The Guardian 2 April, 2008
Editorial
Rudd’s ambition for worldwide clout
So Kevin Rudd is going to pursue a world-wide clout and a global role for Australia including a seat on the UN Security Council. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. It all depends on what is meant by "clout" and what sort of policies the Australian government would pursue on the Security Council and elsewhere.
An answer to these questions was given when Rudd claimed that Australia had the economic and military power to take a stronger role.
There are already plenty of clues that the Rudd foreign policy for Australia hardly differs at all to that pursued by John Howard.
While not being so obviously obsequious as John Howard, Rudd is already pushing the American line on essential issues. He said while in the US that "I see the United States overwhelmingly a force for good in the world".
This, despite its never-ending wars of aggression, its interference in the internal affairs of many countries, its disregard for the decisions of the UN, its use of torture, its attempts over many years to manipulate and control the World Bank and the IMF in its favour, its world-wide network of military bases, its branding of other nations as "evil" or "rogue states" to justify changing the governments of countries. The list is endless but these realities do not impact on the starry-eyed vision of Kevin Rudd.
The policy of tailing the US was first put into effect when Australia joined the US in the early 1950s in an attempt to throttle the Korean liberation movement and to overthrow the Chinese revolution that had established the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
It was again reflected during the years of the Vietnam war when the slogan of "All the way with LBJ" was the government’s policy watchword.
The anti-Vietnam war campaign brought the Whitlam government to power when some real foreign policy changes and a substantially independent course was implemented. But Whitlam’s defeat restored the old status quo of toadying to the US.
Successive government’s, both Liberal and Labor, have followed the course laid down by each of the US administrations. We are still in that rut!
While Rudd claims from time to time to be different, the truth is that there is only a change in wording — little more.
Rudd did ratify the Kyoto protocols but when seated at the table of nations at the Bali UN conference on global change last December, the government immediately pushed the US line which insisted that all nations, developed or developing, should accept mandatory reductions in gas emissions.
Before travelling to the US to meet President Bush and others, Rudd’s remarks regarding Tibetan independence were restrained. But having talked to Bush, Rudd became much more strident and called for negotiations between the government and the Dalai Lama.
There is really no change in Rudd’s Iraq policy. Many Australian troops will remain there and perhaps even more in Afghanistan. Neither of these wars have the sanction of the UN Security Council. The only change is that Rudd regards Afghanistan as more strategically important than Iraq — why? — because it has a common border with the southern republics of the former Soviet Union and it also has a short border into western China.
The claim for a seat on the UN Security Council could be supported except that behind it are moves to strengthen the position of the western imperialist powers on that important international body. To obtain a binding decision of the Security Council a resolution must obtain at least 9 votes. The Security Council has not sanctioned the unilateral vote for the independence of Kosovo or for the replacement of the present UN contingent with a NATO force. The US could not muster the necessary 9 votes on the Security Council.
And then there is the purchase of modern weapons from the US which are intended to give Australia international "clout". No-one should believe that the weapons are intended for the defence of Australia. No country in Asia threatens Australia but the same cannot be said for the Australian government’s attitude to Asia.