Responding to an international context of resurgent geopolitical conflict, economic statecraft and potential great power conflict, Finnish President Alexander Stubb has recently outlined the concept of ‘values-based realism’ (VBR), a foreign policy framework he claims allows middle powers to respond to the harsh realities of a multipolar international system while retaining adherence to their fundamental values. This paper critically evaluates VBR as a foreign policy approach by applying the framework to the foreign policy challenges currently facing Australia. First, I outline Stubb’s account of VBR in his recent book The Triangle of Power, evaluating his attempt to negotiate the tension between a realist foreign policy and an adherence to liberal international values. Second, I set out the significant challenges facing Australia as a middle power contending with an economic dependence on China and a military dependence on the United States, a double dependence that is increasingly threatening Australia’s security, prosperity, and exercise of sovereignty. Finally, I apply the VBR framework to four aspects of Australian foreign policy; Australia’s relationship with China, with the United States, its potential involvement in a Taiwan conflict, and its engagement with regional states and multilateral organisations. Though the VBR framework is no silver bullet, it does help illuminate the nature of the challenges and choices facing Australia in the coming decades. Understanding how best to act in accordance with Australia’s self-professed liberal values, when such choices are heavily constrained, and when acting in alignment with these values also advances the national interest, is the clearest benefit of VBR. Most significantly, a VBR approach requires a significant re-evaluation of Australia’s relationship with both China and the United States, and suggests that a more non-aligned approach can advance both Australia’s national interest, and its support for a rules-based order grounded in non-aggression, human rights and the rule of law.
