After three years in office and facing a global pandemic, economic coercion from China and a world in disruption, Scott Morrison was shifting the contours of Australian foreign policy - a project as inevitable as it was hazardous.

Morrison relied on traditional norms and faiths in reshaping Australian policy. Some of his moves were bold, but they followed an established strategic outlook. His China policy constituted a sharp departure from that of John Howard, moving the Liberal Party away from Howard's formula of "not having to choose" between the United States and China. Yet this was widely interpreted within Coalition politics - and much of the media - as being a reaction driven by a different and more dangerous China. Morrison was seen not as staging a revolt against orthodoxy, but as the exponent of a new orthodoxy.

Morrison brings his own style to the conduct of foreign policy. His instinct is for ambition and activism. He listens to experts, but is not necessarily swayed by them. Like most prime ministers, he backs his own views and judgments. He rarely defers to others and puts the stamp of his style, beliefs and judgments all over Australian foreign policy. Anybody who thought Morrison's initial lack of experience might produce a reticent prime minister in the diplomatic domain was soon disabused. He is an enthusiast, but constantly oversells his initiatives. Morrison is a quick learner and, as a politician, has an instinct for power. And he is bold - his secret and sustained effort to secure the nuclear-powered submarine decision is a singular example of executive decision-making that only prime ministers can pull off.

But Morrison's diplomacy got him into recurring trouble. It began with the Jerusalem embassy issue, continued with the call for the pandemic inquiry and reappeared in his insult to the French over cancelling the submarine contract. The government, plagued by the conflict between a fossil fuel economy and the need to reduce emissions, faced continuous international criticism over its climate change diplomacy, criticism that would not be assuaged by the formal commitment to net zero by 2050.

Clear lines of continuity and consistency run through Morrison's speeches, based on his beliefs in sovereignty, agency and liberal democracy. These beliefs have been hammered into policy under the influence of China's coercion against Australia. Morrison's reaction has been intense and grounded in two instincts: that China must be met in strategic terms by a new balance of power, and that the Communist Party's authoritarianism has infected its stance on nearly everything.

The ultimate judgment on Morrison's policy will take years, but if one searches for an encompassing theme, then Morrison himself volunteers this: "Our interests are inextricably linked ... to a strategic balance in the region that favours freedom and allows us to be who we are: a vibrant liberal democracy, an outward-looking open economy, a free people determined to shape our own destiny."

During an interview, Morrison acknowledged the American origins of this theme, sourcing it to Bush administration US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. In 2002, Rice delivered the Wriston Lecture in New York under the title A Balance of Power that Favours Freedom.

Identifying the great debate in foreign policy literature between the "realist" and "idealist" schools, Rice said that in real life "power and values are married completely" - if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War, then global values would be far different. The aspiration, Rice said, was to "create a balance of power that favours freedom", a plan subsequently lost in the follies of the Iraq War.

Morrison, however, endorses Rice on this principle. He embraces the concept, but translated to a different time and situation. Asked if this notion - "a strategic balance that favours freedom" - could be labelled the Morrison Doctrine, he said "yes" and added, "If you like, you can be the first to coin it that way."

Its durability remains to be tested. As argued in this Paper, Australia cannot compete in Southeast Asia just on democratic values. What counts are tangible benefits. ASEAN nations do not want outsiders telling them how to organise their societies. Alert to this, Marise Payne emphasises that Australia's approach is "inclusive", saying Australia does not exclude countries "simply because they have a different system from ours" - a point Morrison endorses.

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The fusion of power and values has wound its way through all of Morrison's foreign policy remarks. By 2021, Morrison and Payne were articulating five principles that shaped Australian foreign policy. The first was support for open economies and open societies, a values-based stance tied to a rules-based international liberal order. This was a Liberal Party position dedicated to multilateralism, at some remove from the rhetoric of the Howard era and the initial Morrison mindset about "negative globalism".

Much of its foundation (though this point would not be conceded by Morrison) lay in the retreat of the United States from its previous global leadership and its lurch to "America First" introspection, giving China an opening to reset global norms. Morrison's fear is that the more "the jungle grows back", the more middle-sized nations such as Australia are endangered.

"Competition does not have to lead to conflict," he says. "Nor does competition justify coercion."

The task is for liberal democracies to defend the values of free and pluralistic societies.