No one in either of the major parties dares to acknowledge the American emperor’s nakedness and the decline of the United States as forthrightly as Fraser does. Gareth Evans, in a preface, cautions that some will find the book’s conclusion ‘problematic’. Robert Manne (Good Weekend, 26–27 April 2014) recalls Fraser’s staunch support for the Commonwealth and ANZUS, and his proposed boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games in retaliation for the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, and marvels at the change in him. Given his grab for power in 1975 and his role in the Dismissal, and given his former enthusiasm for Robert Mugabe, others may ask whether Fraser’s spots have really changed. Others will remember him staring down the Americans to get a deal for military equipment, opposing apartheid, and supporting multiculturalism and refugees.

Fraser, who was minister for the army and then for defence during the Vietnam War, and our most Cold War warrior of prime ministers, has in recent years opposed Australia’s invasion of Iraq, and now advocates strategic independence for Australia. His membership of the Liberal Party became unsustainable. Selectively quoting Australian and foreign leaders he has met, his warmest praise is reserved for H.V. Evatt and Gareth Evans, and his harshest criticism for John Howard.

Fraser slips occasionally into ascribing to all Australians the views he held during the Cold War, or even claiming that all Western people shared them. In fact, Australian support of the United States has not been unanimous, nor has that of the West. In the 1960s, he claims, ‘Australia generally’ accepted the view ‘common in the West’ that communism was monolithic. Only in 1976, on his first visit to China, did it occur to Fraser that nationalism was a more significant force than communism in many countries. But Australian participants in the Vietnam Moratorium already understood that, and the ‘domino principle’ had been derided among informed Australians since the mid-1960s. Former diplomat Gregory Clark in 1967, and two former secretaries of foreign affairs – Alan Watt in 1967, and Alan Renouf in 1979 – wrote books in which they deplored Australia’s fear of China and lack of foreign policy independence. Indeed, it was Prime Minister Fraser who deposed Renouf and sent him to Washington, where he wrote The Frightened Country. Renouf, even then, was outraged at the invigilation of Australian telecommunications by the United States.

Malcolm Fraser, 1966

Whether or not this book succeeds in bringing about an overdue revolution in Australian defence and foreign policy will depend on how Australians respond to Fraser’s fundamental propositions: that since the Cold War a single superpower has become dominant; that its unchecked power has changed American polity and values in ways that now diverge from those of Australia; that change and maturity in Asian countries has diminished their threat to Australia. He adds that Australia failed to take opportunities in the 1980s and 1990s to seek a more positive presence in the region. But why only then? We have missed many other opportunities: in the late 1940s, when the Menzies government opted for loyalty to our Western allies rather than engagement with the fledgling Non-Aligned Movement, and recognised Taiwan instead of China; in 1954–56, when we failed to insist that elections be held to unite Vietnam; and again in 1965, when Menzies contrived a request to send troops there. In 2003, Australia could have opted out of Iraq, as Canada did, and we need not have stayed on in Afghanistan.

Fraser presents three options: for Australian foreign and defence policies to remain virtually identical to those of the United States; to have it both ways, choosing which wars to fight; or to dispense with strategic dependence altogether. The challenges of choosing the third, he argues optimistically, can be met, including closing Pine Gap and the US bases in Darwin, which threaten others, make Australia a target, and implicate us in drone attacks. Australia need not abrogate ANZUS, he says, merely return to its literal meaning; nor should we leave the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence agreement. Even if the United States retaliated by excluding us from both, he doubts that the loss to Australia would be great. A consequence of strategic independence would be increased military expenditure; Fraser agrees with Canberra and Washington that this is necessary.

Whether Australia wants to be expensively armed against unspecified threats while being supposedly unable to afford proper social services, infrastructure, housing, and energy should be a question in the public debate that Fraser wants to have. Some may wish that, instead of advocating more weaponry to threaten our neighbours, he would pursue to its logical conclusion his argument that ‘a foreign army cannot impose a system of government by force’. Some will prefer his compromise option: maintaining the alliance but staying out of wars that do not concern us. But many Australians and most politicians will find the strategic independence he advocates inconceivable. To accept it would require them to shed the invasion-fixation, emotional dependency, and fear of Asian enemies that have been acculturated in Australians for more than a century.

There is a fourth option, readily available, which Fraser does not consider. Australia in 2007 signed the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Co-operation, under which regional nations, including, since 2010, Russia and the United States, refrain from the threat or use of force and from interference in each other’s affairs. By applying these principles and implementing our own Asian Century White Paper, Australia could build more positive relations with our neighbours, and thus reduce the need for defence. Instead, successive Australian governments have starved DFAT of funding and sought an increased American military presence, culminating in the offer of bases in Darwin, which they apparently hope the United States would be obliged to defend. Fraser’s call to close all the US bases will be tested when the ‘ANZAC Centenary’ Defence White Paper appears in 2015.