Integrated Threat Perception and the Intensification of the US Alliance

In 1996, the Howard government instituted a policy that gave precedence to a bilateral approach in foreign diplomacy that prioritised the US. Underlying this bilateral predilection for the Coalition were its assumptions about global relationships that were at once both material and cultural in orientation.1 By pursuing a policy that deployed both material and cultural capital, the Coalition fostered an approach that resonated on inherited and conservative security preconceptions within the Australian electorate. Accomplishment of this for the Coalition resulted in a reaffirmation of the centrality of the US alliance in both foreign and security policy.