How Australia ‘positions’ the United Kingdom

DOWNLOAD PDF

The Council on Geostrategy’s work on ‘discursive statecraft’ investigates attempts by foreign governments to redefine or alter the character of Britain’s perception of itself.¹ Primarily, this is achieved through rhetoric which ‘positions’ the United Kingdom (UK) as an international power in a certain way, with the intended outcome of maintaining or altering its foreign policy (or perceptions of other countries). Allies, partners and adversaries use this approach. Studies have been undertaken in relation to Russia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and three different allies and partners (the United States (US), Germany and Japan).

Why investigate how Australia positions the UK? Because since Britain’s departure from the European Union (EU) and the birth of AUKUS, the strategic relationship between the two has grown in coherence and depth. For the UK and its Indo-Pacific policy outlined in the Integrated Review (2021) and its Refresh (2023), Australia is a key partner due to its shared history, regional expertise and generally similar worldview, the latter providing coherence across both nation’s objectives in the Indo-Pacific. Inversely, the UK is now (again) a consequential partner for Australia in realising its future defence posture and economic prosperity. The internationalisation of security concerns in both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific has drawn, and will continue to draw, the two together.

Positioning by adversaries will of course differ to that of friends; a partner will scarcely have an interest in positioning the UK in a way that undermines its global influence, such as the Russian positioning of Britain as a ‘second tier’ power attempts cynically to do.² But with the underlying logic of positioning strategies being to advance one’s own interests, the way they position the UK will not always be positive. It may be done to constrict British policy – perhaps to save embarrassment or prevent British encroachment on one’s interests – as much as it is done to encourage decisions deemed favourable to one’s objectives. In line with the Council on Geostrategy’s previous work – and the conceptual apparatus devised (see Box 1) – this Explainer investigates Australia.

Box 1: Positioning moves by allies and partners³

Allies and partners have three principal ways of positioning friends:

The instrumentalising move: an attempt to guide an ally’s policy so that it best serves one’s own interests or sensitivities.
The restraining move: an attempt to disincentivise a policy decision from being advanced or taken in the first place.
The reinforcing move: to position an ally in a way that reinforces a belief about one’s identity. This move can be employed to reinforce cultural identity, but also a nation’s strategic and economic identity, i.e., where it believes it does or should derive its security and economic prosperity from.
- A subsidiary of this is the dissociation move: a positioning strategy perhaps unique to former imperial subjects that positions a friend (usually the former coloniser) in a way which dissociates one’s cultural identity from it. As will be investigated, after 1972 Australia began to reinforce its identity as being grounded in Asia by attempting to dissociate itself from the UK.

The position Britain occupies in Australia’s worldview and foreign and defence policy has differed considerably throughout history: sometimes as central to Australia’s identity and security, and at other times as just another nation distant from where it was believed Australia should be focusing its diplomatic efforts. As the UK’s interest in Indo-Pacific security matters seems likely to continue regardless of who occupies Number 10, it is important to investigate how its allies and partners in the region position the UK to both better understand Britain’s relationship with them, but also to ensure that the UK’s Indo-Pacific policy remains effective.⁴ Australia, a long-standing Indo-Pacific partner of Britain, is a sensible place to start.

This Explainer will follow a chronological structure over the next four sections, investigating how Australia positioned the UK after the Second World War up until 1971, then from 1972-1996, 1997-2021, and up to the current government of today. A brief conclusion will follow.

How Australia has positioned the UK in the past

‘The Queen’s men and women’ (pre-1971)

Throughout and following the Second World War, it was clear to Canberra that the UK’s interests in Asia were in decline as the decolonisation process in the region accelerated and as the Euro-Atlantic took centre stage in British geostrategy due to the rising Soviet challenge. This caused obvious alarm in Australia – a country whose security and economic policy (38.7% of Australian exports went to Britain in 1950) was still wedded to the UK.⁵ Greater strategic association with the United States (US) became Canberra’s prerogative – a desire which to be sure had been advocated for throughout the early 1940s by John Curtin, Australian Prime Minister (1941-1945) – with the ANZUS treaty of 1951 solidifying America as Australia’s principal ally.⁶ But a strong British presence in Asia was still desired; Australia would position the UK primarily in a way that sought to instrumentalise it as a strong, and above all committed, regional partner during this period.

During the tenure of Robert Menzies (1949-1966), this overarching strategic goal was achieved through another positioning strategy: by reinforcing Australia itself as a nation with a Western European, rather than Asian or Pacific, identity. This served the purpose of reassuring the UK of Australia’s broad strategic alignment with it in an international environment characterised by ideological and racial divisions, so as to make British commitments to Asia seem more logical and necessary given Australia did not have the capacity to defend itself. Menzies was an ardent anglophile. This can be shown with his assertion in 1951 that: ‘We are British through and through. We are for the Crown. We are the Queen’s men and women.’⁷ By defining Australians as Britons, he was attempting to reinforce Australia’s identity through associating it with the UK.

Australia would also restrain British policy during this period. The use of this more forward approach was clear after Britain’s decision to anchor its defence policy on the nuclear deterrent and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) after the Suez crisis in 1956, something which in combination with financial constraints ultimately led it to declare its intention to withdraw ‘east of Suez’ by the mid-1970s.⁸ The UK’s applications to join the European Economic Community in 1961 and 1966 only compounded fears in Canberra regarding Britain’s strategic drift from Asia. Australian attempts to restrain this move are best demonstrated by the letter of Harold Holt, Australian Prime Minister (1966-1967), to his British counterpart, Harold Wilson, where Holt complained that the ‘basic assumptions’ about Australian and British foreign policy had now been ‘destroyed’.⁹

It was ultimately Australia’s ‘fear of abandonment’ which drove Canberra’s attempts to instrumentalise Britain as a strong and committed Asian partner during this period.¹⁰ This took the form of Australia positioning itself in a way to reinforce its European identity, and the positioning of the withdrawal from ‘east of Suez’ strategy as illogical to restrain the UK’s strategic drift from Asia.

‘Britannia no longer rules the world’ (1972-1996)

Until 1991, the politics of the Cold War continued to polarise the international environment down rigid ideological lines and in the Cold War objective of resisting the global spread of communism, Britain was still positioned as a key partner. But the Australian prime ministers in this period – Gough Whitlam (1972-1975) Malcolm Fraser (1975-1983), Bob Hawke (1983-1991) and Paul Keating (1991-1996) – were confronted with a strategic environment characterised by rising international support for decolonisation and the drift of Australia’s traditional economic and security partner in Britain. Changing the character of Australia’s Asian engagement was now an imperative, and Canberra did this primarily by dissociating Australia’s regional and international outlook from that of the UK.

This is evident in Whitlam’s positioning of British interests as something Australia should depart from in the formation of its statecraft when he declared:

The Australian Government’s aim is to make our relations with Britain an integral and important part of our general international relations and not something apart as they have tended to be in the past.¹¹

Keating’s vocality on Australia becoming a republic and turning it into ‘…no longer an abstract idea’ is also an Australian attempt to disassociate itself from the UK by positioning aspects of Britain’s colonial legacy as outdated.¹² The UK was also positioned as a strategic chimaera in this endeavour; Fraser’s response to journalists questioning the destination of his first overseas visit (Asia, not the UK or US), encapsulates this well:

…[Australia can not go] back to simplistic pasts, a relationship with Britain or a relationship with America that was almost the end result in foreign policy¹³

These moves to disassociate Australia from the UK demonstrated a growing confidence in Canberra about Australia’s ability independently to pursue its interests and shape regional affairs, and the Australia Act of 1986 (in Canberra and London) made this a constitutional reality.¹⁴ Intrinsic to this confidence was the decline in Britain’s importance to Australia’s strategic calculus and economic prosperity. Indeed, during this period Australia would be more blunt in restraining British policies which were not in-line with its worldview or interests. Commenting on British policy toward the apartheid regime in South Africa which was out of line with thinking in the Commonwealth, Hawke would tell the BBC: ‘Could I just make this point that Britain may have to come to the realisation that we live in 1985 – Britannia no longer rules the world.’¹⁵

Global shapers and the ‘Anglosphere’ 1997-2021

During this period, prime ministers tended to position Britain in a way that attempted to instrumentalise it as a power committed to Australian security concerns, initially in the Middle East and then in the Indo-Pacific.

John Howard and Tony Abbott (Liberal-National coalition), Australian prime ministers from 1996-2007 and 2013-2015 respectively, would do so as they simultaneously reinforced the UK as central to Australia’s cultural and strategic identity. The 1997 Foreign Policy White Paper would declare how ‘Australia does not need to choose between its history and its geography’, with the 2003 White Paper positioning Britain as ‘…a major power with global influence’.¹⁶ And Abbott would ‘inject’ the term ‘Anglosphere’ into Australia’s foreign policy lexicon.¹⁷

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard (Labor), Australian prime ministers from 2007-2010 (and 83 days in 2013) and 2010-2013, respectively, would instrumentalise Britain as a partner committed to Australian security concerns less by positioning it as a power Australia should be deepening engagement with in its own right, but one able to work with Australia as it sought to shape the international order through its alliance with the US and engagement with Asia. They would also be more forward in reinforcing an Australian identity grounded in Asia. As Rudd told the London School of Economics in 2008:

Australia and the United Kingdom have a lot to gain from working with each other to shape the emerging global order – particularly given Britain’s strength in Europe and Australia’s standing in Asia.¹⁸

It could be argued that Gillard advanced the Australia-UK bilateral the furthest, with the first Australia-UK ministerial dialogue being held in 2011 and the signing of the Australia-UK Treaty for Defence and Security Cooperation occurring in 2013.¹⁹ Indeed, despite the rhetorical differences between the Labor party and Liberal-National coalition, throughout this period the US-led ‘War on Terror’ would be the determinant factor bringing Australia and the UK closer together, something which both major parties in Australia and the UK supported in government. This points to another trend in this period – the relatively bipartisan support towards deepening the Australia-UK bilateral, something which was certainly not true of the previous period as Australia attempted to disassociate itself from the UK.

A post-imperial ‘normalisation’ of the relationship helps explain this phenomenon: Australia had been legislatively fully independent of the UK for some time and the historical baggage of dependency may have felt less severe. But it is also reflective of a geopolitical environment where holding a similar worldview and principles is deemed of the utmost importance. Indeed, in the current context, increasingly hostile Chinese behaviour and Britain’s re-engagement with the Indo-Pacific through its ‘tilt’ to the region has led to a strategic convergence between the two powers and even greater Australian efforts to instrumentalise a British commitment to the region as Canberra seeks to internationalise Indo-Pacific disputes.

Contemporary positioning: ‘An enduring partnership in an era of change’ (2021-)

Before coming to power, it was clear that Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, the current Australian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, respectively, would attempt to forge a foreign policy more attentive to the desires of smaller states in the Indo-Pacific.²⁰ The current administration also seeks to modernise Australia’s defence forces and structure, through both the Defence Strategic Review (published April 2o23) and realisation of AUKUS.²¹ Britain, as an AUKUS member and a power now embedded in key Indo-Pacific institutions, is positioned as a component in this modernisation, and central to realising AUKUS’ naval and technological potential.

Reinforcing a ‘secure and prosperous’ Indo-Pacific

The UK’s Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’ has been welcomed by the two Australian administrations that have been in power since its announcement. Both Australia and the UK are insular nations dependent on seaborne trade, and thus have a shared interest in ensuring commercial international shipping remains secure and that the sovereignty of others and their territorial waters is respected. In ensuring this, Britain is positioned as one of Australia’s many partners. Speaking to King’s College London in January this year, Wong would declare:

We are committed to working with [the UK], with our partners, and with our region. To help build the alignment we need, so that we can shape the region and world we want – stable, prosperous, secure and respectful of sovereignty.²²

Here, the UK is positioned as a power with a similar Indo-Pacific vision as Australia, and one that Canberra is eager to deepen cooperation with. This chimes with rhetoric around the merging of Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security concerns, something which Australia employs with the aim of internationalising Indo-Pacific disputes in seeking greater solidarity for them.

Restraining post-Brexit Britain in the Indo-Pacific

The Albanese government’s approach to the Indo-Pacific is spearheaded by Wong and characterised by attentiveness to regional demands and not forcing nations to ‘pick sides’ between the US and the PRC. Wong’s speech in London shows she is attempting to coax (a milder form of restraining) Britain from adopting an approach to the Indo-Pacific focused on state-based competition and power projection. Wong did not touch upon the ‘shared values’ that so many before her have used to drive home the significance of the relationship, instead underscoring how it was ‘an enduring partnership in an era of change’. She went on to say that Australia…

want[s] this to be understood by our partners in the region…That we share interests beyond the security issues that can so dominate discussion.²³

This chimes with a framing of Albanese, who embraced the terminology of Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia. He encouraged other Indo-Pacific countries to view AUKUS as a ‘partner’ as opposed to a ‘competitor’ in the region.²⁴ Albanese can be seen similarity as restraining Britain from viewing the agreement and its impetus as stemming solely from hypothetical conflict scenarios and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific. Australia believes that an approach to the region which is sensitive to regional concerns will be the most beneficial, and therefore seeks to pull British policy in a similar direction.

Instrumentalising a security and economic partnership through AUKUS

It would be safe to say that it is Australia which is taking the biggest risk, but has the most to gain, through the AUKUS partnership. However, this means that Australia, and particularly the current Labor government, has had to justify AUKUS the most to its domestic audience. The partnership is positioned by the Albanese administration as ‘historic’ and an Australian response to international affairs that ‘analyse[s] the world as it is other than as we want it to be’, while positioning Britain as core to Australia’s pragmatic strategic calculus.²⁵

It could also be asserted that AUKUS is now embedded in Labor’s defence policy.²⁶ This invites criticism that Australia has failed to carve out an independent geostrategy or role for itself in the world, and has defaulted to looking for its security in the UK and US, something contradicting Labor’s professed vision for a more inclusive Indo-Pacific. Some go even further, such as Keating, who mocked it as ‘the worst deal in all history’.²⁷ In countering these narratives, Australia positions AUKUS as a pragmatic response to a deteriorating Indo-Pacific security environment, and underscores the historic nature of the transformations in capabilities the group promises to facilitate.

Conclusion

One thing has remained constant in Australia’s positioning of the UK: Canberra has continued to view London as a like-minded and trusted partner. The ‘shared traditions and values’ which are so often touched upon to highlight the ease of the relationship have an enduring effect that neither party is afraid to invoke. Increased cooperation between the two is thus a logical response as the geopolitical environment of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific deteriorates and worsens.

Australian politicians today may not fawn over the UK as Menzies, or even Abbott, did, but Britain still occupies a significant position in Australia’s strategic thought, particularly since the advent of AUKUS. Indeed, instrumental to the strength of the modern-day relationship is the bipartisan support it receives in Canberra (and London). And this is not just support for the relationship in general or specific elements of it such as AUKUS, but support for continuing to expand the agenda in which the relationship operates and to deepen it strategically beyond its already intimate nature. Indeed, as Australia becomes ever more involved in Euro-Atlantic disputes, and the UK in Indo-Pacific rivalries, it is likely that Britain will continue to be positioned as instrumental to Australian security and economic prosperity. Australia’s current positioning of the UK as a key partner which can help further the Australian Indo-Pacific vision may also pave the way for a future administration to place greater focus on Australia’s key bilateral relations with the US, and now the UK.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank James Rogers for his help in the drafting and review process of this document. Thanks also to Christian Hirst of the Australian High Commission and Bryden Spurling of RAND Europe for their helpful feedback and recommendations. Any mistakes remain with the author.

About the author

Patrick Triglavcanin is Senior Research Assistant at the Council on Geostrategy.

Disclaimer

This publication should not be considered in any way to constitute advice. It is for knowledge and educational purposes only. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Council on Geostrategy or the views of its Advisory Council.

No. GPPE01 | ISBN: 978-1-914441-50-9

1
James Rogers, ‘Discursive statecraft: Preparing for national positioning operations’, Council on Geostrategy, 08/04/2021, https://bit.ly/3moT0N7 (checked: 06/12/2023).
2
Andrew Foxall, ‘How Russia “positions” the United Kingdom’, Council on Geostrategy, 08/04/2021, https://bit.ly/3scZdNj, (checked: 06/12/2023), p. 10.
3
Philip Shetler-Jones, ‘How allies “position” the United Kingdom’, Council on Geostrategy, 06/05/2021, https://bit.ly/45KfaPw (checked: 06/12/2023), pp. 8-9.
4
Gray Sergeant, ‘Britain continues to prioritise the Indo-Pacific’, Britain’s World, 04/09/2023, https://bit.ly/3Rcp200 (checked: 06/12/2023).
5
Andrea Benvenuti, Anglo-Australian relations and the ‘turn to Europe’ (Suffolk: The Royal Historical Society, 2008), p. 19.
6
Andrew Clark, John Curtin, the leader who turned Australia to the United States, Australian Financial Review, 23/11/2017, https://bit.ly/3uD4DrK (checked: 06/12/2023); and, Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942 (Melbourne: La Trobe University Press, 2017), pp. 51-56.
7
Robert Menzies, Speech: ‘The First William Queale Memorial Lecture’, PM Transcripts, 22/10/1954, https://bit.ly/45LzjF8 (checked: 06/12/2023).
8
‘Defence: Outline of future policy’ (CAB/129/86), Cabinet Office (UK), 30/03/1957, https://bit.ly/3QVp5wV (checked: 06/12/2023).
9
Maike Hausen, Reviewing Britain’s Presence East of Suez: Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Foreign Policy Considerations Surrounding Southeast Asia, 1956-1971 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck Verlag, 2022), p. 138-139.
10
Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World since 1942 (Melbourne: La Trobe University Press, 2017).
11
Gough Whitlam, Statement to Parliament: ‘Mr Whitlam’s Overseas Visit’, PM Transcripts, 01/05/1973, https://bit.ly/44JiGIL (checked: 06/12/2023).
12
Paul Keating, Speech: ‘Speech by the Prime Minister, The Hon. P.J. Keating MP Australian Republican Movement 5th Annual Dinner, Sydney’, PM Transcripts 03/11/1995, https://bit.ly/3Z8klWW (checked: 06/12/2023).
13
James Curran, ‘Malcolm Fraser: A man of foreign policy principle’, The Interpreter, 23/03/2015, https://bit.ly/3EwPk5J (checked: 06/12/2023).
14
‘Australia Act 1986’, His Majesty’s Government and the Australian Government, 17/02/1986, https://bit.ly/46eowSZ (checked: 06/12/2023).
15
Bob Hawke, Interview: ‘Transcript of Prime Minister on BBC at One’, PM Transcripts, 03/10/1985, https://bit.ly/45ZOGcD (checked: 06/12/2023).
16
‘In the National Interest: Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper’, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), 20/08/1997, https://bit.ly/46KQczX (checked: 06/12/2023), p. iv; and, ‘Advancing the National Interest: Australia’s Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper’, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), 07/02/2003, https://bit.ly/46DS0Lf (checked: 06/12/2023), p. 101.
17
Graeme Dobell, ‘The Anglosphere and Tony Abbott’, The Strategist, https://bit.ly/44UWiwg (checked: 06/12/2023); and, Hugh White, ‘Foreign policy is Rudd’s forte – isn’t it?’, The Age, 09/07/2013, https://bit.ly/3QfpwAl (checked: 06/12/2023).
18
Kevin Rudd, Speech: ‘Address to the London School of Economics: Australia and the UK – Global Partners in shaping the future Global Order, London’, PM Transcripts, 07/04/2008, https://bit.ly/3SnJmMq (checked: 06/12/2023).
19
‘Australia-UK ministerial dialogue (AUKMIN) press conference’, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 19/01/2011, https://bit.ly/3SgQ3A1 (checked: 06/12/2023); and, ‘UK/Australia: Treaty for Defence and Security Cooperation’, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 25/07/2013, https://bit.ly/3rYDWwY (checked: 06/12/2023).
20
Penny Wong, Video via X, 23/05/2022, https://bit.ly/46MHrWm (checked: 06/12/2023).
21
‘National Defence: Defence Strategic Review 2023’, Department of Defense (Australia), 24/04/2023, https://bit.ly/40disJ8 (checked: 06/12/2023).
22
Penny Wong, Speech: ‘An enduring partnership in an era of change’, King’s College London, 31/01/2023, https://bit.ly/46Nvn75 (checked: 06/12/2023).
23
Ibid.
24
Anthony Albanese, Speech: ‘20th Asia Security Summit The Shangri-La Dialogue: Keynote Address’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 02/06/2023, https://bit.ly/3QgxCbY (checked: 06/12/2023).
25
‘Anthony Albanese throws support behind AUKUS deal during Labor Party conference’, SBS News via YouTube, 18/08/2023, https://bit.ly/3SnVP2G (checked: 06/12/2023).
26
Peter J. Dean and Kim Beazley, ‘AUKUS sparks a revolution in Labor defence policy’, ASPI Strategist, 06/09/2023, https://bit.ly/476LgFz (checked: 06/12/2023).
27
Paul Karp, ‘Paul Keating labels Aukus submarine pact “worst deal in all history” in attack on Albanese government’, The Guardian, 15/03/2023, https://bit.ly/3FzA4FH (checked: 06/12/2023). For more on Keating’s critique of AUKUS, see: Paul Keating, Interview: ‘Paul Keating in Conversation with James Curran’, Australian Foreign Affairs, 17 (2023).