The future of U.S.-Australian Relations and the Curse of George Harrison

John C. Hulsman

The Problems of Being the Third Beatle.

In the late 1960s, the Beatles were at the height of
their cultural and creative power. In John Lennon and
Paul McCartney, they had the most talented and artful
songwriting duo in pop music history. To complement
their artistic prowess, the band’s ability to fuse catchy
pop tunes with profound and moving lyrics made
them the rarest of creatures—an artistic and popular
success. Seen as the embodiment of 1960s togetherness,
most cultural commentators fatuously expected that
the band would go on forever.

But all was not well. George Harrison, their superb
lead guitar player, had been growing artistically as the
1960s progressed. Yet his increasingly interesting lyrics,
showcased in such songs as “While My Guitar Gently
Weeps,” “Taxman,” and “Here Comes the Sun,” largely
were ignored. After all, with Lennon-McCartney as
your primary songwriters, why should the Beatles look
elsewhere for material? Over time, Harrison’s lament
that he had to fight for song slots (and often lost), that
the other members of the band took his abilities as “the
quiet Beatle” for granted, crystallized into resentment.
In his search for artistic fulfillment, neglect had left him
with the options of either remaining third wheel in an
amazingly successful partnership, or going off on his
own. There are many reasons for the Beatles’ shattering
breakup in 1970, but not the least were the neglect of
Harrison’s budding talent and the stark choice such
neglect had left him.

So it is for U.S.-Australian relations. If Britain is
seen as Paul McCartney to America’s John Lennon, so
Australia under John Howard can be viewed much as
George Harrison—quiet, talented, dependable, a vital
part of an amazing partnership—but also very much
overlooked. As was the case for the Beatles with George
Harrison, America ignores its successful relationship
with Australia at its peril.

Come Together: The Bush-Howard Years.

Seen simply, Australian foreign policy often
has been characterized as a struggle between Asia-
leaning and Anglo-leaning tendencies. If former Prime
Minister Paul Keating is seen as the embodiment of
the former, Prime Minister Howard symbolizes the
latter, manifested by Australia’s close ties with the
United States. Howard often has been denigrated by
Australian public policy intellectuals, but his largely
successful four-term premiership (characterized by a
decade of strong economic growth, budget surpluses,
tax cuts, and falling unemployment) underscores the
fact that he has remembered and imbibed certain basic
home truths that others have deigned to forget.

Howard’s closeness to the Bush administration
in particular and America in general is founded on
the fact that the United States is and will remain the
only superpower for the foreseeable future, a fact that
gives Australia, with its close cultural ties to America,
a competitive advantage in foreign relations. Both
Australia and the United States are settler cultures,
“better” and more meritocratic offshoots of the
British homeland. Both are more broadly immigrant
cultures, beyond their common Anglo roots. Both are
enthusiastic capitalist cultures, having relatively low
rates of taxation and a deep deference to the rule of law.
Both broadly welcome and benefit from globalization;
in the last decade Australia and the United States
have almost unrivaled growth rates for developed
nations. Both, in the 20th century, were reluctant but
vital internationalists. These common characteristics,
a similar way of looking at the world—economically,
socially, politically, diplomatically—have allowed
Howard to enjoy the good graces of the sole remaining
superpower, while at the same time leading Australia
to its status as a leading regional power.

But much as Keating’s overly one-sided Asia-
centric approach had certain basic problems (it breezily
underestimated the effects of living in an increasingly
one-superpower world), so Howard’s approach is
marked by a number of flaws. Don’t let the personal
intimacy of the Bush-Howard relationship fool you;
that era is ending, largely due to the President’s
political weakness (the most recent AP-IPSOS poll has
his approval rating at a lowly 38 percent).1 Howard
saw in George W. Bush a kindred spirit—a tough man
disparaged by and disparaging of much of the political
establishment, socially conservative, fiscally bound to
tax cuts—who has been underestimated much of his
political life. Thus the generally close U.S.-Australian
ties were enhanced further by the personal closeness
of these two conservative leaders. But in the words of
George Harrison, “All things must pass.”

Completely apart from the fact that the American
half of the partnership is in dire political straits (with the
Democrats retaking the U.S. House of Representatives
and the Senate during the 2006 mid-terms, President
Bush’s flexibility on the international scene is now
constrained even further), there are other factors that
limit the chances for the U.S.-Australian relationship to
continue as before. Prime Minister Howard himself is
unlikely to remain the political colossus he has been for
most of the past decade. Though his partnership with
Treasurer Peter Costello has been fruitful, increasingly
the pair seem to be doing a fairly good impression of
Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. As Howard announced
his intention to run for a fifth term, Costello confirmed
press reports that the Prime Minister privately assured
him in far-off 1994 that he would hand over the Liberal
Party leadership to the Treasurer one-and-a-half terms
into a Liberal-dominated government. Howard has
denied this. As was the case in Canada for Jacques
Chretien and Paul Martin, as well as for Blair and
Brown, it is almost inevitable that the poison of a
prolonged succession controversy will come to weaken
the present Liberal dominance. Howard’s political road
ahead is likely to be far more bumpy than it has been
up to now.

Further, objective strategic facts limiting America’s
pull on Australia remain in play. If Prime Minister
Keating based his Asia-centric approach on the rise of
Asia and especially China and the relative U.S. decline
in the region, that process, perhaps interrupted by the
Asian financial crisis, continues. For both America
and Australia, the great strategic question is whether
the two great allies can coordinate their positions
concerning the rise of China. Even the halcyon days
of the Howard-Bush partnership do not provide a
clear answer to this seminal question. It is here that
the American strategic response to China must be
communicated far more clearly. Above all, as was the
case for the Beatles and George Harrison, the United
States must avoid a foreign policy towards China that
forces Australia and its Asian neighbors to choose
between the two; it might not like the answer it gets.

China as Yoko Ono.

As this conference has made crystal clear, though
America looks at China as a threat, its Australian ally
sees it as a vital economic partner. Paul Kelly (Chapter
3) is correct in asserting that Mr. Howard “purchased a
degree of immunity” from U.S. criticisms of its dealings
with China, but it is only temporary immunity. The
longer-term questions about China’s rise will not allow
this state of affairs to continue. In the neo-conservative
Bush administration, the two fundamental questions
about China have been as follows: Should the United
States oppose China’s rise to great power status or seek
to shape it? Should the United States focus on carrots
or sticks in dealing with the PRC?

As is typical for the neo-conservatives, both these
questions largely miss the point. Worse, if they come
to define the American relationship with Beijing, they
could well imperil Washington’s standing throughout
the region. Speaking as an ethical realist, my position
is that China will emerge as a great power whether the
United States objects or not—that horse already has
left the stable.2 With growth rates regularly in excess of
9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest
military force in the world, the third highest level of
global defense spending, and a vast trade surplus
with the United States, China is by any stretch of the
imagination a “rising power.”

Worse, futile grandstanding efforts to hinder this
process will only strengthen the very anti-American
forces in China most likely to urge that Beijing attempt
to become a revolutionary power in Asia over the long
term. This big question should be substituted for the
American neo-conservative’s first question: While it
is virtually certain that China will emerge as a great
power, will it evolve into a status quo or revolutionary
power? That is, will it come to be a generally responsible
member of the present community of nations, a partner
in the Great Capitalist Peace in Asia (though, of course,
one that defends its own interests), or will it try to
displace the United States as the region’s ordering
power?

If this should be America’s new first question, then
we also should adopt a new perspective in answering
the second question—carrots or sticks? Instead of
either-or, the answer should be both. In terms of carrots,
the United States should continue to draw China
further into the global financial system, to induce it to
live up to the World Trade Organization (WTO) fine
print and continue to liberalize its economy. Such an
approach will lead to the rise of a robust middle class
over time, as well as an increase in pluralism. Beyond
neo-conservative simplisms, this is the truly subversive
approach; it increases the likelihood that China will
remain a status quo power, as it enjoys the fruits of
the Great Capitalist Peace evolving in Asia. Beijing is
unlikely to want to risk its increased standing for highly
risky adventurist policies designed to displace the
United States as the dominant power in the region. To
see the likelihood of the status quo outcome, one need
only look at the events in China that have occurred in
my lifetime. I was born in the late 1960s, at the height
of both the Beatles frenzy and, more insidiously, the
Chinese Cultural Revolution. Since that time, the
Chinese Communist leadership, particularly that of
Deng Xiaphong, has embraced the very notions of
capitalism that Mao and the Gang of Four so reviled.
As such, China’s middle class has blossomed, a private
space has been created beyond government control,
and, while remaining far from democratic, China has
rejoined the international community, particularly in
the economic sphere. The crazy days of dunce caps,
defenestrations, mass killings, and bellicose rhetoric
seem far away. Surely the carrot has yielded tangible
progress.

At the same time, the stick must not be forgotten. The
United States presently has the best politico-military
ties in its history with both Japan and Australia. It
retains close ties to the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) countries, the Philippines, and
(though not without problems) South Korea. The Bush
administration wisely has seen that closer economic,
political, and strategic ties with India are perhaps the
highest priority for American diplomacy over the
course of the next decade. The United States must
continue to push for ever-closer linkages in the region,
making it perfectly clear that military ties between
Washington and its allies in Asia are defensive and
bilateral in nature, and are not overtly anti-Chinese.
Such an approach flies in the face of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) paradigm,
so close to the hearts of many Americans. But that
paradigm does not fit the situation in Asia. For one
thing, given Japan’s frustrating failure to come to terms
publicly with its atrocious war record in the same
manner that the Germans have, many likely members
of such a multilateral organization, such as South
Korea, continue to feel deep psychological alienation
from their potential Japanese “allies.” Second, the
NATO approach would increase greatly the chances
that China would choose the revolutionary power
option in response to this encirclement. Third, the last
thing the countries of the region, as this conference
has made clear, want is to be forced to choose between
Beijing and Washington. Such an approach ironically
could make a permanent rise in tensions in the Asia-
Pacific region a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet, a loosely
constructed bilateral concert of powers centered around
Washington could make the Chinese leadership hesi-
tate in opting to become a revolutionary power. Hav-
ing to watch India at its back, with Japan and Taiwan
at its front, is likely to bolster those within the Chinese
leadership calling for a continued peaceful rise.

We must be under no illusions; ultimately it is
the Chinese and not we who will decide China’s
strategic fate. But a more realistic policy, beyond being
compatible with Australian strategic thinking, is likely
to tip the Chinese leadership’s calculations in a more
benign direction. Further, American failure to adopt
this approach is certain to strain the U.S.-Australian
partnership, perhaps to the breaking point. If not dealt
with properly, China could well be the Yoko Ono of
the grand strategic partnership formed between the
United States and Canberra over the past decade. We
must not let this happen.

Conclusion.

First, the good news. The Australian-American
relationship could well be a precursor of the way
alliances are going to be managed in the new era.
For it was due to the endemic close ties between the
two peoples that a profoundly new way of working
together has begun to evolve. Stung by President Bill
Clinton’s refusal to send troops to East Timor, Prime
Minister Howard went ahead anyway. This is an
entirely different model from the simple cliché that
Australia is merely the American Deputy Sheriff in the
Asia-Pacific. Rather, Australia acted on what Howard
perceived to be its own unique interests; not every
operation is dependent on the American calculation
of its own specific interests. While America supported
the East Timor mission, it did not lead it. Given the
failure of the present multilateral system—be it the UN,
ANZUS, ASEAN, or NATO—to function effectively
as peacemakers, such ad hoc coalitions of the willing
are likely to remain a primary tool of international
relations. Given their complementary views of the
world, this means that Australia and the United States
have a head start in creatively working together to
solve such problems.

But for this to work, certain psychological hang-
ups, which became established in the Cold War, have
to come to an end. There are three diplomatic “rules”
for dissipating these hangups. First, both the United
States and Australia must get used to living in a world
where the other says “no”; such an answer does not
mean, as Chicken Little would have it, that the sky is
falling and that the partnership is at an end. Second,
as proved true in the case of East Timor, a lack of
agreement about what to do should not necessarily
stop the other partner from acting. An alliance where
interests are similar, but not the same, can thrive only
if this more fluid approach is put into practice.

But this leaves us with the problem of George
Harrison, for the third diplomatic rule of the new era
is in many ways the most important. The United States
must stop taking Australia for granted. It must stop
viewing the relationship through the complacent, out-
dated lenses of the Keating/Asia-centric or Howard/
Anglo-centric alternatives. Rather, America must
recognize that an Australia fundamentally engaged in
both these realms at the same time is an Australia most
profoundly suited to advance American interests in the
post-Cold War era. This means not forcing Australia to
choose in some either-or fashion between the United
States and China. First of all, such a forced choice,
with the Australian economy booming largely due
to China’s insatiable demand for Australian natural
resources, is the single greatest threat to the continued
centrality of the relationship for both sides. Second,
moving closer to Australia’s more nuanced view of
China, using both economic carrots and military sticks
to affect the Chinese leadership’s decisionmaking
process about its ultimate role in the region, is far more
likely to serve American interests well into the future.
In moving away from the dead-end zero sum game,
the United States can avoid forcing Australia into
George Harrison’s dilemma. Let it be.

ENDNOTES

1. The AP-IPSOS polling results for October 2006 are available
at www.ipsos-na.com/news/pa/presidential_approval.pdf.
2. For a fuller discussion of an alternative to present U.S.-China
policies, see Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, Ethical Realism: A
Vision For America’s Role In The World, New York: Pantheon Press,
2006, pp. 169-177.