In short, Australia prefers an America that values partnerships and coalitions, that utilizes soft as well as hard power, that emphasizes political methods as well as military ones. Such an approach is critical to maintaining a sense of common purpose in relation to ends, means and language. One reason for this is that a certain rise in anti-Americanism is inevitable; great powers, no matter how benign, invariably generate resentment. But Washington must understand that such a development affects not just America but increases the potential price paid by America's allies in siding with the hegemon. This is not an argument against all military action. It is an argument for more attention to the tone of U.S. policy, and for legitimizing military action by law and through coalitions whenever possible.

Such care is particularly important because the American alliance system is overwhelmingly composed of democratic countries with real publics. Australia's pro-U.S. political leaders spent much of 2002 trying to uphold the American position, only to be engulfed by a tide of unilateral and provocative rhetoric from the U.S. administration that had the reverse impact. The U.S. alliance is not immutable in Australia. It needs democratic nourishment and it can be sustained in the long run only by public support that sees military commitments under its banner as being in the national interest and possessing international legitimacy. It is idle to believe that any lurch to an American unilateralism would not erode the domestic political support within Australia for the alliance.

The Southeast Asian Theater

Since the October 2002 attack in Bali, a new factor is affecting Australia's alliance ties--that Australia itself is a prime terrorist target of the collaboration between Al-Qaeda and Southeast Asian groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah. This is a decisive change; it means that Australia now has a security crisis at its very doorstep.

Even the most apolitical Australian knows that Osama bin Laden has singled out Australia by name, and even the moderately thoughtful realize that Australia's status as a target is permanent--a function of geography, the values of its democratic multicultural capitalist society, its identification with the United States and its prime role in the liberation of East Timor. The evidence of Al-Qaeda's penetration of Southeast Asia over the past decade, furthermore, is irrefutable, as is the fact that Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have become the new frontiers of a war in which Australia is invariably implicated. Australians also know that the governments of these countries cannot solve their terrorism problems alone, the result being a strong Australian interest in maximizing its influence and efforts to help them.

The formative template for this new understanding was the Australia-Indonesia decision only days after the Bali bombing to establish a joint investigation and inquest into the atrocity. Clearly, Indonesia is the key as far as Australia is concerned. It is Australia's nearest main neighbor, the world's fourth-most populous state and an overwhelmingly Muslim nation. Amid Indonesia's current systemic crisis--complete with nose-diving economy; several secessionist movements; and rising Islamic radicalism, anti-Americanism and xenophobia--are somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand Indonesians who were trained in Al-Qaeda's Afghanistan camps.

Since Indonesia's future hangs in the balance, Australia needs a cool head to support its uncertain democracy, its moderate mainstream Islam, and those supportive of a tougher line on terrorism. Australia's regional policy aims to negotiate agreements on counter-terrorism with Southeast Asian nations and deepen links between intelligence agencies and police forces. The wider strategic challenge for Australia, however, is to strike a new balance between its regional security needs and its global commitments to the United States as a senior ally. So the question becomes: What role does the U.S. alliance play in helping Australia to meet this new threat to its security?

It is vital for Australia and desirable for the United States that the alliance between the two countries is seen to have a positive impact on Australia's new Southeast Asian problem. Any sense that the alliance hurts Australian efforts to combat new threats would be highly damaging to it. But it will not be easy for Australia to intensify its counter-terrorism agenda in the region while maintaining open and full military support for the global U.S.-led war on terror. Australia cannot afford the impression to develop in Southeast Asia that it is merely the regional agent for the United States. The Howard Government's worst mistake has been to give currency to this notion. It is not only a liability for Australia in Asia but unacceptable on the homefront. However, such a perception already exists in Southeast Asia, where Australia's influence has been diminished.

Clearly, Australia must operate more as an independent player within the alliance. A new and complex phase of Australia's effort to integrate its U.S. alliance into its regional needs is thus beginning. The immediate risk for Australia is that its role in Iraq will aggravate anti-Australian sentiment among Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and fan hatred among Muslim radicals. This is not a conclusive argument against Australia's participation in Iraq or other U.S.-led coalitions if such participation is justified on its merits, but it does mean that Asian reactions need to be monitored carefully to ensure that regional governments do not retaliate by withdrawing from arrangements with Australia. That would constitute a zero-sum game between Australia's regional needs and its U.S. alliance, and a zero-sum game is exactly what Australia needs to avoid. This will involve, no doubt, a test of American tolerance and Australian innovation.

Australia's approach, overall, to these new strategic tests for the alliance should be obvious. A poorly grasped element of the alliance, for many years now, has been Australia's role as an initiator of policy direction and change. In asymmetrical relations the initiative often lies with the junior partner who has far more at stake, invests greater political capital in the arrangement and enjoys a larger commensurate gain. This tradition is a firm platform on which Australia should now operate as innovator. It means an Australian engagement with the United States that is more, not less, intensive over how to respond to these new challenges.

In the meantime, Americans might profit from reflecting upon what Australia brings to the partnership. It offers a range of benefits: shared military arrangements and an ally that, when the chips are down, is prepared to fight; a country on the rim of East Asia that can assist the U.S. position in the region; an independent partner with common values whose public support can help the United States in political terms and whose private counsel can provide a test of policy. Australia is also an ally prepared to take a leadership position as the metropolitan power within its region--an event rarely replicated in Europe during the last decade. These are assets that a prudent America should value, and if they are valued, they will be sustained by U.S. political capital and a genuine effort to define new points of concord. The alternative is easy to state: it is to watch as a true partnership of peoples is undermined by a lack of understanding and imagination required in changed times.