ANZUS alliance ‘might be a danger to Australian security’, says Bob Carr

Bob Carr has urged policymakers to consider the ‘big disturbing idea’ that the ANZUS alliance could endanger Australian security.

Bob Carr has published a memoir, Run For Your Life. Picture: John Appleyard.

Bob Carr has urged policymakers to consider the “big disturbing idea” that should conflict arise ­between the US and China, the ANZUS alliance “might be a danger to Australian security, not a guarantor of it”.

The former NSW Labor premier and foreign minister recalls in his new memoir, Run For Your Life, Malcolm Fraser telling him the US was capable of losing a land war against China and then exiting the Asia-Pacific for good.

“We simply don’t know,” Mr Carr writes. “But someone in Canberra should be speculating about the future, even if it ­involves facing a big disturbing idea: an America in befuddled, angry dotage might be a danger to Australian security, not a guarantor of it. If we don’t entertain possibilities like these, we are not thinking about our security.

“We should continue saying to China what we’ve done since (Gough) Whitlam, letting the Chinese know we are part of the US alliance system and the ­alliance is not directed at them. But we should also let the Americans know that our alliance commitment with them does not preclude us from a positive and pragmatic policy towards China.”

Mr Carr, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute at University of Technology Sydney, writes that Donald Trump’s election has up-ended existing norms of US foreign policy.

“The foreign and security ­establishment in Canberra will take some time to face the radical notion that America in a distraught, bruised, unhealthy state could be a danger to us,” he writes. “Signs of US decline are a trauma for Australia, with our permanent fear of abandonment.”

Mr Carr’s memoir focuses on his decade as premier and includes chapters on his upbringing, life as a journalist, political strategy and his public policy interests. Chapters address the “China panic”, his battles with the “Israel lobby” and his warnings about high immigration levels.

Australia should pause and question the sustainability of its immigration rate, Mr Carr argues. “Voters seem reluctant to assign the responsibility to Canberra where, in the capital city with the lowest population densities, the decisions about high immigration are cheerfully signed off.”

Run For Your Life is published next week and will be launched by Tony Whitlam on July 2. Author proceeds from the book will be donated to the charity Australia for UNHCR to assist children displaced by the civil war in Syria.