A simple question about what China has been doing to its neighbours keeps recurring: How is that smart?

The question came up in dozens of conversations at the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific roundtable in Kuala Lumpur. The puzzle of China’s behaviour has shaped the previous columns on Shinzo Abe’s ‘we’re back in Asia security’ speech, the differing security doctrines coming from China and the United States, the Australian Defence Minister’s musings on Asia’s potentially catastrophic situation, the loss of regional confidence, and the impact of all this on the nascent Asian security system that has served China so well.

Consider the responses China has produced or helped validate: Read more

Barack Obama’s West Point speech shows a man tired of the presidency, weighed down by the war in Afghanistan and unsure of America’s role in the world. Obama is having his LBJ moment. Johnson fought an unpopular war, losing domestic support and ultimately the support of his party. The plain-talking Texan lamented:

I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved—the Great Society—in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs…. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.

Substitute Afghanistan for South Vietnam and you have Obama’s dilemma. But Afghanistan is a sideshow compared to the Vietnam War and Obama is no LBJ. Read more

Nowadays it’s easy to wonder why there’s a Great in Great Britain. But I’m not sure Harry White’s Canberra Times opinion piece, ‘Britain not a player in Asia’, is entirely on the money.

It’s true that Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his then Secretary of State for Defence Dennis Healey were driven in part by financial considerations when they decided to retreat from East of Suez (see Saki Dockrill on this). But in the same Cabinet Minutes that endorsed that decision (PDF), on 6 July 1967, the Foreign Secretary also reported that ‘…his statement to the Ministerial Council of the Western European Union (WEU)… about the United Kingdom’s applications for membership of the European Communities had been very well received’. So the shift was driven not only by financial circumstance, but was a deliberate policy decision to begin the process of alignment with Europe. Yes, Britain’s economy was at that point larger than China’s, and the opposite is now true. But does it follow that ‘Britain lacks the strategic weight to be America’s best friend in Asia’, or indeed that Britain even wants to be? Read more

The unfolding strategic environment in Asia is generating two strategic competitions: one horizontal and one vertical. The horizontal competition is highly visible: indeed, we see the evidence of it almost daily, as regional countries contest their respective territorial claims. But the vertical competition is less obvious:  it’s a contest over position, not of space. Rank and status matter in Asia. This is a region with a strong historical attachment to notions of hierarchy. We fret the consequences of a possible mishandling of the horizontal competition, but the vertical competition is probably the more serious one—because it’ll define the shape of the Asian security order in the 21st century. Why is that competition important? The main reason is that an era of relative Asian weakness is coming to an end, and Asian countries don’t share a unified vision of the hierarchy of 21st-century Asia. And that, in a nutshell, is what’s especially worrying about current security dynamics in Asia.

That’s not to say the horizontal strategic competition is irrelevant. It certainly isn’t. That contest has two core issues; the growth of Asian power projection capabilities, and the growing intensity of multi-player contests over small islands and rocks. The first of those issues is currently seen most clearly in the steady rise in China’s material power. ASPI analysts have talked before about the geographic expansion of Chinese military power as resembling a growing ‘bubble’, within which it’s becoming more challenging for adversaries to operate. That bubble is slowly expanding to cover more of the US’s principal allies and partners along the Asian rimlands, not to mention the US territories, bases and facilities to be found there. The growth of the bubble underpins Beijing’s ‘anti-access, area denial’ doctrine. Read more

The Pacific island states face real challenges in managing the security of marine resources in their EEZs.

Australia supports maintaining the prosperity of the region mainly through the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, (twenty two boats donated to 12 island countries and administered through Defence.) We’re committed to gifting a fleet of vessels to replace the existing patrol boats, which need replacing over the period 2018–2028. New vessels will be provided to all states that currently have Pacific Patrol Boats (including Fiji upon a return to democracy). Timor-Leste would be invited to join the program.

But Australia shouldn’t being going alone here: we’ll need to work with others on maritime security in the region. The more resources we can recruit to assist the better, particularly in addressing the illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing problem. In this context, it’s noteworthy that the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Mark Binskin recently returned from a visit to increase Australia’s defence ties with Chile. Read more