Being Right:’ Reflections on Australian Alliance Orthodoxy, the Gulf War, and the New World Order,” Ch. 7 in Michael McKinley (ed.), The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives (St. Leonards, NSW, and Canberra: Allen & Unwin in association with the Department of International Relations, RSPAS, ANU, 1994), p. 171. 5 See Richard Tanter, "Australia in America’s Iraq War 3.0", NAPSNet Policy Forum, November 20, 2014, http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/australia-in-americas-iraq-war-3-0/ 5 function in three main ways: by carefully framing discussion and debate, by socialising Australian elites into the alliance orthodoxy and by serving as a ‘gatekeeper’ of the status quo.6 Their efforts of course complement those of successive Australian Governments towards the same objectives. With the notable exception of Prime Minister Paul Keating’s public and controversial rejection of the Gallipoli experience as the birthplace of Australian nationhood, the political elite have taken great care to not only preserve it in popular memory, but also to nurture it as the “moment of genesis.”7 It is expensive and extensive: the Government has allocated at least $AUD325 million, and private donations of $AUD300 million are expected to be forthcoming to ensure the appropriate recall of the ANZAC landings.