In this excerpt from his Quarterly Essay, Michael Wesley argues Australia has misread a changing world – clinging to old assumptions, over-relying on the US alliance, and overlooking the growing strategic importance of Southeast Asia.

The Australia I grew up in prospered in a world that fostered its aspirations and strengths. It was a world in which Australia could have an expansive outlook, an ambitious vision of itself and its international preferences. It was a world conducive to small, wealthy, developed states because it was structured around institutions and processes that encouraged countries like Australia to leverage their limited capabilities to achieve outsize influence.

These institutions and processes were, first, multilateral bodies that were taken seriously and provided smaller states with a voice and opportunities to join together to advocate major change. Second, a global system of alliances centred on America, dedicated to the values that animate Australia and to ordering the world according to those values. Third, a global economy oriented towards the freest possible flows of goods, investment and technologies, giving us access to markets with strong demand for what we were best at producing, and providing us with the best available products that we didn’t produce. Fourth, we abutted a region of states dedicated to pragmatic stability and mutually beneficial economic development and which shared our devotion to the sovereignty and equality of states.

It was a world that encouraged us to be ambitious for a time, but it also allowed us to become complacent.

There were several aspects to our complacency. One was an assumption that the four foundational arrangements of the post–World War II order – multilateralism, alliances, globalisation and a benign region – were permanent fixtures, destined to be enduring because – surely – all states judged them to be as beneficial as Australia did.

Another aspect of our complacency was an expectation that Australia didn’t have to try too hard to secure its interests, because whether we put in the diplomatic effort or not, things just seemed to work out for the best for us. A third aspect was growing indiscipline in being able to specify and prioritise our fundamental national interests. Being Australia, as Howard used to say, meant not having to........

© Pearls and Irritations