The role of the AALD in preserving the Australia-US alliance

This article critically evaluates the agenda and strategy of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue (AALD) for protecting and strengthening the Australia-US alliance. Nominally an exercise in informal diplomacy dedicated to fostering mutual understanding, the AALD functions more like a pro-American lobby group as it seeks to preserve orthodox thinking and eschew dissenting perspectives. The AALD performs this function in three main ways: by carefully framing discussion and debate, by socialising Australian elites into the alliance orthodoxy and by serving as a 'gatekeeper' of the status quo.