The Genesis of a Policy: Defining and Defending Australia's National Interest in the Asia-Pacific, 1921–57: By Honae Cuffe. Canberra: ANU Press, 2021. Pp. 249. A$55.00 paper, or free to download.

Australia's most recent White Papers on foreign and defence policy and the 2020 Defence Strategic Update demonstrate the determination of Australian policy planners to do what it takes to strengthen American resolve in the Indo-Pacific. Cuffe pushes back against claims that Australia's Asia-Pacific policy reflected "naive loyalty or toadying to Britain and the US" (201). Too often, as Cuffe says, strategy and diplomacy are viewed as 'high politics and the true work of foreign policy while trade and economic policy are considered "low politics"'(6-7). [Extracted from the article]