ABSTRACT Does Australia have a ‘strategic policy’? Australia’s debate has seen an inflation of the use of the term ‘strategic policy’, often used synonymously with ‘defence policy’ and ‘strategic guidance’ to indicate a major policy or to simply describe Australia’s strategic environment. However, far from pure semantics, the term ‘strategic policy’ has become dissociated from the specific understanding of the policy objectives attached to the use and the threat of the use of military force. Instead, contemporary usage of ‘strategic policy’ has come to reflect what Everett Carl Dolman called a ‘favourable continuation of events’, reducing strategy to a mere functional adjective. Moreover, a focus on ‘policy’ as meeting the objectives of a state, as opposed to ‘politik’, which encompasses policy, politics and the polity, has led to the restriction on choices and objectives for Canberra. In an increasingly contested Asia, the Australian debate should avoid the obfuscation that comes with a term such as ‘strategic policy’ as this can have negative implications for Australian force structure and planning. More broadly, the application of the term ‘strategic policy’ reflects the challenge of Australia as a medium-sized power developing an independent strategy in the context of its history, geography, politics and society.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚“战略政策”的神话

摘要 澳大利亚有“战略政策”吗？在澳大利亚的辩论中，“战略政策”一词的使用被夸大了，通常与“国防政策”和“战略指导”同义使用，以表明一项重大政策或简单地描述澳大利亚的战略环境。然而，远非纯粹的语义，“战略政策”一词已经脱离了对使用和威胁使用军事力量的政策目标的具体理解。相反，当代对“战略政策”的使用已经反映了埃弗雷特·卡尔·多尔曼所说的“有利的事件延续”，将战略简化为一个功能性的形容词。此外，将“政策”作为实现国家目标的重点，而不是“政治”，后者包含政策、政治和政体，导致堪培拉的选择和目标受到限制。在竞争日益激烈的亚洲，澳大利亚的辩论应避免混淆“战略政策”等术语，因为这可能对澳大利亚的部队结构和规划产生负面影响。更广泛地说，“战略政策”一词的应用反映了澳大利亚作为一个中等大国在其历史、地理、政治和社会背景下制定独立战略所面临的挑战。