1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910141942603321

Titolo

History as policy : framing the debate on the future of Australia's defence policy / / edited by Ron Huisken and Meredith Thatcher

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Canberra, Australia : , : ANU E Press, , 2007

©2007

ISBN

1-921313-55-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (218 pages) : illustrations; digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence

Disciplina

355.03350994

Soggetti

National security - Australia

Australia Military policy

Australia Strategic aspects

Australia Foreign relations

Australia Defenses

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sommario/riassunto

The fortieth anniversary of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre’s founding provided the opportunity to assemble many of Australia’s leading analysts and commentators to review some of the more significant issues that should define Australian defence policy. In the first 20 years after its establishment, SDSC scholars played a prominent role in shaping the ideas and aspirations that eventually found official expression in the 1987 Defence of Australia White Paper. This policy sustained a coherent balance between strategy, force structure and budgets for well over a decade. In recent years, however, the cumulative effects of the end of the Cold War and watershed events like the East Timor experience; the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., in September 2001; the Bali bombings in October 2002; and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 have fractured the former consensus on defence policy. These developments have eroded acceptance of the core judgements underpinning defence policy. This has led to a more tenuous connection between some recent major equipment acquisitions and declared policy. The unravelling of the consensus on



the ‘defence of Australia’ policy means that we must again undertake a balanced, long-term assessment of the nature of Australia’s strategic interests. Only by doing so can we determine the kinds of armed forces that would contribute most effectively to protecting those interests. The papers collected in this volume are not informed by a common view of where Australia should focus its defence policy, but all address themes that should figure prominently in this difficult but essential task.