OUR PACIFIC OCEAN ENVIRONMENT

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 10

OUR PACIFIC OCEAN ENVIRONMENT

Asia And The Pacific fn The 19705. Edited by Brace Brown. A. H. and A. W. Reed. 244 pp. Index. Bruce Brown, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Wellington, has edited a book which forms one of the most important published contributions yet to the debate on defence and foreign policy in Australia and New Zealand. Its 13 papers by a variety of contributors were given at a conference in Canberra last year to consider the future of the Anzus alliance in the light of America’s changing attitude towards defence in Asia and the Pacific region. The full implications of changes in American policy have still to be worked out; contributors to this volume cover the spectrum of possibilities from those who argue that for Australia and New Zealand “nothing has changed” and the United States may be relied on, as always, to play a major part in defence, through to those who see a fundamental change and a new isolationism in America. It may take a decade for the United States itself to decide where it stands. Within the region, the most generally accepted development is the increasing power, of Japan, and especially the possibility that before too long Japan will manufacture nuclear weapons. China is not regarded as an important military threat, but her influence is significant because her nuclear capacity acts as an incentive for other States Japan, India, and Australia to acquire nuclear weapons. The great problem for Australia and New Zealand in their external relations in the future is only slowly being

recognised: how best to adjust to a world in which they are relatively alone with a rather wide range of options in policy and no clear indication of which to choose. It may take a generation before the sense of loneliness and ineffectualness which this new world view generates can be overcome and replaced with a flexible and imaginative outlook. New Zealand’s task is, relatively the more easy. This country is not accustomed to thinking of its actions as being internationally or even regionally decisive. All New Zealand can hope to do is to respond to the initiatives of others in the ways which best serve its needs. Australia, however, has the added problem of being a middle-range power. It cannot hope to dominate events in the way that the United States might; but it is big enough, and has sufficient military capacity, to form an important part of any strategic assessment of South-East Asia. Its size means others must take account of Australian intentions, and that Australia cannot afford the relative indolence of letting others make all the moves. Australia must innovate policy as well as merely respond to the policies of others. The external environment in which Australia and New Zealand must live during the 19705, and beyond, is thus bewildering in a way that past external relations, with close dependence on a great Power, have not been. The picture is complicated, as Mr Brown points out in his introduction, because the world has Come to be less governable than was supposed a generation ago. In a time of revolutionary change the crust of domestic and international

order has proved to be dangerously thin. Prediction is becoming harder; there are fewer certainties on which nations can depend in their planning. Perhaps the best of the essays in the collection is that by Professor Hedley Bull of the Australian National University, Canberra. Professor Bull argues that the community of perceived interests among the three members of Anzus is diminishing. It has always been a partnership of unequal States, but Australia and New Zealand have consistently underestimated the degree of American withdrawal from the region and the implications this may hold for the alliance which the two States regard as the cornerstone of their defence arrangements. Among the questions he poses, but does not solve, is one of particular concern for New Zealanders: what attitude should this country adopt to any Australian proposal to acquire nuclear weapons? New Zealand has made it clear it does not want such weapons itself and is never likely to. Australia, however, has been much more ambivalent This is only one of the important areas of policy in which Australia and New Zealand may well differ in their outlook in the future. It should give proponents—and opponents—of closer links between the two countries much to think about especially when a recent public opinion poll in Australia suggested that a majority of that country’s citizens were not opposed to acquiring a nuclear capacity. “Asia and the Pacific in the 19705” should have an important place on the bookshelves of anyone who is concerned about the future of New Zealand’s external relations.