Australian identity, interventionism and the war on terror

This chapter examines Australia’s participation in military intervention in the ‘war on terror’ and the role of the politics of identity. Like the Bush administration in the US, the Australian Government under conservative Prime Minister John Howard was consistently willing to suggest that the age of ‘war’ post-2001 necessitated new domestic ministries and agencies; new legislation (from police powers to periods of detention and ease of movement in and out of the country); and new forms of public participation in security governance. All of these were crucial components of Australia’s ‘war on terror’. In this chapter, however, we focus specifically on Australian interventionism in the ‘war on terror’: the policy and practice of involvement in military incursions beyond the borders of the Australian state as a means of redressing the threat posed by fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. We examine the reasons given for Australian participation in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of this ‘war on terror’, while also analysing Australia’s military interventionism in the immediate region, most prominently its mission in the Solomon Islands in 2003. We argue that understanding Australian military intervention in the ‘war on terror’ requires taking account of the important role of identity in underpinning the Government’s conception of security and providing a resource for the Government to justify intervention to the Australian people.