ABSTRACT
Australia’s security has long been intertwined with developments in the
Asia-Pacific region. At differing points in time, Australian perceptions of
the region have varied between that of threat and that of opportunity. Yet
the enduring centrality of the region to Australia’s security has induced it to
become an adroit performer of a two-step dance-with its traditional
security ally on the one hand, and its regional partners on the other. With
the onset of the Cold War, Australia’s sense of vulnerability was such that it
turned towards the United States as its key security partner, despite its ongoing socio-cultural identification with Great Britain. Australia vigor-
ously pursued and obtained a formal security alliance with the United
States in 1951. During the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, Australia
continued to strengthen this alliance and, simultaneously, to engage with
different regional countries across a range of security and economic issues.
Today, Australia realizes that its security and its economic wellbeing
depends as much on China’s behaviour as it does on the United States.
Australia is bilaterally engaging with both countries with an intensity that is unprecedented.
