For the longest time B has been hassling me to read Sub-Imperial Power and after finally doing so, I can understand why. It is a small but quite mighty book that helps to define in somewhat new terms, Australia’s place within the current world order and how that has affected the country domestically. Since being published in 2022, it has rapidly become a recommended book for political, international relations and foreign policy wonks because it discusses in clear and understandable terms, a new and highly useful paradigm for analysing Australia’s international role in the world system: sub-imperialism.
Fernandes walks us through their reasoning as to why Australia could be classed as being part of a sub-imperial network as opposed to being a middle power, such as Norway. The primary reason is based on an analysis of the nature of Australia’s economy and Australia’s defence strategy. Fernandes states that Australia is a ‘wealthy but dependent economy’ and elaborates on this by writing:
During the colonial period, British investment fostered vertical economic ties with London more than horizontal economic ties integrating the economies of the Australian colonies. Typically found in imperial-colonial relationships, such vertical economic relationships result in monocultural economies that produce mineral resources and agricultural goods for export. That legacy remains with us (Fernandes, 2022, p.21).
As an Australian, it has always struck me as rather odd that this country’s economy seems to shrink away from becoming a more complex economy and selling more than just raw materials to our trading partners. In light of climate change, it seems tenuous that our primary exports are chiefly the minerals we dig out of the ground and agricultural products we more often than not ship out as unprocessed, raw goods. Diversification and thus increased complexity of our economy seems to be something that we ought to embrace but have not. As Fernandes points out, this makes the Australian economy highly unusual in the developed world in that Australia is a developed, prosperous, stable and functional nation state but it also has the economic complexity of a developing nation such as Cambodia or Kazakhstan, thereby making it a wealthy but dependent nation (Fernandes, 2022, p.22).
Why has Australia fostered this dependency and/or allowed this dependent state to continue? Some of this can be explained by examining who owns what in Australia and also by looking at how Australia and its exports integrate into the world economy. Outside of minerals and agricultural products, Australia boasts relatively small sectors of specialised manufacturing such as aircraft manufacturing and repairs and some automobile manufacturing. Australia, like many nation states, is part of a system of global value chains (GVCs) where a company’s headquarters, design and engineering, finance, raw materials and manufacturing are often located in separate countries (Fernandes, 2022, p. 24). Fernandes notes that GVCs are the dominant international corporate model of the present day with approximately 80 percent of international trade comprising of the movement of goods and services across international borders between the departments of the same company (Fernandes, 2022, p. 24). Foreign investors are largely comfortable with GVCs and their ability to generate substantial wealth removes much impetus for either international investors or nation states to embrace increased complexity within some economies (Fernandes, 2022, p.24). This is one reason why Australia remains largely economically un-complex and highly specialised in some areas in regards to its exports.
Another factor, as mentioned previously, is ownership of capital. Fernandes draws our attention to the fact that according to data obtained from the Bloomberg Professional Terminal, approximately three quarters of the shares in the top twenty companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) are foreign owned (Fernandes, 2022, p.22) Given the relatively small market capitalisation of the ASX, this accounts for roughly half of the market capitalisation of the entire exchange (Fernandes, 2022, p.22). Without doubt, mining and fossil fuels plays a dominant role in Australia’s economy and it was surprising to discover how much of it is US majority owned. BHP is 71 percent US owned, Rio Tinto is 77 percent US owned, Woodside Petroleum is 63 percent US owned, Newcrest Mining is 53 percent US owned and South32 is 47 percent US owned (Fernandes, 2022, p.48). The only big hitter not US majority owned is Fortescue Metals with the majority of the shares owned by the Forrest family through its commercial group, Minderoo which was rebranded as Tattarang in 2020 (Tattarang, 2020).
As it can be seen, foreign investment in Australia plays a predominant role in Australia’s largest and most influential corporations which in turn accounts for a substantial portion of Australia’s business interests. It’s particularly enlightening to note the high proportion of mining companies that are US owned. Thus, it can be argued that Australia’s economic interests are irrevocably tied to the creation and maintenance of US led world order that emphasises a benign environment for international investment that does not threaten US hegemony (Fernandes, 2022, p.22). Interestingly, Australia’s largest trading partner is China and it goes to show the complexity of wealth generation today with US majority owned companies selling minerals and fossil fuels to undoubtedly its most virulent potential rival for hegemony in the new century, China, via Australia’s raw material and export network. This conflict embedded within the current capitalist system supports Alex Callinicos thesis that the world we are facing today is more reminiscent of the situation the world faced before the outbreak of World War One rather than the Cold War primarily because the great powers of the world today have complex, highly interconnected yet conflictual trade links with each other (Callinicos, 2023). History has therefore demonstrated that a global and complex capitalist world order does not necessarily inhibit the outbreak of conflict between rival great powers.
What is also of note is how fluidly Australia exchanged dominant investors from Britain to the US as Britain lost its ability to project power in the postwar period and the US repositioned itself as a superpower alongside the USSR. But Australia’s role within the economic and trade network of a greater, imperial power remains the same: to be primarily a supplier of raw materials. Australia’s dependent role could be said to be partially enforced through the persuasion of ownership of capital and the nature of GVCs but it's also a role Australia willingly cultivates. Australia’s economic contribution to the US global economy enmeshes it with America. It puts Australia within the imperial network of this global power and it is a place Australia very much wishes to be.
Australia has always seen itself as part of an imperial network, firstly it was part of the British colonial empire and since the postwar period, Australia has rallied to be part of the US foreign policy plans to establish sympathetic and US armed sentinel states in the Indo-Pacific region that ideally would include Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and India (Fernandes, 2022, p.43). America’s ability to project power in part lies in the concept of interoperability with sympathetic, junior, partner nation states adopting similar aviation, ground combat and air defence networks to that of the US, making the militaries of these countries almost interchangeable with the US in regards to operability and the ability to deploy in a coordinated fashion (Fernandes, 2022, p. 9). The US also projects power through a network of international military and surveillance bases that allow it to survey and deploy assets and resources in an area stretching from Western Europe, East Asia and into the Eurasian landmass (Fernandes, 2022, p.13). As Fernandes notes:
It is the only country whose military is designed to leave its own hemisphere, cross vast oceans and airspace, and then conduct sustained, large-scale military operations in another hemisphere. This imperial objective is why the US Navy has eleven aircraft carriers while most countries have no more than two; it aims at influencing the entire land mass from Portugal to Japan, from Russia’s Arctic coast to India, as well as all the fringing islands such as the United Kingdom and Ireland, Sri Lanka, archipelagic south-east Asia and Japan (Fernandes, 2022, p. 13).
In keeping with our long held sentiments about our place in the world as part of an imperial network, Australia has often shied away from independence. The British parliament gave up control of the Australian parliament through the passing of the Statue of Westminster act in 1931 yet four Australian Prime Ministers delayed adopting it until 1942 (Fernandes, 2022, p. 25). It makes cultural and historic sense that Australia would seek a place within America’s imperial, postwar system and that Australia would find it comforting to become a junior partner with a greater power that culturally bears many similarities with Australia as well as having a similar world view.
But what makes Australia not just a junior partner but sub-imperial? Why are we not a middle power? Our determination to make our military interoperable with the US military as evidenced the recent purchase of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS partnership which seeks greater and deeper military activities and ties between Australia, the UK and the US and our foreign policy objectives such as the decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq is indicative of Australia’s near total alignment with the geopolitical, foreign policy objectives of the United States ( Fernandes, 2022, pp. 28-29). Australia actively supports America’s imperial objectives in much the same manner as it did when it was part of the British colonial empire:
Military historians are well aware that Australian governments have not gone to war for sentimental reasons or because they were duped. Upholding the imperial order was an essential component of Australia’s security, properly understood: the security of economic interests and the military-political order that secured them. For a subimperial power, imperial wars are never ‘other people’s wars’ (Fernandes, 2022, p. 35).
This explains why Australia has often involved itself in far-flung wars. Australia’s security is dependent upon helping to uphold the geopolitical and foreign policy objectives of a greater power to whom we are in junior partnership with. Australia by and large does not have nor does it seem to want a separate military strategy outside of a dependent and junior partnership with a larger, imperial power. But Australia’s economy, military and intelligence services are not the only reasons why Australia could be deemed as being sub-imperial. As a nation state, Australia also seeks to have its own small sphere of influence in Timor-Leste and the south-west Pacific (Fernandes, 2022, p. 16).
Australia accepted Timor-Leste’s independence in 2002 but it effectively prevented Timor-Leste from obtaining its economic independence by refusing to negotiate a maritime boundary along the median line in the Timor Sea and withdrawing from the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in 2002 ensuring Timor-Leste could not assert its legal right at these forums (Fernandes, 2022, p.55). Both of these actions amounted to the denial of Timor-Leste’s right to its sovereign oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea (Fernandes, 2022, p. 55). Though a treaty between Timor-Leste and Australia was eventually signed in 2018, Australia refused to compensate Timor-Leste for any past exploitation of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, some of which should have gone to Timor-Leste had a median line been established in 2002 (Fernandes, 2022, pp.55-56). Australia has also encouraged the cultivation of a small but politically powerful middle class, urban elite within Timor-Leste who are in general, favourably disposed to the creation of shared habits and procedures with Australia, joint military exercises and making Timor-Leste compatible and receptive to international investment (Fernandes, 2022, p.56). Though independent in name, it could be argued that Timor-Leste functions with degrees of imperial oversight by Australia who has had a hand in influencing key decisions of Timor-Leste as well as obtaining some level of control over its natural resources (Fernandes, 2022, p. 56).
Australia also seeks to assert influence in the south-west Pacific though with arguably less effectiveness. In April 2022, it was revealed to the shock of many Australians, that China and the Solomon Islands had made an agreement regarding ship visits, logistical replenishment and other associated activities (Fernandes, 2022, p. 94). Australia often seeks influence in the region through the provision of aid but unlike Chinese aid which tends to remain within the Solomon Islands, Australian aid tends to flow back into Australia through the payment of Federal Police, civil servants, magistrates and private contractors who work in the Solomon Islands (Fernandes, 2022, p. 96). Aid monitoring group Aid/Watch observed in a submission to the Australian Senate in 2014, Australia is the “largest direct recipient of its own aid funding” (Fernandes, 2022, p. 97). Despite not always obtaining its desired outcomes in the Solomon Islands, I would concur with the notion that Australia does seek to influence the domestic and international decisions of key sovereign states within the south-west Pacific region in a manner that has imperial overtones.
Sub-Imperial Power finds its most convincing and persuasive narrative when it discusses Australia as being a sub-imperial power. It somewhat loses focus and effectiveness when it strays from this and when it tries to frame multiple aspects of Australia’s political and cultural life through the single paradigm of being a sub-imperial power. The idea of Australia as being a sub-imperial power is a highly relevant and useful concept for understanding Australia both internationally and domestically but I believe it is not Australia’s complete totality as a nation state. Rarely does a single narrative or conceptual framework explain how and why a nation state manifests itself domestically and internationally as it does. I also felt that Fernandes’ analysis could have benefited from examining China with more critical rigour than what was presented in the text. However, overall Sub-Imperial Power deserves the praise it has been given because it has launched into the general discussion regarding Australia’s place in the world, a relatively new and highly useful concept. It is an accessible text that is deliberately small and simplistic in its analysis for ease of consumption. Like the Communist Manifesto and other such pamphlet-like material, it is designed to be read by a broad readership with ideas and thoughts that are digestible. Its contribution to the discourse is much appreciated and worth reading if you are interested in foreign policy and understanding modern day imperialism.
References:
Callinicos, A. (2023). The New Age of Catastrophe. Polity Press.
Fernandes, C. (2022). Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena. Melbourne University Press.
Tattarang. (13 May, 2020). The Minderoo commercial group rebrands to Tattarang.
https://www.tattarang.com/news/2020/the-minderoo-commercial-group-rebrands-to-tattarang/
