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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 16. 1972

National Self-Reliance

National Self-Reliance

The basic objective of N.Z. and its allies defence policies is to protect their form of capitalist society and encourage and promote is elsewhere. However the means of working to this objective have changed over the years. Harold Holt's cry "All the way with L.B.J." would no longer be acceptable as Australia's motto in defence policy. Professor Hedley Bull argued that the concept of forward defence had become outdated for Australian policy and should be replaced by a policy of 'national self-reliance' (Bull saw this happening anyway). Australian defence policy, according to Bull, can be more independent because the present multipolar state of international politics allows middle or small powers more flexibility than the old days of rigid East-West hostility. Bull was proposing different means for defending Australia's capitalist society and was not, of course, questioning the objective of Australian defence itself. His policy of 'national self-reliance', like proposals for 'regional co-operation in South East Asia are alternatives to the fading policy of 'forward defence' which are meant to take into account 'new' factors in international politics in South-East Asia and the Pacific, such as the 'Nixon Doctrine' and the thaw in U.S. - Chinese relations. However all these ideas do not challenge the basic premise that we need to defend our capitalist society and should bully everyone else in the world in order to do so (by such diverse means as trade, aid, genocide and subversion).