On returning from Australia I asked my graduate students in strategic studies the following question: what is the relative size of the Australian and Indonesian defense budgets? They made the same, grossly incorrect answer that I would have given some months earlier--about three to one in favor of the Indonesians. The proportions are just about the reverse. Until recently, in fact, Australia spent more on defense than did all ASEAN countries, and today its military spending is still roughly equivalent to that of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore combined.
This central fact and all that it implies came home to me during a visit to Australia as a guest of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). I met with officials from DFAT, The Department of Defence, the Office of National Assessments (the Australian intelligence analysis organization), as well as academics and journalists. I also spent some time with the Australian military, including its growing Northern Command headquarters in Darwin. The charms of the country (and it has many) aside, the trip taught me something about the challenges facing a modern middle power. Like most Cold War-trained national security experts, my thinking on the subject rested chiefly on exposure to America's European allies, who operate in an alliance context quite different from that of the Australians.
