Now Sheridan is applying the same style and techniques to the Australian–American alliance. This is not a sudden conversion. As he reminds his readers more than once, he was a founding member of the Australian–American Leadership Dialogue, the private gathering of élites from both countries that has become an important element in the relationship. Nor does it mean a change of sides. Sheridan supports the view of the government (and those who matter in the Opposition) that good relations with the United States strengthen rather than weaken our relations with Asia.

In recent years, Sheridan’s access to American and Australian leaders has been upgraded. Much of this book is based on interviews conducted by Sheridan in Washington during two terms as a visiting fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, complemented by a similar role at the Australian Army’s Land Warfare Studies Centre in Canberra. Sheridan has interviewed John Howard for this book. He makes frequent and glowing references to Alexander Downer, but rather fewer to the ministers for defence and other senior ministers. There is nothing surprising in this degree of access to, and privileged information from, senior ministers. As Sir Humphrey Appleby noted in Yes, Minister, the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top. It is perhaps a little more surprising that the Land Warfare Studies Centre, the army’s internal think-tank, has been used to imbue a leading journalist with the army’s views on strategic doctrine, but it has paid off. Sheridan devotes a chapter in this book, as he has several of his columns, to promoting the army’s views in the long-standing debate over ‘defence of Australia’ versus ‘expeditionary forces’.

Sheridan advances four propositions:

that Howard has had more of the running of the relationship than [George W.] Bush; that Howard and Bush have transformed the alliance from a predominantly regional affair to a truly global partnership; that Howard has got most of what he wanted from the alliance at, for him, very little cost either politically, militarily or economically; and finally that the US alliance greatly enhances Australian national power.

These propositions are not argued with the narrative flow that the prime minister has called for in the history debate. Instead, the book comprises a series of twenty-five chapters. They are not arranged in chronological or any other order, so the arguments emerge as a series of staccato assertions, with some repetition and an endearingly erratic attitude to names and ranks. What unites the book is Sheridan’s determination to promote the value of the alliance and Howard’s skill in managing it to Australia’s, and his own, advantage. No part of any argument suffers from understatement. Perhaps journalists might recall the advice Talleyrand gave to diplomats: ‘Surtout, messieurs, point de zèle.’

For all that, Sheridan is right to claim that he is making public some facts and arguments that demand attention in any discussion of the Australian–American alliance. The most important of these is the claim that Howard, rather than Bush, is running the alliance and is turning it to Australia’s, and his own, political advantage. As I recently argued in a Lowy Institute Paper, Permanent Friends?, similar aspirations have been a long-standing element in Australia’s strategic culture. Ever since Alfred Deakin and W.M. Hughes, prime ministers have sought to use the global system of which they were part to serve Australian national interests. Their successes and failures deserve to be analysed more intelligently than with glib phrases about ‘other people’s wars’.

But the jury will be out for some time yet on the balance between the Iraq commitment and the advantages that Howard has secured from it. One major point stands in Howard’s favour. When Hughes was pressing for major concessions to Australia in the 1919 peace settlement at Versailles, he famously told Woodrow Wilson that he spoke for 60,000 dead. There have thus far been just two Australian deaths, neither by enemy action, arising from the Iraq commitment. As the American toll rises far beyond 2000, and the Iraqisare losing numbers close to that by the month in what is perilously close to a civil war, we should count ourselves fortunate for any positive benefits.

Sheridan produces strong evidence that Australia was on the side of the angels in pressing the United States to think seriously about postwar planning. It is now generally accepted that the Americans planned and executed the military phase brilliantly, while the postwar planning was a disaster. The book is good in showing that, in this respect, as is so often the case, Australia was in effect a minor player in ‘the inter-agency process’, the never-ending wrangles between the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, the CIA, the FBI and all the rest, to shape what is subsequently cited as American policy.

The book also provides important new evidence on the extent to which Australians have become integrated into the direction of military operations of the American-led coalition. He tells colourful stories of senior military officers being given significant command and control roles, including the ability to play a ‘red card’, vetoing particular operations or targets proposed by senior Americans. This is an aspect of the Australian–American military relationship that is too little understood and too often disregarded.

Sheridan also makes interesting points about Howard’s role in the debate over the need for the Bush administration to have a ‘second resolution’ from the United Nations. But he does not go further and raise questions about Australia’s involvement, if any, in the strategic decision to enter Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. In the months before March 2003, was there an Australian-accented voice in Washington saying, ‘We understand your views, but this is not the time or place for a military intervention’? And was there anyone senior in Canberra saying, ‘We want to strengthen the alliance in every possible way, but intervention in Iraq might do us, and the alliance, more harm than good in the long run’?

On intelligence, Sheridan makes much of a presidential directive that upgrades Australian access to the fruits of the vast American intelligence community. He is probably right to say that access to American intelligence is a major asset for Australia and therefore a vitally important part of the alliance relationship. The trouble is that, for obvious reasons, even well-informed journalists have to take much on trust. A principal reason for the disasters in Iraq was the internecine fighting between the intelligence agencies in Washington. Upgraded access sounds wonderful, but how confident can we be that American intelligence is not framed, even unconsciously, to influence Australian policy decisions? While Sheridan adds significantly to our understanding of this part of the alliance relationship, he cannot give us all the reassurances that sceptical readers might seek.

As Sheridan flags early in the book, even those who do not agree with his arguments will welcome the new information he brings on various neglected or underestimated aspects of the Australian–American relationship. His book underlines both the potential advantages and risks inherent in Australia’s greater integration into the American military and strategic machinery, and the extent of Australian interaction with the United States in an ever-widening range of fields. If future prime ministers are to manage the alliance in Australia’s national interests, we will all need to improve the nation’s capacity to understand the United States and its outlook on the rest of the world.