Dealing with America by John Langmore
Reviewed by Peter Brokensha
Langmore joined Gough Whitlam's parliamentary staff in 1976 as Economic Adviser, a position he held until 1983. After a short period as Senior Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Langmore won and retained the Commonwealth seat of Fraser ACT for the Labor Party from 1984 to 1996. Langmore has written and been published widely both as an individual and as a parliamentarian. His main focus is on policy development in the areas of economics, the environment, Papua-New Guinea, town planning, social reform and the United Nations. A book, Work for all: full employment in the nineties, was co-authored with John Quiggin and published in 1994, and Dealing with America: the UN, the US and Australia, was published in 2005. In 1997, Langmore moved to New York to take up the post of Director of the Division for Social Development at the United Nations Secretariat. He was also the Representative of the International Labour Organisation to the UN until 2003.
In his most recent book Dealing with America and the subject of this review, Langmore looks at the origins of the Bush doctrine of preemption and the implications for the UN and Australia. He argues that the world body is at a defining moment, as crucial as its founding in 1945. Attacks from neo-conservatives in President Bush’s administration and fraud investigations within the organisation have played a role, but the argument for change is more broadly based. As Langmore points out "In the midst of the debate, the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has laid out a landmark plan for UN reform." On the back cover of the book the author adds "this book describes the ongoing debate about the UN, and questions whether the Howard Government’s acquiescence in the policies of the Bush administration is really in Australia’s national interest. Dealing with America outlines how Australia could contribute to a more stable and secure international system."
The Book’s Theme (page 9)
Langmore firstly asks the question "how Australian foreign policy could evolve to more fully to express Australian interests. Would a more independent foreign policy stance be possible while continuing to acknowledge growing global interdependence?"
The author describes the theme of the book as "Australian national interests have been damaged by acquiescing in American priorities. Australia’s capacity to express its own international, political, strategic, economic and social priorities have been reduced. Not only has Australia supported the erosion of the legal and political bases of the international system, but neighbouring countries have been antagonised and Australia’s ability to contribute to collective security and global development has been undermined. A major cost of compliance with the American position is that it has weakened Australia’s standing at the United Nations."
Langmore further argues that increasing security, prosperity and vitality for all Australians would be facilitated more effectively by strengthened engagement with the multilateral system and a clear commitment to the international rule of law than a pre-eminent bilateral alliance with the United States.
The US Invasion of Iraq
Langmore points out (page 15) "a vital link in Bush’s rationale for the invasion was the allegation that Saddam Hussein was co-operating with al-Quaeda". Yet not only was there no substantive evidence of this link, it was also inherently implausible because of the ideological differences between the secular Iraqi Baath government and the Islamic fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden. The International Commission of Jurists warned that an attack on Iraq without a mandate from the Security Council would be an "an outright illegal invasion of Iraq, which amounts to a war of aggression".
"Despite the fear-mongering, most Americans and the overwhelming majorities of people in other countries opposed the invasion of Iraq without a mandate from the United Nations. In Australia, Britain, France, Germany and Russia close to or over 80 percent were opposed without UN agreement. Up to 10 million people joined huge rallies in many countries on February 15, 2003, to express opposition. This was the largest simultaneous international mobilisation of dissent ever held." (page 18). Despite this massive global popular opposition the US "shock and awe" onslaught began on 19 March, 2003. The US administration has tried to divert attention from the enormity of the slaughter by talk of "precision warfare" and of "damage limitation".
Langmore concludes (page 21) " the positive consequences of the invasion include a quick military victory, defeat of a brutal dictator and creation of the opportunity for the democratisation of Iraq. Yet the costs have been enormous. Those killed have included about 10,000 Iraqi soldiers during the war, over 1500 Americans, many soldiers from other countries, and about 300 civilian contractors during the first two years, and somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilian men, women and children. Many tens of thousands more Iraqis and 11,300 Americans were injured during the two years after the invasion. Millions of Iraqi women, children and men have been deeply traumatised. Hundreds of millions of people in the rest of the world have been deeply disturbed by the wanton continuing violence and destruction. Anti-American sentiment has been inflamed everywhere, particularly in Muslim countries. There has been extensive, drastic and continuing disruption of Iraqi infrastructure and public services."
Langmore continues (page 22) "one lesson from the war concerns the limits to American power. The US-led coalition was able to conquer a country weakened by defeat in a war a dozen years earlier, worn down by sanctions and debilitated by continued bombing, but could not restore order or security and turned to the international community for help. The opposition of many people in the United States has increased. The debacle demonstrates the cost to Australia of uncritical compliance with the wishes of the United States. Australia’s international reputation is besmirched by cooperating with an American regime that defies international law and public opinion. Australia is perceived to be obsequious to America by the peoples of the Asia-Pacific region, notably by predominantly Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, and by China."
Chapter 3. The Bush Revolution
Immediately President George W. Bush was inaugurated, his administration began a revolution in foreign policy. On its third day in office, the United States withdrew funding from the UN Population Fund because the Fund refused to prohibit abortion advice by non-government organisations to which it contributed. Peace-making efforts between Israel and Palestine and bilateral discussions with North Korea about nuclear proliferation ceased. Research on missile defence became a top priority.
During the first nine months Bush withdrew from, or opposed, several ratified or proposed arms control, environmental and criminal accountability treaties. His administration made plans to withdraw from the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty so as to remove an impediment to research on missile defence, and withdrew from the Kyoto protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It refused to sign the UN Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. It diluted a UN agreement aiming to constrain illegal trafficking in small arms and scuttled efforts to enforce the verification procedures of a global ban on biological weapons because these might have exposed American corporations’ secrets.
"For six years everybody talks of the importance of verification" commented the British newspaper The Independent "and then America discovers that its facilities, too, would have to be verified. The brazen nerve! America might be treated as though it were just another country."
It is easy to regard the Bush revolution in foreign policy as just the stance of a particularly extreme administration but influential aspects of American tradition and social attitudes have provided it with a fertile environment. These traditions and social attitudes are widely different to those of Australia. Many Australians imagine that the United States is a larger and more powerful version of our own country. John Howard says repeatedly that Australians share common values with Americans and it seems a plausible assumption. After all English – or at least dialects derived from it – is the language of most Americans, and most of the population is descended from immigrants. The first Europeans to settle in what became the founding states of the United States were English christians. Both countries have (flawed) democratic political systems. They aspire to have independent judiciaries. Yet these significant similarities conceal major social, economic, political, cultural, ideological and religious differences that lead to widely different approaches to foreign policy."
Langmore continues by discussing the nature and origins of these differences and their implications for the way Americans now view their place in the world. (p. 39).
". . . In many crucial ways Americans and Australians do not share common values, and some core American beliefs are antagonistic to those of Australians. These include some Americans’ belief that they are god’s people with a manifest destiny to lead the world and with the military and economic power to do so. The Bush era supremacists have amplified this hubris. Uncritical cooperation with the United States can lead to Australian policy and action that has nothing to do with Australia’s national interest."
"The War on Terror"
In pages 53–54 Langmore describes how "sympathy for those involved in the tragic loss of life from the attack on the World Trade Centre on 11 September, 2001, led to suspension of critical analysis of the US administration – unilateralism. In fact the decision to launch the "war on terror" became and remains a cloak for even more determined unilateralism. Fear of terrorism replaced fear of communism as the prism through which the United States viewed foreign policy. "The ‘war on terror’ has been used by the administration to treat the world as a battleground; anyone captured as an ‘enemy combatant’ is not entitled to civil rights. Within six weeks of September 11 the Patriot Act was in place, eroding civil liberties in everything from petty to repressive ways. Rationalisations for neglecting the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war were approved by cabinet members allowing torture."
Australia’s Response (page 68 ff)
"The Howard government’s response to the Bush revolution in foreign policy has been to adopt identical ideological orientation, policies, tactics and rhetoric. Howard has subsumed Australian national interest in American priorities. This move has discarded distinctive elements of Australian international and domestic policy, diplomatic relations and style, developed over decades. There has been a reactionary upheaval in Australian foreign policy. There has therefore been a reactionary upheaval in Australian foreign policy equivalent to the revolution in America. This upheaval has not, however, been the product of a political, intellectual or ideological vision. It was a result of ad hoc additions to an instinctive tactical regime. This regime has two bases: stronger commitment to the American alliance than ever before; and a shared political, economic and social ideology."
Prime Minister Howard has repeatedly emphasised his view of the over-arching importance of the American alliance. "The relationship we have with the United States is the most important we have with any single country. This is not only because of the strategic, economic, and diplomatic power of the United States. But of equal, if not of more significance, are the values and aspirations we share."
Langmore points out (p.69) that there are differences of policy between Australia and the US but on only a few matters. The Howard government advocates a US commitment to the Nuclear Test Ban treaty and a strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention. Australia is ratifying the Treaty on the International Criminal Court despite US opposition. Some of Howard’s policies have been even less responsive to international circumstances than the United States. The policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers has been more restrictive than any other country.
John Langmore has had a distinguished career as a politician, academic author and public servant at a national and international level.
