ABSTRACT
Australia, for the most part, is invisible in international politics and rarely rates a mention in the international media; little is known about its politics by those who do not live there. When, for example, Australia responded to a wave of refugees by turning them away and having them land elsewhere, the Los Angeles Times ran a story entitled ‘G’way mate’ (a playful twist on the Australian greeting ‘G’day mate’) and mistakenly referred to Prime Minister John Howard as John Hunt. As recently as the beginning of 2003, after more than six years in office, the BBC placed a picture of John Howard in a story on Vermont Governor Howard Dean. While Australian prime ministers are far from assuming the status of US governors, they are known to routinely invoke the special nature of the US-Australia relationship. Indeed, so close is the relationship that one commentator suggests that Australia petition for union with the United States so that the US would ‘get a State instead of a colony’ and Australians would no longer ‘have to go on pretending our soul’s our own’ (Watson 2001: 54-5). While the suggestion should be read as a satirical one, Australia’s involvement in the US-led war on Iraq in 2003 highlights Australia’s constant attempt to implicate itself in US global and regional strategy This enduring feature of Australian foreign policy, dating from the 1950s, will serve as the plot line for this chapter. Despite pendulum swings in the relationship, official rhetoric about special relations with other nations and public announcements of international good citizenship, the strategic importance of the US in elite calculations of national interest has barely wavered. Indeed, understanding Australia’s role in the Asia-Pacific largely involves understanding its relationship to the US.
