For the last three decades our official analysis of Australia’s strategic environment has emphasised its fluidity. That trend is rising sharply. Indeed, today we face more uncertainty in our strategic environment than at any time since the Second World War. The election of Donald Trump has just added another significant element.

I wish to focus on some of these larger uncertainties. The key point is that we are heading into uncharted waters and should be prepared for a wide range of outcomes. This puts a premium on being clear-eyed about our national interests, getting the first principles right and building the capacity to be able to respond nimbly to whatever comes our way.

Let me begin with the US because it remains the single most important shaper of our strategic environment.

There are many views of where the US is likely to be positioned in the global power gradient over the next 10 or 15 years.

Some see the US as locked into a spiral of inevitable decline. Others recognise that US power is well anchored but argue that the margin of its primacy is likely to narrow considerably, as China gains more economic and strategic weight and other countries such as India exert greater influence in a more multipolar world. Still others contend that while the margin of primacy will indeed narrow, the US will still remain the strongest strategic power globally, not only because of its massive investment in military firepower, but also because it will remain the global leader in the industries of the future.

Prior to Mr Trump’s election all these scenarios took it as a given that, whatever trajectory the US was to take, there would be continuity in the core elements of US foreign policy, including support for the liberal international order which is largely a US creation, advocacy of trade liberalisation and a commitment to the unique network of alliances that the US had constructed globally.

Can we still assume these foundational elements of US policy, all of which are squarely in Australia’s interests, will continue under a Trump presidency? The truth is no one knows.

Mr Trump appears to be a bundle of strong instincts but what we do not yet know is if he is also a man of strong policy views which, taken together, form a coherent view of America’s place in the world. And if he is such a man, how open will he be in office to changing his view? There is a lot which hangs off the answers to these two questions.

Many have rushed to give us the answers in the short period since Mr Trump’s election but the reality is we will simply have to wait to find out. We can easily scare ourselves in the meantime but that does not achieve much. What a Trump presidency will mean for US strategic policy is likely to be revealed step by step and will have to be dealt with accordingly.

So item number one in a basket of uncertainties facing Australia’s strategic outlook is the approach President Trump will take in office. There is a lesson here for strategic planners: there is no protection against black swan events. Who would have foreseen, when we were putting together the most recent defence white paper, that we would be asking ourselves ‘Has the US elected as president someone who may dislodge the foundation stones of US strategic policy?’.

Uncertainty number two is the political and strategic settling point of China.

China is a country and a civilisation which understands power and its sense of place has been shaped by the many centuries in which it was the Middle Kingdom. That pull of history is likely to play an important role in the way in which China relates to regional states.

China’s leaders are acutely conscious of the many challenges they face. They are currently at the start of a profound transition in their economic model towards more market-based and consumption-driven growth with less emphasis on exports and fixed investment.

The challenges posed by this transition are huge and we underestimate them at our peril. It is a high-wire act which seeks both to preserve the monopoly of power of the Chinese communist party while simultaneously allowing the market to determine the allocation of resources. There is no certainty about how this will end.

We all, however, have a stake in the success of that transition. Abrupt shifts in China’s strategic policies, especially flowing from an economic crisis, would be highly destabilising. No one gains if China fails.

China will ultimately define its own strategic settling point. It will not be forced into someone else’s view of what it should do or become. Nor is it realistic to expect that the US and China can negotiate some grand bargain to share power in Asia. The process of adjusting to shifting power balances in a multipolar Asia will be incremental and organic.

China’s behaviour is likely to be a mix of many elements. It will be a responsible stakeholder where its interests are served. It will not be a classic revisionist power because China has been too much a beneficiary of the existing system to want to completely overturn it. But it will also look to play a greater role in existing institutions and to craft new institutions and arrangements which place it at the centre in a pattern perhaps reminiscent of the Middle Kingdom.

I had always thought that the tensions between an economy which was opening up and a polity which was tightly controlled could be managed in the Chinese context for a very long time. That may well remain the case, but it seems to me that it is becoming harder to achieve.

Much has been said of the challenges Australia will face as it manages its relationship with China and the US respectively. I do not subscribe to the view that Australia will have to make a binary choice between the US and China. But as strategic competition between the US and China sharpens, and if China continues to be dismissive of its international legal obligations in the South China Sea, it will inevitably become harder for Australia simultaneously to pursue our economic interests with China and our strategic interests with the US in a rules-based international system.

Australia has next to no capacity to influence the direction of Chinese politics.  We must continue to pursue policies designed to avoid invidious choices. But we also need to have a clear-eyed understanding of our core interests, both economic and strategic. We want to see China succeed in its economic reforms and to play a constructive role in the region and the world. But we also want to see a strategic system in the Indo-Pacific which is anchored in the rule of law and which recognises the stability which US strategic engagement brings to the region.

We will not know for some time whether these objectives can be achieved and it would be foolhardy to conclude now that they cannot. In the meantime we need to continue to build a close and comprehensive partnership with China which will not quickly lose its position as our largest trading partner.

Uncertainty number three is the political economy risk which confronts the broader Asia growth story: a risk exacerbated by the tepid outlook for global economic growth.

This risk is not dissimilar to what is happening in China, although the political systems in the rest of Asia are very different.

The last several decades have been decades of growth in Asia. But today virtually all the major Asian economies face deep structural economic challenges. And in almost all cases their political systems are struggling to embark on the reforms needed to address these challenges.

It is here, at the intersection of economics and politics, that the biggest risks to the Asian growth story lie. And while Asia will undoubtedly continue to play a big role in Australia’s economic future, the rising political economy risk in the region suggests that we should also be alert to the need better to spread our economic risk.

The interplay of politics and economics matters because our region is characterised by a tension between economic interdependence and strategic competition.

Economic space is infinitely flexible. Strategic space tends to be much less so. The challenge of statecraft and leadership is to ensure that one does not derail the other.

‘If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’

As the Pivot passes, Asia confronts a new President who seems to think all the US needs is a bigger and better hammer. The law of the instrument posits too much reliance on a familiar tool.

For Asia, Amexit looms. Following the Brexit model, this is a US that no longer wants to bother with the systems and institutions Asia needs; an America tired of trying to write the rules and make the diplomatic weather.

As Rod Lyon judges, it’s ‘likely that the US will be absorbed in an agenda of “America First” while large-scale strategic transformation plays out in Asia’. Trumpists such as Rudy Guiliani predict a ‘gigantic’ build-up of US military forces to thwart China’s ambitions. This plays to the Rod Lyon view that Trump has ‘already signalled a preference for using force massively or not at all’.

Trump may build a bigger hammer while all the other instruments the US needs in Asia are ditched. The Pivot logic was that the US hammer was necessary but not sufficient for Asia. Indeed, the argument from the White House, State Department and Pentagon was that the hammer dimension of the Pivot was subservient to other more important elements: economic and trade interests, diplomacy and institution building, and the service of American values. Don’t expect too much care for those other elements from the new US Caudillo-in-Chief.

The Pivot, for all its problems, attempted to grapple with the complexities of the Asian century as an extraordinarily powerful yet hopeful phenomenon. Take Trump at his word. He doesn’t do complexity. He does deals.

Kurt Campbell’s The Pivot is a 400 page argument about what the Pivot should have done next. While now serving as extended epitaph, Campbell offers an understanding of what will be lost by Amexit. He riffs on the power of balance in serving the balance of power.

The power of balance aligns all the US tools, ‘high level political engagement and consultations, military options, trade promotion or sanctions, and human rights demarches… When the US approach places one element of our strategy out of balance with the others, the equilibrium and effectiveness of the overall strategy suffers’.

Campbell’s balance aim—‘to strengthen Asia’s operating system’—is about to get a hammer test. America, he writes, needs ‘to break the habit of occasional absence, hesitancy and inattentiveness’. The Amexit I’m describing will be another of Campbell’s ‘costly periods of withdrawal and neglect…This cycle of intense focus and relative strategic neglect has blighted American efforts in Asia for decades’. Blight looms.

The Pivot was a work in progress that hadn’t made that much progress in its five years. The problem wasn’t the lack of US ambition, but the size of Asia’s changes. That five year history gets a fine workout in the latest edition of Security Challenges.

The overview piece is classic Allan Behm, both magisterial and muscular; think Monty Python’s Piranha brothers sketch—one brother nailed people to tables (‘He was cruel but he was fair.’) while the other brother used sarcasm (‘He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.’).

Allan describes the Pivot as a 20th Century solution to a 21st Century problem, viewing the region through the lens of US strategic primacy, and ‘neither clear nor robust enough to guide US policy through the difficult strategic tides that will characterise the next decade or so’.

Both cruel and fair, yet we’re going to miss the Pivot for all its shortfalls.

Asia confronts a moment akin to a NATO meeting described by Kurt Campbell, in which the Europeans were lamenting the ignorant, arrogant, graceless Americans, drawing this response from Britain’s Lord Carington: ‘Ah, but alas—they are the only Americans we have’.

The Pivot did alter things, especially the responses it produced in Japan and China. The lasting impact may be in Beijing and Tokyo, not Washington.

Feng Zhang argues that the Pivot’s unintended consequence was to trigger a vigorous Chinese pushback (Beijing’s own Pivot), raising tensions and making US–China relations worse:

‘The rebalance has largely failed as a mixed strategy of reassurance and resolve toward China. Far from “building a constructive and productive relationship with China”, as [Kurt] Campbell intended it to be, the rebalance has instead contributed to China-US strategic distrust and stimulated China to strive for new strategic adventures in Asia. It is not clear who will win and who will lose. It may be a “lose-lose” outcome for both countries.’

For Shinzo Abe, the Pivot seems a classic example of US pushing being cheered on by Japan to achieve difficult shifts deeply desired by Tokyo. As David Envall concludes, this produced ‘a significant transformation of Japan’s grand strategy which well illustrates Japan’s commitment to the US-led order’.

Trump may not be committed to that order, but there’s no going back for Japan. China’s systemic challenge means Japan can’t revert to the softly-softly days of soft balancing. As Envall puts it: ‘Japan is being transformed through its response to the rebalance; in the coming years, Japan’s strategic reorientation may transform Asia-Pacific security as well.’

A Donald Trump Amexit—relying only on the hammer—gives the US just one tool. The US will have less ability to influence this stage of the making of the Asian century, as economic miracle and strategic conundrum keep building speed and adding mass. Evoking the Newtonian equation of force, mass and acceleration is the proper end note for the fading mechanics of a policy Pivot.

When you think of American and Soviet Cold War nuclear arsenals, the descriptor ‘huge’ automatically comes to mind. One technological innovation in the 1970s contributed more than any other factor to the creation of those five-digit warhead stockpiles: multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (or MIRVs). MIRVs allowed a single ICBM to carry multiple warheads and hit multiple targets, so warhead numbers grew rapidly as more missiles were MIRVed. Despite many believing that MIRVs would be reduced to Cold-War-relic status after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they’re beginning to make a comeback in Asia. It’s a development that has worrying implications for the Asian nuclear offence–defence balance.

A recent book from the Stimson Center, The Lures and Pitfalls of MIRVs: From the First to the Second Nuclear Age (PDF), provides an excellent overview of that topic and is worthy of an in-depth read. For the sake of brevity however, I’ll summarise the main argument. While the development of MIRVs led to rapid expansions in US and Soviet nuclear arsenals and the embrace of counterforce targeting, the big nuclear powers in Asia (China, India, and Pakistan) are MIRVing much more slowly. China has had the technical capacity to MIRV since the 1990s, but has only recently done so on a limited number of its ICBMs, primarily in response to US missile defence systems and to demonstrate China’s technical skills. India, the authors argue, has gradually shifted towards MIRVing its own missile force due to China’s nuclear advances, as well as domestic pressures. Meanwhile, they argue that Pakistan’s pursuit of MIRVs will in turn be driven by its rivalry with India. The authors conclude that while the slow pace means that MIRV-induced competition in Asia is likely to be less intense and less destabilising than US–Soviet competition in the Cold War, the triangular nature of the competition opens up more avenues for external disruption and unintended consequences.

An interesting takeaway from the book is that one of the commonly-held public justifications for MIRVs doesn’t really pass muster. Chinese proponents of the technology often cite the need to penetrate improving US ballistic missile defence (BMD) systems as a justification for introducing multiple warheads to their missiles. BMD has long been controversial among nuclear strategists, as its (theoretically) successful implementation removes the opponent’s ability to guarantee retaliation against your homeland if attacked, which undermines deterrence and encourages striking first.

The issue here is that this misunderstands the capabilities of current ballistic missile defence systems. As Andrew Davies and Rod Lyon point out, current missile defence systems work best against attacks featuring a small number of short-ranged ballistic missiles that are simple in nature (i.e. missiles that don’t employ countermeasures). MIRVed ICBMs are the exact opposite: they’re long-ranged, typically equipped with sophisticated countermeasures (such as dummy warheads or chaff), and, in theory, would be launched in large numbers.

Destroying ICBMs in their boost phase is the ideal way to counter MIRVs, but the technology to guarantee interception doesn’t currently exist and requires persistent capabilities that are politically risky. But it becomes more difficult and costly to intercept an ICBM as it gets further along in its flight trajectory. Most current BMD systems (such as Patriot and THAAD) intercept ballistic missiles in their midcourse or terminal phases using interceptor missiles. But once the warheads have separated from the booster—which occurs in the midcourse phase—those types of BMD systems would have to destroy each individual warhead with an interceptor missile to work effectively. Given the cost of a single interceptor missile, fielding even a moderately effective defence against an incoming ICBM strike is likely to prove too expensive to be practical—even if the ‘leakage’ of multiple nuclear warheads could be judged acceptable.

MIRVs help to skew the offence­–defence nuclear balance firmly towards the offence even as BMD capabilities improve. Putting multiple, individually-targetable warheads on a large number of missiles also provides a substantial first strike capability, as it allows you to potentially disarm your opponent. That, in turn, encourages a first strike, creating a ‘use it or lose it’ mentality that decreases stability. This problem is especially acute for stationary silo-based missiles, which are vulnerable to attack. Deploying MIRVed missiles at sea makes more sense, because submarines are generally more survivable than silos—a reason why the vast majority of the US’ nuclear arsenal is deployed underwater. China’s developing MIRVed SLBMs alongside its ground-based arsenals, which suggests Beijing wants to keep a foot in both camps—at least until it’s more confident of its SSBN/SLBM capabilities. India’s sea-based deterrent is also in its infancy, so it’ll be relying on its vulnerable siloed ICBMs for deterrence for the time being.

However, the slow pace of MIRVing in Asia today is a hopeful sign that the region’s nuclear-armed states have learned from the Americans and Soviets about the consequences of unchecked MIRVing. But the fact remains that MIRVs, and the potential for instability that comes with them, will be an important part of the Asian nuclear balance for decades to come.

¡Hola, hombres y mujeres!

The third presidential debate was probably the last chance for the Trump campaign, which has lurched between deplorable scandals and media misadventures these past few weeks. It was a scrappy affair: Clinton was ‘nasty’ (not that that resonates), and Trump a ‘puppet’ (1: hmm…; 2: some investigative gold). The morning after the night before, Trump generously ventured that he’ll accept the election result if he wins, which is the crazy train’s logical next stop after the second debate, where he threatened to jail his political opponent. So by now it’s pretty clear that The Donald and the revered tenets of democratic tradition don’t mix. James Fallows’ Trump Time Capsule remains a touchstone of sanity, but if that doesn’t touch the sides, get loco with a little Weird Al Yankovic. These are dark days, but we’re almost there.

As some have already pointed out, it was striking that six+ hours of debate didn’t throw up one question on climate change. This long read on the retreat of Greenland’s ice sheet is a haunting reminder of the enormous threat, if ever we needed one.

As the battle for Mosul rages, useful reads came from all corners this week: The New Yorker (on ISIS’s retreat), The Atlantic (on ISIS’s spin doctors), National Geographic (an intricate portrait of ISIS’s rule), The New York Times (which mapped the battle), and Bloomberg (on live-streaming war).

After telling the Chinese media that the Arbitral Tribunal’s South China Sea judgement is ‘just a piece of paper with four corners’, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte this week threw petrol and a match on the Manila–DC relationship by announcing his country’s military and economic separation from the US. He also joked (but not really) that he would be ‘dependent on [China] for a long time’ and that he has ‘realigned’ himself with Beijing’s ‘ideological flow’. While in no way undermining the recklessness of Duterte’s moves, a great piece at The Economist questions whether his plan has longevity, while a good read at The National Interest weighs some possible options for the US’s next step. IISS has also taken a timely squiz at Duterte’s first 100 days in office, which has a slightly different flavour to Ambassador Calaguian-Cruz’s piece here at The Strategist.

Let’s kick off our look at fresh research with two offerings from The National Bureau of Asian Research: the first is an article on the ‘strategic collusion’ between Russia and China in the Arctic; and the second is NBR’s latest book, Strategic Asia 2016-17: Understanding Strategic Cultures in the Asia-Pacific (the executive brief (PDF) is a must read for Asia–Pacific watchers a.k.a everyone). CSIS has started a brand new research program, the Aerospace Security Project, which will unpack policy debates around the air and space domains. The USSC’s latest report (PDF) argues that both Australian and American policymakers need to address ‘looming risks’ to the bilateral relationship and seek new opportunities to develop its current remit. And finally, a new RSIS commentary looks at the extent of the damage done to India’s submarine construction program after the DCNS data leak, and what this means for Australia’s boats.

Podcasts

As debate continues over the cost of the US Air Force’s proposed ICBMS, Arms Control Wonk has released a light-hearted podcast (42 mins) that reflects on some of the more amusing basing modes for ICBMs when the question was last discussed in the 1980s (PDF)—during peak Cold War paranoia.

In the latest offering from the CogitAsia podcast series (34 mins), CSIS’s Phuong Nguyen and Perth USAsia Centre’s Natalie Sambhi dive into to the first two years of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s time in office, paying particular regard to what’s hot and what’s not in Jokowi’s foreign and security policies.

Video

The Wilson Center’s Robert Litwak released a book (download it here) on the likelihood of abuses of nuclear weapons earlier this month, and recently sat down for an interview (10 mins) on his latest work, and a framework by which to understand and assess the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Events

Canberra: India-watchers and civ-mil relations wonks will be treated next week to a lecture from Yale’s Steven Wilkinson on how India kept its military on a short leash in order to protect the country’s democracy. More info is available here.

Sydney: If you still can’t get enough of the US elections, ANU’s heading northwards on 4 November as part of their National Seminar Series to host a panel discussion on what challenges the President Elect will face in our near neighbourhood before the inauguration. This one will definitely sell out fast, be sure to register your attendance here.

The Arctic is a region where great power competition will play out in coming years. Russia has significant strategic and economic interests in the region, and for China the Arctic may prove to have important security and economic benefits bearing on East Asia and on energy and food security. The US and its allies  also have sovereignty, security and resource interests in the Arctic. And global warming is rapidly changing the playing field in the Arctic region.

The main contenders for a piece of the Arctic Ocean are NATO and Russia. The international Arctic governance mechanism—the Arctic Council—is dominated by NATO members. While NATO members bordering the Arctic Ocean—the US, Canada, Denmark, and Norway—are also pursuing their own national claims, Russia and NATO still see each other as their greatest security threat. Russia’s military build-up in the Arctic and a call from the Atlantic Council  for NATO to be ‘prepared to defend its boundaries and interests in the region in the face of growing Russian capabilities’ reflect this tension. Blunt references in NATO’s Warsaw communique to Russia’s aggression and the undefined nature of the commitment ‘to protect and defend our territory and our populations against attack’ sits behind Arctic relations.

This northern summer’s seen an historically low minimum coverage of sea ice in the Arctic. Temperatures in early September were up to 9 degrees Celsius above average along the coast of Siberia. Global warming in the Arctic is heating the ‘ocean, soil, and air temperatures’ and ‘melting permafrost; shifting vegetation and animal abundances’ and altering the ‘characteristics of Arctic cyclones’.  The potential for access to abundant energy and food resources in the Arctic and the possibility of newer shorter shipping routes between East Asia and Europe will feed the competition for dominance in the Arctic in coming decades.

In August, the Russians presented scientific evidence to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to support their extensive claims to in the Arctic. Russia is claiming the Lomonosov Ridge, the Mendeleev-Alfa High, the Chukotka Plateau, as well as the continuous extension of these elements from the shallow Eurasian shelf—an undersea area of 1.2 million square kilometres where it would have sovereign rights over the exploration, exploitation (including oil and gas and fish stocks), management and conservation of resources in the water, on the seabed and under the seafloor.

Russia’s been at pains to stress its commitment to UNCLOS and to adopt a pragmatic and cooperative attitude in the Arctic. However, a negative response from CLCS on its Arctic shelf claims might see Russia’s attitude harden. A Russian refusal to accept as legitimate a denial of its claims by the CLCS could seriously undermine the already weakened UNCLOS regime.

Russia has more immediate strategic problems as well. Post-Soviet Russia is effectively land-locked in its west. Russia’s numerically superior land forces are advantaged in Europe by freedom to manoeuvre and unity of command but its maritime situation is parlous. Russia’s lost its dominant positions in the Baltic and Black seas and its secure access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In addition, the maritime approach to St Petersburg, its second city, is threatened by NATO. Russian access to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic is now susceptible to blockade by NATO.

Access to the Atlantic through the Barents Sea for the Russian Northern Fleet at Severomorsk is also vulnerable to encirclement and interdiction by NATO. As the ice retreats, secure year-round ice-free access to both the Atlantic and North Pacific from Arctic bases will also be a priority for the Russian Navy. Ominously, Russia’s shown in Crimea that it’s willing to act to protect its remaining strategic maritime assets. The Northern Fleet contains the main component of Russia’s nuclear triad and is tasked with the protection of the Russian economic zone, a vast area and long coastline that Russia sees as vulnerable. Were the CLCS to reject Russia’s seabed claims in the Arctic Ocean, threatening its economic and security interests, then Russia might—like China in the South China Sea—become less reasonable and more inclined to unilateral actions.

China isn’t an Arctic littoral state, but it has exhibited a growing interest in the Arctic, consonant with a growing strategic relationship with Russia and economic interests in Russia’s control of the more promising Northern Sea Route to Europe and of Arctic resources. If China begins sending container ships to the EU via the less costly Northern Sea Route through Russia’s Arctic EEZ over coming decade(s) combined with ramping up the economic use of extensive railway routes across Eurasia to Europe—such as the new Chengdu-Lodz line—the impact on South East Asian nations dependent on servicing maritime trade could be significant. A significant economic downturn would be unsettling in our nearer region.

Our island continent isn’t a geopolitical island. The clash of interests over the distant Arctic Ocean over coming years could add to tension between Russia and NATO and contribute to instability on our front door. Global warming in the Arctic is adding a whole new strategically significant element to the growing rapprochement between Russia and China. Although events in the Arctic are beyond Australia’s direct influence, the new DFAT White Paper needs to contemplate a strategic policy position on the Arctic to inform our diplomacy.