The Reluctant Coalition

The Australian government’s announcement today that it will contribute assets to a maritime coalition force in the Persian Gulf comes as no surprise, given the very public way the U.S. request was delivered in Sydney at the recent AUSMIN meeting. Washington doesn’t make those type of requests unless it knows or expects it will get a positive response.

Australia is going to stump up with a ship, an aircraft, and a few staff officers. Hardly earth-shattering stuff. But this coalition is proving as hard to build as was the Iraq invasion coalition, if for somewhat different reasons.

There is little confidence in the strategic decision-making process at the White House. The U.S. campaign of “maximum pressure” on Iran that got us to this point is more a series of tactical decisions with a vague strategic intent, displaying little understanding of the second-order effects of its actions. The prospect of putting assets under a U.S. command that has great capability but little coherent strategic direction does not excite many countries.

My initial thoughts in the wake of Australia’s decision follow:  

Dr. Rodger Shanahan is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute. A former army officer, he had extensive service within the Parachute Battalion Group (PBG) and has had operational service with the UN in South Lebanon and Syria, with the PBG in East Timor, in Beirut during the 2006 war, and in Afghanistan. He was the former director of the Army's Land Warfare Studies Centre, and has also been posted to the Australian Embassies in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Dr Shanahan has MAs in International Relations and Middle East Studies from the ANU, and a PhD in Arab and Islamic Studies from the University of Sydney.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.