Tag Archive for: Australia

Nuclear submarines will propel Australia into a new strategic league

In a world largely inured to shocks, the announcement that Australia, in partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, would acquire nuclear-powered submarines was a bombshell. We haven’t over-egged this development—it was dramatic. It was made possible because the US and the UK—especially the US—agreed to share one of their most precious packages, the technologies that have made their submarines the quietest in the world for decades.

The US has long made it clear that there were pockets or suites of technologies that it couldn’t share, even with its most important allies, because they gave it a decisive edge and sharing would inescapably increase the risk of their leaking to adversaries. Apart from submarine quietening, these crown jewels include stealth technologies for aircraft and shrinking the size and weight of nuclear warheads.

The remarkable exception being made for Australia, and the cancellation of its submarine contract with France, reverberated through the community of US allies and friends, along with the three partners’ judgement that they could make this happen while protecting their compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The decision also exposed graphically the extent to which confidence in the stability and peace of the Indo-Pacific region has been eroded.

The fallout from the submarine announcement will continue for some time. We shouldn’t allow this acquisition to dominate our response to worrisome regional developments and trends. Australia is as well placed as anyone to drive a more energetic search for regional arrangements that will allow even a player as large and as singular as China to find a place that neither antagonises nor intimidates. Even so, there’s a dimension of the fallout from this decision for Australia that I think remains underappreciated.

We must imagine what it will feel like to have a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines on deployment in the Pacific and Indian oceans, even a force equipped with only the basic conventional anti-ship and land-attack weapons that these boats typically carry.

Australia will be considered capable of making a decisive contribution to managing a crisis or a conflict up to and including the upper reaches of modern conventional warfare. And we must assume that everybody will be making this judgement—ourselves, our allies and close friends, and our adversaries—and they’ll be seeking to shape our behaviour to their advantage.

There’s also a view that joining the nuclear submarine club could make it harder for Australia to stay out of trouble. This is the strand of thinking that Australia might end up compromising its sovereignty.

A more sober and responsible reaction would be to recognise and prepare for the fact that we will be stepping into a new league. The professionalism with which we operate and maintain this capability, and protect its secrets, will have to be sustained at the highest level.

Even more important is the expectation that we will find it more difficult in a crisis or conflict to wait for the bigger players to take the next step and shape the options of smaller states. If nuclear-powered submarines are a sharp step-up in capability, we need a matching step-up in our intelligence and diplomatic capacities to reassure ourselves as well as others, friend and foe alike, that the managers of this capability will be independent, well informed, prudent and responsible.

How will the Australia–Japan relationship fare under Prime Minister Kishida?

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party has elected Fumio Kishida as its new leader, slating him to be the nation’s 100th prime minister. Kishida received overwhelming backing from parliamentarians ahead of rival candidate Taro Kono, who was favoured by grassroots LDP supporters.

And yet, for the first time in Japan’s history of constitutional democracy dating back to the 19th century, a woman, Sanae Takaichi, might well have become prime minister. Takaichi pledged to follow the domestic and foreign policies of former prime minister Shinzo Abe and won the support of strikingly more MPs, including Abe, than political pundits predicted.

If she had become prime minister, Australia’s strategic cooperation with Japan would have gained even more traction and rapidly developed into something that could be called an alliance. It’s a shame for Canberra and Tokyo that she wasn’t able to break through the glass ceiling this time.

In Japan’s representative democracy, which is not unlike the Westminster system, the new president of the ruling party is automatically made prime minister by a parliamentary majority vote.

Kishida is likely to prove a good ‘second best’ for the Australia–Japan strategic relationship.

Abe forged a strong relationship with three Australian prime ministers, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison. His speech to parliament in Canberra on 8 July 2014 will long be remembered as setting the tone for the relationship between the two democracies.

Eventually he and Morrison travelled to Darwin where they solemnly laid a wreath together, reflecting on the past and renewing their appreciation of the great power of reconciliation.

All of this was closely witnessed by Kishida, Abe’s long-serving foreign minister.

Kishida, whose constituency is Hiroshima, has a passion for the abolition of nuclear weapons that was sometimes at odds with Abe’s emphasis on nuclear deterrence. Kishida was more in tune with US President Barack Obama, who spoke in idealistic terms.

But, at the same time, Kishida is fully aware that the biggest challenge for Japan now and in the future will be to stand up tall against China, and that Japan must be strong to do so.

To that end, he also knows that it is far better for Japan to work with allies with which it shares fundamental values than to confront China alone. In this respect, Kishida is a realist.

When the news of AUKUS reached Japan, there were two reactions in the Tokyo policy community.

One was respect for Australia’s decision. While there was concern among Australians about their country ‘going nuclear’, the prime minister and government unhesitatingly decided that what was needed for military purposes should be procured.

It’s also fair to say that they tried hard to make the most of the old ties of the English-speaking alliance. Britain, too, was keen to have a foothold in the Indo-Pacific, since it had just separated from Europe and was advocating a global Britain. Strengthening relations with Australia was logical and necessary.

Seen this way, and with Australia’s robust relationship with the US taken into consideration, AUKUS has drawn the most advantageous triangle for Australia.

Respect for Australia then became envy. If Australia needs nuclear-powered submarines, Japan, which shares a waterway with China, needs them even more.

Unlike Australia, Japan has a long history of nuclear technology. But since Fukushima, it has become increasingly irrelevant, and may even disappear. Even though it has nuclear technology, Japan has no equivalent of a Rolls Royce with the technology to power submarines.

If only the country could do as Australia did and equip itself with nuclear submarines—perhaps under the framework of what could be called JAUKUS with Australia, the UK and the US.

While that’s logical, it cannot be carried out so long as public perception forbids it. That’s where Japan stands, making many, including this author, envy Australia for its decisiveness.

Let us hope that Kishida will add strength to what is now the deepest strategic partnership between Australia and Japan in history.

The raison d’état behind Australia’s submarine decision

French anger over Australia’s decision to dump the diesel–electric submarine project is entirely justified and understandable. Even if, as some argue, the project’s inadequacies were increasingly apparent, there seems little doubt that Australia seriously misled France’s Naval Group, with whom it had contracted to build 12 conventional Shortfin Barracuda submarines.

The surprise Australian decision to instead acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the US and UK under the new AUKUS agreement will damage diplomatic and trade relations with France, further delay the acquisition of new Australian submarines, and also prove extremely expensive.

But while the French complaints of backstabbing, betrayal and duplicity may embarrass Australia and harm its global reputation, the Australian decision was ultimately dictated by two concepts historically familiar to France: raison d’état and the balance of power. France was arguably the first state to discover and to deploy these concepts in its international relations.

Simply stated, raison d’état justifies foreign policy actions based on the primacy of the abiding national interest in survival—especially when a nation abandons openness and honesty. Balance of power involves a nation or a group of nations combining to match the power of potentially hostile adversaries. The idea is to create an equilibrium, however unstable, to help improve security and ensure survival.

Australia has always sought security in powerful alliances intended to balance and deter potential adversaries. The defence of the nation-state has always been the gravest responsibility of Australian statecraft. In recent years, the rise of an increasingly aggressive, expansionist and militaristic China has confronted Australia with serious concerns about its peace, stability and long-term survival in the Indo-Pacific. Raison d’état and the balance of power have inevitably become more visible principles dictating Australian policies.

The 2016 decision to acquire the French-designed conventional submarines was progressively challenged by China’s aggressive activities in the South China Sea, its ruthless suppression of Hong Kong democracy, its threats against Taiwan and its South Pacific expansionist ambitions. China already has a large and partly nuclear-propelled submarine fleet and a formidable surface navy. Its activities have raised real and reasonable concerns about freedom of navigation and open sea lines of communication in the region.

Australia’s move into the AUKUS partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as its decision to dump the conventional submarine project in favour of nuclear submarines, was dictated entirely by the imperative of balancing Chinese power by acting according to the demands of raison d’état. It was a momentous policy shift entirely dictated by the policies and attitudes of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

While French leaders are directing their anger at Canberra, they might, in the interests of historical fairness, acknowledge the powerful French origins of raison d’état and balance-of-power policies in international relations. In his magisterial 1994 volume Diplomacy, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger notes that it was the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu who ‘promulgated the concept of raison d’état and practiced it relentlessly for the benefit of his own country’.

Richelieu, Kissinger notes, said that nation-states received credit not for doing what was right but for being strong enough to do only what was necessary. Australia decided, quite reasonably, that China’s behaviour had forced it to do what was necessary to ensure the adequacy of its future submarine fleet by opting for nuclear propulsion—even if France didn’t think it right. In short, the end justified the means.

It is of course uncertain whether Canberra’s decision will eventually produce a balance-of-power equilibrium. Pursuit of raison d’état can, as Kissinger writes, lead to a quest for primacy. China’s quest for primacy is what has pushed Australia into AUKUS and towards nuclear-powered submarines.

Kissinger asks the key question: how far would one go before the interests of the state were deemed satisfied? Will nuclear arms eventually follow Australia’s move to nuclear propulsion? Will Australia’s embrace of raison d’état threaten what Kissinger calls ‘self-destructive tours de force’. We simply cannot know, but Canberra had little choice in the current strategic environment even if it unceremoniously dudded France. It can only plead that France and its great cardinal were very good role models indeed.

Some Australians, offended by recent French insults, have responded by evoking Australia’s sacrifices on the Western Front in France during World War I. This is tantamount to adolescent name-calling. Australia saw the empire of which it was part threatened with destruction during the 1914–1918 war. So it was an enthusiastic belligerent acting for its own raison d’état.

We are still all playing the same old survival and stability game, and sometimes we can callously hurt good friends.

Australia must work to salvage relations with France

Accusations of backstabbing. Cancelled meetings. Ambassadors recalled. You’d be forgiven for thinking Australia had committed a mortal sin against France.

In reality, despite the characteristic French bluster, the change of direction on Australia’s submarines reflects the kind of shrewd decision-making that nations like France constantly employ.

That’s not to dismiss French consternation. But Australia must look beyond the emotionally charged rhetoric to understand Paris’s underlying interests.

For all the talk of mateship and fraternité, France never would have agreed to the submarine deal if it didn’t stand to make a substantial profit, just as Australia would only continue the program as long as it remained its best strategic option. And like any large procurement, the contract built in off-ramps, anticipating changing circumstances and compensation.

Paris will understand the brutal logic of Australia’s decision, a trait hardly absent in its own strategic culture. And doubtless it would have done the same in Canberra’s shoes. This will temper the long-term fallout and diminish Paris’s claim to the moral high ground for too long.

In the meantime, some diplomatic hand-wringing is unavoidable; Australia needs to accept it’ll be in the French freezer for a while. President Emmanuel Macron’s credibility is personally tied to the deal, and a tough re-election campaign looms. The people of Cherbourg, where the submarine project was based, will suffer economically. And the French defence industry, the world’s third largest arms exporter, will kick up a stink to deter other customers from rescinding.

In short, France needs to punish Australia—or, perhaps more accurately, needs to be seen to punish Australia. Foreign villains—in this case, the old English enemy and its colonial progeny—help shift the blame away from the French government.

Australia needs to see this for what it is. The AFiniti agreement might be quietly forgotten and we’re unlikely to see a French president deliver a keynote address on Sydney Harbour again soon. But none of France’s core interests in the Indo-Pacific were ever contingent on the submarines. Its people and possessions in the Indo-Pacific remain—as does its permanent military presence.

France’s intent towards the region is well established—and it has been the driving force behind a more coherent European approach. The French aren’t about to change their worldview because of a cancelled defence contract. Above all else, though, the single most powerful factor driving strategic convergence between Europe, the US and Australia remains—that is, an increasingly aggressive China. Don’t underestimate the ability of a common adversary to focus the minds of squabbling allies on what really matters.

The challenge for Canberra won’t be about resolving a clash of fundamental interests with France, but about rebuilding the means to influence and cooperate with Paris.

Australia needs some quick wins here, especially with ongoing EU free-trade negotiations and the Glasgow climate talks around the corner.

First, Canberra should negotiate generously and in good faith on the compensation to Naval Group. This will demonstrate respect and help the French save some face.

Second, Australia should lean on history to remind the French that the relationship is bigger and more profound than a procurement disagreement. Canberra could offer to make a significant investment in maintaining Commonwealth war graves in France and upgrading the remembrance infrastructure, using French labour.

And third, some strategic concessions could be made to French producers in FTA negotiations, though Australia should be careful linking trade and defence.

Gestures alone, however, will not be enough.

There’s no shortage of smaller defence procurements Australia could source from French providers. More substantially, Canberra should present concrete proposals for French troop rotations in Australia and potentially even a basing arrangement for French ships.

Australia should also be working intensely with its AUKUS and Quad partners on a formal security offering. Intelligence-sharing might be a good start.

December’s New Caledonia independence referendum, though, presents Australia’s greatest opportunity.

Any degree of New Caledonian independence carries risk for Australia and France. Neither country would say it openly, but the stabilising effect of the French political and military presence is the surest guard against a pro-China independent government emerging in New Caledonia.

Australia can be France’s most valuable external partner in New Caledonia, working closely together to shape what a more autonomous New Caledonia might look like. Australia also enjoys far stronger relations with New Zealand and Melanesia, especially Vanuatu, meaning it can coordinate regional influence over New Caledonia’s future much better than France can.

If New Caledonians do opt for independence, then Australia will be a powerful moderating voice against any rash moves as Noumea discovers its own foreign policy. Australia can also help maintain a French military presence in the region should France have to withdraw to any extent from New Caledonia.

The submarine decision has set Franco-Australian relations back at least a decade. But compelling reasons of strategic convergence mean Australia should be optimistic that it can rebuild influence with France.

Australia’s nuclear submarines and AUKUS: the view from Jakarta

Last Thursday’s announcement of Australia’s plans to pursue nuclear-powered submarines and the launch of AUKUS—a new security grouping between Australia, the UK and US aimed at promoting information and technology sharing as well as greater defence industry cooperation—will be serious considerations for Canberra’s neighbours and key strategic partners, particularly Indonesia. Despite the periodic disruptions, Australia–Indonesia ties have continued to deepen. Both sets of foreign and defence ministers met in Jakarta on 9 September for the seventh ‘2+2’ meeting, upgrading existing bilateral agreements, announcing new initiatives and pledging to uphold regional order. In light of this seemingly positive trajectory, how are these developments being viewed in Jakarta?

Starting with the submarines, one of Jakarta’s major concerns will be the impact on the region’s military balance. Not only will Australian nuclear-powered submarines be able to undertake long-endurance, high-speed, stealth operations, but they could be equipped with upgraded missile systems. The Indonesian government issued a statement on Friday saying that it was viewing the submarine decision ‘cautiously’ and was ‘deeply concerned over the continuing arms race and power projection in the region’.

To be clear, the long-range operations that Australia is likely to pursue won’t be in the seas directly to its north. And while strategic trust and communication have improved in recent years, suspicions arising from Australia’s involvement in East Timor’s independence ballot and revelations of Australian spying remain. These open the door for hawkish figures in Jakarta to call for more muscular military capabilities in light of a potentially threatening southern neighbour. As Evan Laksmana flagged on Twitter, questions will be asked about whether Australia will take its new subs further down the nuclear road, going quickly from nuclear-propelled to nuclear-armed.

Also of concern to Indonesia is how Australia’s enhanced ability to conduct long-range operations, particularly alongside the US and other Indo-Pacific partners, will factor into Beijing’s strategic calculus. The Indonesian government’s statement reiterated Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi’s declaration after the recent 2+2 joint press conference that both Australia and Indonesia were committed to be a part of an ‘effort to maintain peace and stability in the region’.

Canberra’s decision to power up its maritime capability, in addition to the assets of other allies and partners, increases the costs for China to engage in conflict. However, this could equally provoke China into developing more sophisticated anti-submarine options and expanding its operating areas, both of which would generate anxiety not just in Jakarta but in other Southeast Asian capitals.

Raising the costs for major Indo-Pacific powers of going to war is in Indonesia’s interests, but not if that means China has greater maritime capabilities which threaten Indonesia or are used in grey-zone operations. Strengthening the Indonesian archipelago against maritime incursions has been a particular concern for President Joko Widodo’s administration, with Chinese fishing fleets accompanied by coastguard and other vessels flagrantly operating in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.

The threat of the Chinese navy has remained over the horizon. Jakarta has watched Beijing use not just white but grey hulls against the Philippines and Vietnam. While Indonesia has been slowly modernising its military, particularly its navy and air force, the government would prefer to focus on internal matters like post-Covid economic recovery and infrastructure upgrades.

Looking more broadly at the launch of AUKUS, from Indonesia’s vantage point it is a sign of greater alignment not just with the US’s strategic interests but with its identity. AUKUS is a pact described by the White House as binding Australia ‘decisively … to the United States and Great Britain for generations’. This coalition, as John Blaxland wrote, ‘puts more eggs in that basket’, sending an even clearer signal that Canberra is investing in a strategic destiny tied to Washington.

The optics of AUKUS contrast with Canberra’s desire to expand its regional outreach. The government’s 2020 defence strategic update clearly states an intent to deepen Australia’s alliance with the US. But it also says Australia will ‘prioritise [its] engagement and defence relationships with partners whose active roles in the region will be vital to regional security and stability, including Japan, India and Indonesia’. Australia’s increasing appetite for greater ASEAN engagement as well as for trilateral groupings with India and Indonesia and with India and France (possibly awkward under a cooling-off period) suggested a posture leaning towards regional enmeshment and away from American dependence.

Despite concerns in Jakarta about appearing to contain China, the Quad’s inclusion of Japan and India render it a more credible grouping of Indo-Pacific states with, crucially, both Western and Asian representation. In some ways, AUKUS could become a necessary complement to regional strategic bonds like the Quad and the US’s bilateral alliances.

If optics matter, history does too. Certainly the UK has interests in the Indo-Pacific and is playing a more active role, particularly in the South China Sea. However, AUKUS feels like a throwback to the colonial era, when Great Britain held strong interests in the region via its colonies in South and Southeast Asia. There are benefits in keeping the UK engaged in the Indo-Pacific beyond the Five Power Defence Arrangements, yet from an Indonesian point of view, AUKUS risks entrenching even further a Western-dominated narrative about regional order, sidelining Asian states, especially Indonesia.

Since US President Joe Biden took office, Indonesia hasn’t received any official visits by high-level American officials, despite Vice President Kamala Harris travelling to Singapore and Vietnam in August and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visiting Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines in July. While Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman dropped by Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand in May and June, the Jakarta Post’s editorial team expressed disappointment in the ‘two successive snubs’. An unsocialised announcement that potentially heightens a sense of military competition in the region is certainly not going to ease these concerns of dismissive exclusion. In this Western-led vision of the Indo-Pacific, AUKUS unequivocally signals which relationships really matter for Australia.

While it’s early days for AUKUS, the pact will bring a number of key technological benefits for Australia—in cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, among others. And there is comfort in that.

However, it’s worth remembering that what helps some in Canberra sleep better may keep others in the region up at night.

Australia’s nuclear submarine deal negotiated in great secrecy

American officials have stressed the importance of Australia having nuclear-powered submarines that are fast, discreet, with extremely long range and able to operate closely with their own undersea fleet.

That’s a remarkable turnround in the very few years since United States representatives consistently declared that their naval nuclear technology would not be shared even with as close an ally as Australia.

In a White House briefing, two unnamed senior administration officials have provided detail behind the creation of a new trilateral security partnership—AUKUS—involving the US, United Kingdom and Australia as maritime nations focused on the Indo-Pacific region.

The first initiative of AUKUS would be to ‘support Australia’s desire to acquire nuclear-powered submarines’, they said. That would start with an 18-month effort by technical, strategic and navy teams from all three countries to work out how this can be done.

The decision followed months of high-level negotiations carried out in secrecy, the officials said, and would mark the biggest strategic step that Australia had taken in generations.

‘This allows Australia to play at a much higher level and to augment American capabilities that will be similar. And this is about maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.’

The officials added that ‘Australia has basically indicated that they want to ensure that they’re playing a strategic role in that overall effort.’

They said the deal was ‘huge’ in Australia and negotiations were carried out with a high degree of discretion. Regional leaders were only now being briefed.

Nuclear-powered submarines were stealthier, faster, more manoeuvrable and more likely to survive in combat. And they had much greater range. Conventionally powered submarines had to run near the surface regularly to recharge their batteries and their range was limited.

The US had only shared this kind of nuclear technology once before, the officials said. That was with the UK and it was in 1958.

‘One of the reasons why we’ve done this with Australia, with Great Britain, is because of the experience, lessons learned and history associated with this program, which will be extremely valuable in the engagement with Australia.’

The officials said such a technology transfer was unlikely to happen again. ‘This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects. I do not anticipate that this will be undertaken in other circumstances going forward. We view this as a one-off.’

They stressed that the process of equipping the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear submarines would be both challenging and important. ‘Australia does not have a nuclear domestic infrastructure. They’ve made a major commitment to go in this direction. This will be a sustained effort over years.

‘And everything that we’ve seen from Australia indicates that they’re determined to proceed on this course, and we have high confidence, complete confidence, that they will be effective in this pursuit.’

Because nuclear submarines were much more capable than conventionally powered boats, ‘they will allow us to sustain and to improve deterrence across the Indo-Pacific. As part of that, we will work closely on efforts to ensure the best practices with respect to nuclear stewardship. I think you will see much deeper interoperability among our navies and our nuclear infrastructure people to ensure that our countries are working very closely together.’

This decision would bind Australia to the US and the UK decisively for generations.

US President Joe Biden’s administration remained deeply committed to American leadership and nuclear non-proliferation, the officials said. ‘This is nuclear propulsion. Australia has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons. And Australia is, in fact, a leader in all non-proliferation efforts in the [Non-Proliferation Treaty] and elsewhere.’

The officials said this partnership was, in many ways, possible because of Australia’s longstanding and demonstrated commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.

They noted that this was a historic development. ‘It reflects the Biden administration’s determination to build stronger partnerships to sustain peace and stability across the entire Indo-Pacific region,’ one said. ‘This new architecture is really about deepening cooperation on a range of defence capabilities for the 21st century.’

They said this new alignment was intended to pursue deeper interoperability and to spur cooperation across many new and emerging arenas such as cyber, artificial intelligence and particularly applied AI, quantum technologies, and ‘some undersea capabilities as well’.

There’d be a strong focus on increasing information- and technology-sharing with a much more dedicated effort to pursue integration of security- and defence-related science, technology and industrial bases and supply chains. ‘This will be a sustained effort over many years to see how we can marry and merge some of our independent and individual capabilities into greater trilateral engagement as we go forward.’

That would be take place alongside the development of stronger US bilateral partnerships with nations including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines—and stronger engagement with new partners like India and Vietnam, and new formations like the Quad.

‘This is designed not only to strengthen our capabilities in the Indo-Pacific but to link Europe, and particularly Great Britain, more closely with our strategic pursuits in the region as a whole.

‘Great Britain is very focused on the concept of “global Britain,” and their tilt is about engaging much more deeply with the Indo-Pacific, and this is a down payment on that effort.’

The officials said that for decades the US had secured peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. ‘I think it’d be fair to say, over the last several years, there have been questions: Does the United States still have the stomach?’ one said.

‘What president Biden is saying with this initiative is: “Count us in. We are all in for a deeper, sustained commitment to the Indo-Pacific, and we recognise that one of our critical roles is indeed the maintenance of peace and stability there.’

AUKUS nuclear submarine deal shows the world has changed

Australia is going to build nuclear submarines as part of a new broader defence technology pact with the US and the UK. How much the world has changed since just April 2016.

Back then, Australia chose a conventional, diesel-powered submarine as its key undersea weapon, to be built in partnership with the French. A nuclear submarine was ruled out then because of the sensitivity of military nuclear technologies, the complexity and cost, and because we were told our strategic needs would be met by the diesel submarine.

The sensitivity, complexity and cost remain. What’s changed is our security environment. That’s summed up in three words: China under Xi.

Any doubts about the direction Xi Jinping is taking China were ended in Tiananmen Square on 1 July, when he doubled down on his vision that a great China is one that can use its power in the world however it deems fit, engaging in a great struggle against others who seek to make their own decisions.

And it’s more than China that has changed. In 2016, the UK government would almost certainly not have been seized with the urgency of sharing nuclear secrets with Australia and the US would only have done so with a huge amount of arm twisting, notably of submarine folk in the US Navy. We would have been regaled with stories about how the US and UK only share their nuclear defence technology with each other, under an agreement signed in 1958.

So, Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison standing together (virtually) also signals a shift to a more robust deterrence of China by some of the world’s most powerful and activist democracies. That shift began to be obvious in June at the Cornwall meeting of the G7 group of nations, with Australia, India and South Korea along, but it’s been reinforced and accelerated today. This is the huge geostrategic news behind the announcement—and that will be understood in Beijing and the wider world.

There are many questions and issues to be resolved in the wake of today’s announcement. That’s why the three governments have set out an 18-month planning timeline for this challenging international enterprise.

The Australian government is crystal clear that when it comes to submarines, details, planning and implementation really matter. Since 2016, they’ve had the uncomfortable experience of the troubles, challenges and delays in Defence’s pursuit of the holy grail: a diesel-powered submarine with all the attributes of a nuclear one.

Our French partners will have some interesting discussions with our increasingly important and close strategic partners in Japan—because this is the second time it’s looked like we were building a submarine with a new partner, only to radically change course. The French will rightly note that they’ve spent six years trying to turn their nuclear Barracuda-class design into a diesel-powered version for us because we said we didn’t want a nuclear boat.

In an understatement, Naval Group has said the announcement is a ‘major disappointment’. Keeping any momentum in the French strategic partnership, which was taking on more weight through things like the new annual foreign and defence ministers’ forum first held just a few weeks ago, is going to be plain hard, but important given France’s global and regional roles.

But why a nuclear submarine? Put simply, it’s about range, stealth and power. A diesel submarine, even a ‘bleeding edge’ design for one, just doesn’t have the range or endurance to get from Australia to somewhere like the South China Sea or Malacca Strait and stay on station for long. A nuclear submarine does. A nuclear submarine is stealthier and harder to detect because it doesn’t have to run near the surface during a mission to recharge its batteries and it has the speed to get out of harm’s way if the risk of detection grows. And the nuclear power plant produces as much electricity as even the most power-hungry systems and sensors our future technologist can imagine will need.

The 18 months of joint work on all the complexities is essential. We’ve heard that Australia creating a civil nuclear industry isn’t part of this announcement and nor are nuclear weapons. Both things clarify what’s left to be done and at least don’t add enormous further complications—like becoming a nuclear-weapons state while maintaining strong commitments to non-proliferation of such devastating weapons.

Even with this, we’ll need every bit of the close partnership with UK and US institutions, companies and agencies that the three leaders have directed. As examples, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency currently monitors and regulates the visits of nuclear-powered warships, submarines and surface vessels, from partners like the US and UK to Australian ports. This is largely a matter of monitoring and environmental safety. But short visits by such vessels are quite different to basing, managing and maintaining nuclear reactors on Australian submarines.

Blistering onto the US nuclear submarine infrastructure, and building our own capacity and skills in parallel, will be Australia’s primary approach, and just like the one the UK has taken since 1958. That probably applies to things like the fuel—we’ll probably use the US and UK fuel cycles, including for the management and storage of reactor waste, rather than building our own onshore facilities for this.

The expenses will be eyewatering, but so were the costs of the Attack class—$90 billion at last count just to build the 12 submarines and more than that again to operate them. The advantage is Australia gets an enduringly powerful deterrent capability, and with it we can work even more closely with powerful partners to deter conflict. But it seems unlikely we’ll see the first Australian sub at least until the late-2030s—around the time the first French boat was to be delivered. So, pressure on the Collins-class submarines now in service will grow.

It’s hard to see Defence’s current submarine program management delivering this, given they were at the core of the decision to go down the Attack-class path. And it’s hard to see it being done out of a small part of the Defence department, given that a nuclear submarine is a national and international endeavour. The requirements for operating nuclear submarines extend far beyond the traditional expertise of Defence. Now more than ever we need to treat the national shipbuilding enterprise as a true national endeavour with leadership and organisation to match, rather than as a loosely confederated group of Defence projects managed from within the department.

The long-term nature of the AUKUS partnership is the strongest possible statement that the challenge we face from China is equally long term—no change of tone or even the shrewdest diplomacy is likely to change Xi’s instinctive path and mindset of struggle. Deterrence by a growing set of powerful nations just might.

Australia–Afghanistan test match just not cricket

Australia is due to play Afghanistan in the first cricket test between the two countries and the first test of the coming season at Bellerive Oval in Hobart, Tasmania, in mid-November. This test match must not happen.

In saying that, I really feel for the Afghan cricketers, some of whom have performed with flair and great ability in our domestic Twenty20 competition. Well-travelled sporting identities are hardly likely to support the Taliban. But this is one occasion where politics must take priority over sport.

If the test match proceeds, it will give the Taliban a major propaganda victory, undermine the human rights of Afghan women, and insult the tens of thousands of Australian Defence Force personnel who served in that country.

According to a Cricket Australia spokesperson, ‘There is goodwill between CA and the Afghanistan Cricket Board to make the match happen.’ This comment was reported on 31 August. Then, and still today, the Afghanistan women’s cricket team is hiding in Kabul, in fear for their lives.

A female cricketer told the BBC, ‘When the Taliban came here and took Kabul they threatened them, saying, “We may come and kill you if you try to play cricket again.”’

Among the several thousand people evacuated from Kabul airport by the ADF were close to a hundred female Afghan athletes and their dependants, including members of the national soccer team, Paralympians and an Afghan karate champion with three children, many of whom had faced beatings at Taliban checkpoints to get to the airport.

It is inconceivable that we could endanger the lives of Australian personnel to save Afghans from Taliban persecution in August, only to then host a Taliban-endorsed test cricket team in November.

Cricket was banned in Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power two decades ago. Since then, the sport has grown massively in popularity in the country, and it seems a more pragmatic Taliban plan to use cricket to bolster their rule domestically and present a more moderate image overseas.

Armed Taliban fighters took over the offices of the Afghanistan Cricket Board on 20 August, and a new acting chair was quickly appointed. The board’s chief executive claimed, ‘[The] Taliban loves cricket. They have supported us since the beginning. I don’t see any interference and expect support so that our cricket can move forward.’ Since then, the board has announced teams for the domestic T20 Shpageeza Cricket League and, on 2 September, sent an under-19 cricket squad on a tour to Bangladesh. International cricket diplomacy is a Taliban priority.

Whether women’s cricket will be allowed again in Afghanistan is less clear. The International Cricket Council requires all test-match-playing countries to have a national female team. At a minimum, the ICC and the Australian Cricket Board should make the Afghan male team’s participation in international cricket conditional on assurances of the safety and wellbeing of Afghanistan’s female cricketers.

The Taliban leadership is using cricket to put a veneer of international legitimacy on a brutal regime. Allowing the test to proceed in Hobart will undermine the authority of the Australian government to participate in an international discussion, now being led by the G7 under the chairmanship of Britain’s Boris Johnson, to determine whether to recognise the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate rulers, and how to engage with that regime.

Australia needs to have a seat at the G7 table on the future of Afghanistan. Forty-one Australians were killed and hundreds wounded in this conflict. Around 30,000 Australians served in postings to Afghanistan over 20 years. That effort buys us the right to help shape international responses to the Taliban’s new rule and it must surely override the priority for a cricket match.

Corporal Richard Atkinson was born in Hobart in 1988 and was killed in action by an improvised explosive device on 2 February 2011. According to his family, he ‘was very close to each of his relatives and was looking forward to coming home at the end of his tour to spend time with them in Tasmania’.

Corporal Cameron Baird was born in Burnie in 1981. He was awarded a Medal for Gallantry for bravery while being ‘part of a Commando Company mission assigned for clearance and search of a Taliban stronghold in November 2007’. Baird was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for astonishing valour in attacking ‘an insurgent network deep within enemy-held territory’ when he lost his life on 22 June 2013.

Neither Baird nor Atkinson knows of the ‘goodwill’ existing between Cricket Australia and its Taliban-controlled Afghan counterparts, but the rest of us do. I wonder what seeing the Taliban flag flying at Bellerive Oval will do for the mental health of those who served in Afghanistan, or Australian Afghans who fled the Taliban’s violence.

Why not hold a match between an Australian XI and a Rest of the World XI at Bellerive in November instead? The match could be a fundraiser to support the many thousands of Afghans who have been turned into refugees and effectively have nothing, thanks to the fecklessness of the West and the brutality of the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s return to international cricket should be allowed only if the Taliban show themselves capable of respecting the human rights of all Afghans and particularly of women and girls. This should include allowing Afghans who fear for their lives to leave the country without harassment. At this stage we have no reason to believe, and indeed substantial contrary evidence, that the Taliban have moderated their brutal behaviour.

For Afghanistan, the right to play international test cricket anywhere should be contingent on the Taliban showing they can operate according to acceptable international norms of behaviour. Until that point, there should be no test match at Bellerive.

The shame of Kabul

Now that the last Western aircraft have been sucked into the sky above Kabul airport—a ravaged monument to what might have been—thoughts here should turn to where the West’s latest failed Afghan adventure leaves Australia.

First, the collapse of Kabul should mark the end of Australian military involvement in West Asia—where since the Gulf War we have been part of a continuum of events driven principally by American interests. These in turn have derived from the imperatives of revenge, strategic influence, oil, terror and ideology.

While Australia’s cited reasons for involvement in West Asia have covered all these imperatives, the most convincing has been alliance dues to the United States.

Since the Americans have lost their own appetite for military involvement in that region, there’s little left for us to do there.

But it is not the end of the affair.

Let us not seek solace from President Joe Biden’s remark that the West’s departure from Afghanistan gives it some sort of automatic infusion of political energy to deal more comprehensively with China.

While Australia may now largely be off the hook in West Asia, try telling the big beasts—China, Russia and India, to say nothing of Iran, Turkey and Pakistan and the more powerful Europeans—that the Great Game is over. Try telling the warring Islamist groups to stop it. West Asia has always counted.

In fact, the bomb blast by Islamic State Khorasan against both Taliban and US targets suggests the complex internecine Islamist feuding and its anti-Western targeting will be around for a while yet.

A resurgence in Islamist activity could impact the region and the West as did Islamic State a few years ago, and could revive the discomfort posed by belligerent Islam to our friends in the region such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

Second, the adverse reputational impact of the Kabul exodus on the US will be serious but not necessarily straightforward.

The attack on Congress on 6 January confirmed the monstrosity of the Donald Trump tribe and the depth of the malady within the American polity—demonstrating the paucity of America’s power of example.

The fall of Kabul is of a different order. For most of us, it did not drag down the qualities of American society. But like the fall of Saigon—and to a lesser extent the Tehran hostage crisis—it has raised questions about American strategic sagacity and national competence.

These questions will be telling as the US seeks to maintain its influence in West Asia and counter Chinese pressures in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in the competitive crossroads of Southeast Asia.

It would, however, be a mistake for Australia and its neighbours to interpret severe strategic setbacks and current reputational damage to the US as automatically leading to its longer term strategic degeneration. That could happen, but need not.

For example, the 1970s were a bad decade for America. Yet the following 10 years saw the diminution and then the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the growth of a workable, if unglamourous, system of Asia–Pacific regional architecture.

Times change. China is a more formidable rival than the Soviet Union, and America has spent much of its wealth. But even major geopolitical errors do not always spell out the future of empires.

Third, Australia’s response to the fall of Kabul deserves special mention.

None of the Western allies deserve credit for their management of a limited evacuation of their citizens and Afghan employees from Kabul. The difference in performance between Australia and most of its allies is that the latter tried a great deal harder.

Western governments have been on notice since April of the dangers of the precipitate collapse of major Afghan cities. Some, like the British and Canadians, tried to do something about it. We could all remember Saigon. Australia dragged its heels taking refuge in the arcane pettifoggery of a Dickens novel—ignoring the views of those who understood what was happening on the ground.

In demonstrating this attitude, just as Australia showed a disinclination to bring Australians back from India and Indonesia during crucial periods of their Covid-19 crises, we showed scant generosity of spirit. The latter is not always a central element of statecraft. But it can become so when we are seeking to suggest—even in these unhappy times—that our global approaches deserve respect.

In recent months we have lost our capacity to argue from the high ground. Sadly, we are no longer a leader, but have become something paltry and second rate.

The book on ASPI’s first 20 years

ASPI today publishes a book on its first 20 years: An informed and independent voice: ASPI, 2001–2021.

A senior diplomat from one of Australia’s close ‘Old Commonwealth’ partners tells a story about hosting a Canberra visit from his country’s defence minister, an aspiring political operator.

The minister came to ASPI for a 90-minute roundtable with senior staff. Mark Thompson briefed on the defence portfolio’s budget woes—this was one of those years when financial squeezing was the order of the day, and a gap was quietly appearing between policy promises and funding reality.

Andrew Davies reported on the challenges of delivering the joint strike fighter, the contentious arrival of the ‘stop-gap’ Super Hornet and the awkward non-arrival of the future submarine.

Rod Lyon spoke about the insurmountable problems of Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of the People’s Republic of China and our own government’s foreign policy foibles. It was, like many ASPI meetings, a lively and sustained critique of policy settings.

Driving back to the high commission, a somewhat startled minister muttered to his diplomatic escort: ‘Thank God we don’t have a think tank like that back home!’

The genius of ASPI is that it’s designed to be a charming disrupter.

Sufficiently inside the policy tent to understand the gritty guts of policy problems, but with a remit to be the challenger of orthodoxies, the provider of different policy dreams (as long as they’re costed and deliverable), the plain-speaking explainer of complexity, and a teller of truth to power. Well, that’s perhaps a little too grand.

ASPI aims to be a helpful partner to the national security community, not a hectoring lecturer. But the institute ceases to have any value if it just endorses current policy settings: the aim is to provide ‘contestability of policy advice’. That’s not always easy in a town where climbing the policy ladder is the only game.

ASPI was intended by then prime minister John Howard to encourage development of alternative sources of advice to government on key strategic and defence policy issues. The view was that public debate of defence policy was inhibited by a poor understanding of the choices and issues involved and ASPI would contribute an informed and independent voice to the public discussion.

‘An informed and independent voice’. There couldn’t be a better description of what the institute has sought to bring to the public debate; nor could there be a more fitting title for this study of ASPI’s first 20 years by Graeme Dobell, ably assisted by the voices and insights of many ASPI colleagues.

It’s striking that the government opted for the model that gave ASPI the greatest level of independence. A decision to invite a potential critic to the table is the decision of a mature and confident government. It’s perhaps not surprising that there aren’t many ASPI-like entities.

ASPI was directed to be ‘non-partisan’, above daily politics.

A fortnight after the institute’s arrival, the world fundamentally changed. The September 11 attacks jolted the strategic fabric of the Middle East and the world’s democracies. ASPI couldn’t have started at a more challenging time for strategic analysis.

Born in the shadow of 9/11, ASPI turns 20 in the stunning aftermath of the fall of Kabul. There never has been a more desperate need for contestability in policy advice.

Building scale, research depth, a culture of pushing the policy boundaries and a back-catalogue of high-quality events and publications takes money. In ASPI’s early stages, I recall the view that it couldn’t possibly be regarded as independent if the bulk of its resources came from the Department of Defence.

Lately, the charge is that the ‘military–industrial complex’ or foreign governments must be the tail that wags the dog. The Canberra embassy of a large and assertive Leninist authoritarian regime can’t conceive that ASPI could possibly be independent in its judgements because, well, no such intellectual independence survives back home. ASPI must therefore be the catspaw of Australian government policy thinking.

Those contentions are not borne out by ASPI products. There are plenty of examples (from critiques of the Port of Darwin’s lease to a PRC company; analysis of key equipment projects such as submarines and combat aircraft; assessments of the Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden presidencies; examination of the defence budget; differences on cyber policy) in which the institute’s feisty contrarianism has been displayed. In my time at ASPI, I’ve never been asked by a politician, public servant, diplomat or industry representative to bend a judgement to their preferences.

For good or ill, the judgements made by ASPI staff, and our contributors, are their views alone. ASPI was designed to be independent and its output demonstrates that every day.

It became clear several years ago that the institute needed to broaden its focus away from defence policy and international security more narrowly conceived to address a wider canvas of issues presenting some of the most interesting and challenging dilemmas for Australia’s national security. We sought to bring a new focus to cyber issues by creating the ASPI International Cyber Policy Centre. This was followed by work addressing risk and resilience; counterterrorism; policing and international law enforcement; countering disinformation; understanding the behaviour of the PRC in all its dimensions; and, most recently, climate and security.

ASPI has the advantage of being small and flexible; it has a charter to look beyond current policy settings; it can talk to a wide range of people in and out of government to seed ideas; it can engage with the media; it allows expertise to develop because key ASPI staff have stayed in jobs for years and built a depth of knowledge not necessarily found in generalist public servants who frequently change roles.

By creating a more informed base of opinion on key defence budget and capability issues, ASPI has strengthened parliamentary and external scrutiny of the Defence Department and the Australian Defence Force.

The institute has also helped to lift public understanding about critical military capability issues, such as the future submarine project, the future of the surface fleet, air combat capabilities, the land forces, space, and joint and enabling capabilities.

ASPI has had substantial impact on national thinking about dealing with the PRC, and that has helped to at least set the context for government decision-making on issues such as the rollout of the 5G network, countering foreign interference, strengthening security consideration of foreign direct investment, and informing national approaches to fuel and supply-chain security.

It has sought to make policy discussions about cyber, critical and emerging technologies more informed and more accessible. ASPI has offered many active, informed and engaged voices on international issues of importance to Australia, from the Antarctic to the countries and dynamics of the Indo-Pacific, the alliance with the US, the machinery of Defence and national security decision-making, the security of northern Australia and even re-engaging with Europe.

What essential elements make the ASPI model work? The not-so-secret sauce calls for a think tank (not a university department) that has independence and excellence, that is non-partisan, that is a willing to annoy Canberra, and that has the time and proper funding to grow.

My commitment to the organisation comes about because of the value I believe it adds to Australia’s defence and strategic policy framework. These policy settings are the foundation of the security of the country, the security of our people and the very type of country that Australia aspires to be.

Australia would be better defended if we had more lively debates about how best to promote our strategic interests. ASPI has been a national gem in sustaining those debates.

At the core of An informed and independent voice is Dobell’s sharp take on the intellectual content of hundreds of ASPI research publications, thousands of Strategist posts and many, many conferences, seminars, roundtables and the like. He has done a wonderful job of breathing life into this body of work, reflecting some of the heat and energy that came from ASPI staff and ASPI contributors investing their brain power into Australia’s policy interests.

In the book’s pages, you read of Australia’s own difficult navigation through the choppy strategic seas of the past 20 years. It’s a thrilling ride and a testament to the many wonderful people who have worked at or supported the institute.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Australia will continue to need contestable advice in defence and strategic policy.

The coming years will be no less difficult and demanding than those recounted here. Australia’s future is likely to face even greater challenges. Never forget that strategy and policy matter. Profoundly so. That’s why ASPI matters.