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Downer elaborated on the causes he could recall behind the long-term foreign policy response in Howard’s vision:

The terrorists did it. I mean they’re the John Howard obvious causes. We knew nothing about what was going to happen on 9/11. And when it happened, well the government, I mean including him, responded as any government would. [As] any Australian Government would. (Author interview Downer, 2010)

Downer explained that Howard quite deliberately inserted this new reality into the vision he had inherited from his predecessors. The modern, post-Fraser neo-liberal agenda had minimised the role of the state, but 9/11 brought the state securely back into view. The Howard Government balanced its global regional role with that of the United States in setting its new policy goals, according to Downer:

I don’t think the main elements of it changed. But I think that we gave a very high priority to engaging with our neighborhood - Southeast Asia, North Asia, South Pacific and making sure that we are able to achieve our national objectives in those areas. And that didn’t change after 9/11. Some of the things we actually did change after 9/11 but in terms of the overall structure of policy that didn’t change. We placed, of course a lot of emphasis on relations with the US as a lot of us Australian governments invariably do. And the only real exception to this I would suggest was the Whitlam Government. Since the Second World War Australian governments placed a lot of emphasis on the relationship with the United States as one of the cornerstones of Australia’s security policy. Well the attack of 9/11 was on the United States. So you know we activated the ANZUS Treaty as an illustration of the point. But I mean the ANZUS Treaty was there. And in other words all the . . . not that we put it there, the Menzies government put it there. But the architecture was already created and we just utilised what was there. So in other words it was about a further phase in the implementation of a policy that already existed. (Author interview Downer, 2010)

The term being used ‘war on terror’ was American and not British:

I think that you mentioned Britain. One thing I would say about the war on terror as it is sometimes called, they hate that expression in Britain. They’ve got rid of it. (Author interview Downer, 2010)

The ultimate realisation was that the term being used by Downer the ‘war on terror’ was first defined by American and not British and in terms of the particular phase of US anti- terrorism it represented. So it had to be United States interests that had a primary fixed consideration in the making of this policy, according to Downer:

[9/11 encouraged the key tenets of Australian foreign policy?] Absolutely! The Americans, we never would have got a Free Trade Agreement with them. We didn’t do it, by the way, to get a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. But we never would have got a Free Trade Agreement with the United States if our response to terrorism had been a more qualified and hesitant response of the kind that some countries like Belgium and Spain had. Well, not Spain at that time. Actually Belgium and France under Chirac provided support. That’s really important to remember. The other thing is of course as a result of the Bali bombings. (Author interview Downer, 2010)

Downer offers Spain, Belgium and France as acceptable like-minded examples of foreign intervention to support Howard’s vision, but then immediately begins to downplay them.

According to Williams, in our 2008 interview, it could be presumed the vision instituted by Howard from 9/11 did not dramatically change Australian relationships, merely reinforced them:

I am not sure that you could say that the relationship changed. I think the relationship became more intense. But the US alliance and the long-standing relationship with the UK remained the same. It’s just that there was rather more contact between them. The message that the PM conveyed was that 9/11 had been an enormous shock to the US government and the US United States people. The fear I think was that no US President wanted to be in office when terrorists set off a dirty atomic bomb in a major US city like New York. (Author interview Williams, 2008)

Returning to Downer’s account, it appeared immediately after the Bali bombing that a level of Prime Ministerial vision was delivered differently. Howard had retained strong views against terrorism but Bali was a sensitive issue and caution prevailed to keep a

balance with Indonesia and not to inflame the neighbourhood. With the Bali bombing the response came less through Howard’s office to protect the Prime Minister’s chain of credibility against an electorate that was inflamed by the attack:

Now the important thing to remember is that in terms of policy response. So there was a consular response. I think that’s the thing you’ve got to remember. (Author interview Downer, 2010)