Tag Archive for: Indo-Pacific

Indo-Pacific versus Asia–Pacific as Makinder faces Mahan

When Australia adopted the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ five years ago—replacing ‘Asia–Pacific’—the aim was to widen Canberra’s understanding of ‘the region’. ‘Ho hum’, said the region. Now, the idea of the Indo-Pacific is humming.

Japan’s Shinzō Abe likes the Indo-Pacific because it fits his ambitions for a greater Japanese role in Asia. Abe thinks big and Indo-Pacific is a big label that reaches beyond the bilateralism of the US alliance.

India embraces the Indo-Pacific because it honours India’s vital role in Asia’s future.

Indonesia cautiously puts its hand on the Indo-Pacific, not least because Indonesia sits in the middle.

ASEAN pokes at and frets at a fashionable usage that’s spreading quickly, worried what it might mean for ASEAN ‘centrality’. Southeast Asia might be in the centre of the geography but ASEAN feels outside the idea.

All this leads to the nation that has turbocharged the Indo-Pacific discussion—the United States.

The Trump administration adopted the Indo-Pacific with such gusto, it starts to smell like a strategy. Fascinating says the region, ‘What can it mean?’

In a matter of months, Indo-Pacific has become the defining way that Washington describes the region. Donald Trump likes a new label that doesn’t belong to Obama; in Trumpworld, that’s all the reason you need.

The Trump national security strategy and companion national defence strategy use ‘Indo-Pacific’, with zero sightings of the Asia–Pacific. ‘Mesmerising’, says the region.

China’s response to the Indo-Pacific trend is both complex and simple.

The simple bit is that Beijing hates the idea. The complex side is that while it smells and sounds like a US strategy, Indo-Pacific is so new in Washington’s lexicon that policy content is slight—a major idea with little mass bothers the hell out of Beijing.

For now, China can sit with its simple response: hate it. And worry how this new bit of Trump kit is going to work.

Compare Indo-Pacific with Asia–Pacific to see different hierarchies as well as geographies.

China likes Asia–Pacific because it references the land mass that China thinks it naturally dominates, plus the ocean that stretches to the US. Asia–Pacific translation: Asia = China while Pacific = US.

The Indo-Pacific is a maritime concept while the Asia–Pacific tries to link the maritime with the continental.

Indo-Pacific skips by the Asian land mass (China) and replaces it with two oceans.

The translation into nations can read Indo = India while Pacific = US. Such a reading spurs Chinese paranoia about being contained and constrained between two oceans, facing the US on one side and India on the other. And when it comes to modern confrontations with India, China’s experience is on land, not sea.

Give this a theoretical tinge with two old, opposing views of geography and strategy: John Mackinder versus Alfred Mahan.

The land element of the Asia–Pacific and a Chinese reading of it leans towards Makinder’s 1904 theory about the Eurasian landmass that dominates the world.

The two‑ocean expression of the Indo-Pacific would enthral the US naval officer Alfred Mahan, whose 1890 book on sea power shaping history still inspires the salts.

Mackinder would understand the import and ambition of China’s Belt and Road Initiative for the Eurasian heartland.

Mahan would salute the symbolism and intent of last week’s announcement from Pearl Harbor that the US Pacific Command is renamed the Indo-Pacific Command. Pacific Command’s remit has always run from Hollywood to Bollywood (Malibu to Mumbai)—now the name fits the range.

The US Defense Secretary, James Mattis, flew from the Hawaii naming ceremony to the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, where he used the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ 17 times in his speech, and ‘Asia–Pacific’ only once (referring to APEC).

To show the nomenclature shift, on the same stage last year, Mattis used ‘Asia–Pacific’ nine times and ‘Indo-Pacific’ only once (quoting India’s Narendra Modi). Back then, the commander of what’s now Indo-Pacific Command was hedging by referring to the Indo-Asia-Pacific.

As the keynote speaker at Shangri-La this year, Modi gave the geographic vision the full treatment: ‘The Indo-Pacific is a natural region.’

India’s prime minister offered ASEAN love and China reassurance:

India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members. Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate. And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country. A geographical definition, as such, cannot be.

Modi offered these Indo-Pacific elements:

  • A free, open, inclusive region.
  • ‘Southeast Asia at its centre. And, ASEAN has been and will be central to its future.’
  • A rules-based order for the region applying ‘to all individually, as well as to the global commons’. The order is based on sovereignty, territorial integrity and ‘equality of all nations, irrespective of size and strength. These rules and norms should be based on the consent of all, not on the power of the few.’
  • Equal access as a right under international law to the use of common spaces.
  • Not protectionism but globalisation: a ‘rules-based, open, balanced and stable trade environment in the Indo-Pacific’.
  • Connectivity is vital: ‘We must not only build infrastructure, we must also build bridges of trust … They must promote trade, not strategic competition.’
  • The India–Indonesia comprehensive strategic partnership announced last week is based on ‘a common vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’.

Modi began his final words with a hope that’s also a caveat: ‘All of this is possible, if we do not return to the age of great-power rivalries.’

On that hope, Makinder and Mahan would share doubts, whatever the geographic frame.

A new order for the Indo-Pacific

Security dynamics are changing rapidly in the Indo-Pacific. The region is home not only to the world’s fastest-growing economies, but also to the fastest-increasing military expenditures and naval capabilities, the fiercest competition over natural resources, and the most dangerous strategic hot spots. One might even say that it holds the key to global security.

The increasing use of the term ‘Indo-Pacific’—which refers to all countries bordering the Indian and Pacific oceans—rather than ‘Asia–Pacific’, underscores the maritime dimension of today’s tensions. Asia’s oceans have increasingly become an arena of competition for resources and influence. It now seems likely that future regional crises will be triggered and/or settled at sea.

The main driver of this shift has been China, which over the last five years has been working to push its borders far out into international waters by building artificial islands in the South China Sea. Having militarised these outposts—presented as a fait accompli to the rest of the world—it has now shifted its focus to the Indian Ocean.

Already, China has established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, which recently expropriated its main port from a Dubai-based company, possibly to give it to China. Moreover, China is planning to open a new naval base next to Pakistan’s China-controlled Gwadar port. And it has leased several islands in the crisis-ridden Maldives, where it is set to build a marine observatory that will provide subsurface data supporting the deployment of nuclear-powered attack submarines and nuclear-powered ballistic missile subs in the Indian Ocean.

In short, China has transformed the region’s strategic landscape in just five years. If other powers do not step in to counter further challenges to the territorial and maritime status quo, the next five years could entrench China’s strategic advantages. The result could be the ascendancy of a China-led illiberal hegemonic regional order at the expense of the liberal rules-based order that most countries in the region support. Given the region’s economic weight, this would create significant risks for global markets and international security.

To mitigate the threat, the countries of the Indo-Pacific must confront three key challenges, beginning with the widening gap between politics and economics. Despite a lack of political integration and the absence of a common security framework in the Indo-Pacific, free-trade agreements are proliferating, the latest being the 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. China has emerged as the leading trade partner of most regional economies.

But booming trade alone cannot reduce political risks. That requires a framework of shared and enforceable rules and norms. In particular, all countries should agree to state or clarify their territorial or maritime claims on the basis of international law, and to settle any dispute by peaceful means—never through force or coercion.

Establishing a regional framework that reinforces the rule of law will require progress on overcoming the second challenge: the region’s ‘history problem’. Disputes over territory, natural resources, war memorials, air defence zones and textbooks are all linked, in one way or another, with rival historical narratives. The result is competing and mutually reinforcing nationalisms that imperil the region’s future.

The past continues to cast a shadow over the relationship between South Korea and Japan—America’s closest allies in East Asia. China, for its part, uses history to justify its efforts to upend the territorial and maritime status quo and emulate the pre-1945 colonial depredations of its rival Japan. All of China’s border disputes with 11 of its neighbours are based on historical claims, not international law.

This brings us to the third key challenge facing the Indo-Pacific: changing maritime dynamics. Amid surging maritime trade flows, regional powers are fighting for access, influence, and relative advantage.

Here, the biggest threat lies in China’s unilateral attempts to alter the regional status quo. What China achieved in the South China Sea has significantly more far-reaching and longer-term strategic implications than, say, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, as it sends the message that defiant unilateralism does not necessarily carry international costs.

Add to that new challenges—from climate change, overfishing and degradation of marine ecosystems to the emergence of maritime non-state actors such as pirates, terrorists and criminal syndicates—and the regional security environment is becoming increasingly fraught and uncertain. All of this raises the risks of war, whether accidental or intentional.

As the most recent US National Security Strategy report put it, ‘A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region.’ And yet while the major players in the region all agree that an open, rules-based order is vastly preferable to Chinese hegemony, they have so far done far too little to promote collaboration.

There is no more time to waste. Indo-Pacific powers must take stronger action to strengthen regional stability, reiterating their commitment to shared norms, not to mention international law, and creating robust institutions.

For starters, Australia, India, Japan and the US must make progress in institutionalising their Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, so that they can better coordinate their policies and pursue broader collaboration with other important players like Vietnam, Indonesia and South Korea, as well as with smaller countries.

Economically and strategically, the global centre of gravity is shifting to the Indo-Pacific. If the region’s players don’t act now to fortify an open, rules-based order, the security situation will continue to deteriorate—with consequences that are likely to reverberate worldwide.

Factoring in Russian military power in the Indo-Asia–Pacific strategic calculus

Current perceptions of Russia as a power factor in the Indo-Asia–Pacific (IndAsPac) geopolitical system are very much influenced by established post–Cold War assumptions that Moscow is no longer able to influence the regional geostrategic landscape because of its reduced military power and limited economic engagement with the region, and thus should be disregarded as a player worth considering and factoring into any strategic calculus.

But there has been a slow but steady rebuilding of Russian power over the past decade. It has been most noticeable in Eastern Europe, but there have also been developments in the IndAsPac region that strategists contemplating the future evolution of that vast region need to understand. The recent US national security strategy showed that Russia is pushing its way back into Western strategic thinking when it observed:

Russia seeks to restore its great power status and establish spheres of influence near its borders … The combination of Russian ambition and growing military capabilities creates an unstable frontier in Eurasia, where the risk of conflict due to Russian miscalculation is growing.

My new ASPI paper BEARing back: Russia’s military power in the Indo-Asia-Pacific under Vladimir Putin examines the current status of Russian military power in Australia’s extended region.

In the 2000s, the Russian military began gradually rebuilding its fallen combat potential. Under Putin’s leadership, the once cash-strapped national military machine received a massive financial boost and, more importantly, full political support, which remains unchanged to date. Qualitative upgrades of Russian modern military power, while visible, remain neglected by the Western strategic and defence community.

Russia’s current regional security and defence policy is driven by a pragmatic approach of conflict avoidance and non-interference in third parties’ geopolitical issues, unless they’re of direct importance to Moscow’s strategic interests. In Russia’s regional defence planning, the emphasis is on strengthening the 200–300-kilometre defence perimeter along the Pacific coastline. Any large-scale military threats that can’t be neutralised by the conventional component are likely to escalate the conflict pattern into a nuclear phase, which may include the employment of both tactical and strategic nuclear assets in combat.

Amid the current geostrategic realities of Northeast Asia, Russia finds itself in a very complex and potentially fragile neighbourhood in which three major nuclear powers (the United States, Russia and China) and one undeclared minor nuclear power (North Korea) are present. Russia’s territorial disputes with the US over the Bering Strait area and with Japan over the Kurils/Northern Territories are just part of the region’s complexity, which is also characterised by territorial disputes between China, Japan and South Korea. Finally, the high-intensity confrontation on the Korean peninsula, with which Russia’s Maritime Province shares a land border, provides Moscow with additional grounds for strategic concern.

When assessing the possibility of the country becoming engaged in a large-scale military conflict in the future, Russian strategic and defence thinkers don’t rule out the possibility of a serious military conflict in the Far East and Western Pacific. Several scenarios dominate ongoing debates, but prominent among them are a war between Russia and China over the Russian Far East, and a war between China and a US-led regional coalition for supremacy in the Pacific, with Russia indirectly involved in the confrontation. Neither scenario is expected to unfold in the next 10 years, but these prognoses are partially triggering an ongoing capability upgrade east of the Urals.

Despite heightened geopolitical tensions with Washington and NATO, Russia’s strategic thinking and planning factors in a lower level of political–military confrontation with the US and its Pacific allies compared to the Cold War. Another factor that’s widely acknowledged is Russia’s significantly improved strategic relations with China and the subsequent easing of the operational need to maintain substantial military groupings along the Sino–Russian border.

Over the past 10 years, Russia has steadily increased its defence cooperation throughout Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Under Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s Ministry of Defence has intensified its international cooperation with foreign counterparts, thus making defence diplomacy one of its core priorities. Russia is engaged in a number of regional security structures, such as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus, the Shangri-La Dialogue and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, but is also very active in developing key bilateral ties. Moscow sees opportunities for military-technological and maritime security cooperation; peacekeeping; search and rescue and disaster relief; combating various forms of organised crime, such as piracy, narcotraffic and smuggling; and counterterrorism.

Russia’s declared emphasis on cooperation indicates that confidence building is high on Moscow’s regional security agenda. The development of close and trusted relations with regional militaries is being pursued through consultations, exchanges, military technology transfers and joint capability development, and regular joint exercises.

Russia is no longer the feeble (though still formidably armed) power that emerged in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has rebuilt much of its military power and—perhaps most importantly—is confident enough to use it for geopolitical leverage. While the growing strategic competition between China and the US gets all of the headline attention, the power balance in the IndAsPac region is far from binary.

Plan B: Australia’s foreign policy white paper

As we look at the foreign policy white paper published in late 2017, it echoes some of the remarks in the 2016 defence white paper about the importance of the rules-based global order. Indeed, the frequent use of the term belies a gnawing concern about the fragility of that order, and a hope that repeating the mantra might help bolster that order in the face of numerous challenges. But the defence white paper predated Donald Trump, Rodrigo Duterte, Brexit, and post–19th Party Congress Xi Jinping. The world certainly looks different nowadays. If anything, those developments have added urgency and clarity to the foreign policy white paper.

Overall, it’s a strong and balanced document. But it’s worth seeing it not as some set of platitudes reinforcing Australia’s age-old commitment to the American alliance, although the alliance does, of course, feature. Instead, it looks and feels like Australia’s ‘Plan B’. Until now, we have relied successively on Britain and the United States. The white paper makes declarations about alliances and the enduring utility of remaining a US ally, but it also implicitly and diplomatically recognises that the dynamics have fundamentally changed.

The document stresses the Indo-Pacific space and has the Indo-Pacific featured on the cover. Arguably, it should be spun 45 degrees, with Australia metaphorically hanging from the bottom and Southeast Asia more visibly seen as the fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific. One criticism that could be levelled at the white paper is that, while it does address Southeast Asia, it could have and should have placed greater emphasis on the significance of regional ties. After all, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, when aggregated, is Australia’s third-largest trading partner and most immediate area of strategic concern.

Some might say that it’s appropriate to place little emphasis on ASEAN, describing the 10-nation grouping as a ‘broken reed’. They see it as unreliable for security purposes. With that in mind, it appears that the paper’s drafters sought to emphasise ‘the Quad’ instead—the relatively informal arrangement among Australia, Japan, the US and India. Given that trilateral ties were already in place with Japan and the United States, the key to the Quad, from the white paper’s perspective, is India.

It remains to be seen how enthusiastic India will be over the long term in being closely associated with a country in the South Pacific that, as Alan Gyngell put it, has a long-held fear of abandonment. In addition, the benefits expected to accrue to Australia from the quadrilateral arrangement aren’t that clear—particularly beyond the already robust bilateral ties with India, Japan and the United States.

In fact, Australia has moved a long way from its post-war phobia of Japan. Canberra has established a comprehensive strategic partnership with Tokyo and undertaken preparations for a visiting forces agreement. The white paper gives due recognition to the bolstered bilateral ties.

Furthermore, there’s a concern that the messaging about the Quad may not work to the advantage of the partner nations in the way some would hope. Objections from China aren’t enough justification to dispense with the Quad, but perceptions in the neighbourhood should inform our approach and degree of enthusiasm in its pursuit.

In the meantime, we need to reimagine the importance of ASEAN. Southeast Asia isn’t some distant faraway land with which we can optionally engage. It’s our immediate front yard, in our immediate neighbourhood. It’s our future. The Australia in the Asian century white paper of 2012 gave remarkably little attention to ASEAN or Southeast Asia. That suggested that there’s a degree of discomfort among Australians in engaging with the neighbourhood, its 637 million people and its nearly $3 trillion economy. Yet Australians tend to disaggregate ASEAN. It appears we don’t like to think of it as an entity. That’s partly because it doesn’t look like the United States or the European Union. It’s a bit amorphous. It’s more indecisive than we would like it to be.

Culturally, it’s also a less comfortable space for the barely monolingual Australians who prefer the halls of New York, London, Paris or Geneva. The apparent trickiness and obtuseness of cultures in Southeast Asia makes for a degree of discomfort for many Australians seeking to negotiate a deal or set up business there. To be fair, Australia is getting better at regional engagement. Indeed, the white paper does emphasise engagement in regional forums, including the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting–Plus, the Indian Ocean Rim Association and a variety of related senior officials’ meetings. Nonetheless, I think our regional engagement remains undercooked.

On one level, the white paper is being seen as a primer for the prime minister’s upcoming ASEAN–Australia Special Summit, which is scheduled for mid-March. A number of universities and institutes are contributing to an ASEAN–Australia dialogue, which will precede the summit. These endeavours are a welcome attempt to promote greater understanding of our neighbouring proto-great power.

The paper’s emphasis on the Indo-Pacific and greater emphasis on regional ties does make one wonder why this is happening now. There’s definitely uncertainty about US resolve, about what ‘America First’ actually means, and about the consequences of having a transactional US presidency that appears hostile to regional and multilateral bodies like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to other international bodies like UNESCO. That trend is deeply worrying for Australia and much of the world. Implicit also in the paper are concerns over President Trump’s emphasis on military solutions for problems in places like North Korea. There’s an understandable wariness emerging about how Australia responds to such security challenges and how much Australia supports or disapproves of the actions of key stakeholders.

Stressing engagement with our neighbours and partners in the region is important, and there are signs that there’s a degree of discomfort with Australia’s approach to matters like the Quad. Vietnam and Singapore may be happy with this development, but our more forthright policy positions may be jarring to our immediate and important Malaysian and Indonesian neighbours.

In reflecting on the implications of such concerns, we need to be clear about the importance of Indonesia to our security and prosperity. Contentious issues—including beef, boats and spies, clemency, Timor and Papua—have generated significant friction points in the bilateral relationship. From Jakarta’s perspective, Canberra hasn’t been the most faithful or reliable of friends. Economically, ties are weak and shallow. But there’s progress underway on the Indonesia–Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. This is a positive step.

Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyo, in Darwin in late 2017, spoke of the need for a comprehensive strategic partnership between Indonesia and Australia. Yet it seems so difficult to attract attention for such issues from the mainstream media and in policymaking circles. In part, that may be due to a degree of resentment. Indonesia appears cavalier and irritable in its relationship with Australia, which plays poorly in the Australian media.

Many inside the Indonesian armed forces also are resentful of our apparent perfidy over East Timor in 1999, when we led an international intervention force after having endorsed Indonesian annexure of the territory for a quarter of a century.

There’s certainly scope for Australia to work on sweetening ties with Indonesia, as well as with Malaysia and Singapore. Arrangements that help bolster those ties aren’t considered in any detail in the white paper. They should be.

The paper also effectively acknowledges that today China is more influential than ever, and that its influence has grown exponentially across the globe. Yet as recent research indicates, countries like Thailand, for instance, still want the US to remain engaged. They also see ASEAN as significant for their future prosperity and security. Australia needs to think more about how the member states view ASEAN for their own security and prosperity.

As a Plan B, the foreign policy white paper is a sound attempt to articulate a vision of Australia’s engagement in an uncertain and dynamic world. As indicated, there are areas where further developments may be explored, but, in the main, it sets out to chart a safe course for Australia in increasingly troubled waters.

Asia’s new entente

US President Donald Trump is arriving in Asia at a moment when the region’s security situation is practically white-hot. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, recognising that the world’s ‘center of gravity is shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific’, called on the region’s democratic powers to pursue ‘greater engagement and cooperation’. They—including Trump’s US—should heed that call. In fact, only an alliance of democracies can ensure the emergence of a strong rules-based order and a stable balance of power in the world’s most economically dynamic region.

In recent years, as Tillerson acknowledged, China has taken ‘provocative actions’, such as in the South China Sea, that challenge international law and norms. And this behaviour is set to continue, if not escalate. Last month’s 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China effectively crowned President Xi Jinping—who has spearheaded a more muscular foreign policy, in service of his goal of establishing China as a global superpower—as the country’s emperor.

Just as Germany’s rapid ascent prior to World War I spurred a ‘triple entente’ among France, Russia and the United Kingdom, China’s increasingly assertive behavior is creating strong impetus for the Asia–Pacific democracies to build a more powerful coalition. After all, as recent experience in the South China Sea has made clear, no single power can impose sufficient costs on China for its maritime and territorial revisionism, much less compel Chinese leaders to change course.

This is not to say that no country has been able to challenge China. Just this summer, India stood up to its muscle-flexing neighbour in a 10-week border standoff. China has been using construction projects to change the status quo on the remote Himalayan plateau of Doklam, just as it has so often done in the South China Sea. India intervened, stalling China’s building activity. Had US President Barack Obama’s administration shown similar resolve in the South China Sea, perhaps China would not now be in possession of seven militarised artificial islands there.

In any case, securing a broader shift in China’s foreign policy and stabilising the Asia–Pacific region’s power dynamics will require more than one country holding the line on any one issue. A US that is willing to employ new tools, a more confident Japan and India, and an Australia vexed by China’s meddling in its domestic affairs must work together to constrain Chinese behavior.

The good news is that an entente has already begun to emerge among the region’s key democracies. America’s relationship with India, in particular, has been undergoing what Tillerson called a ‘profound transformation’, as the two countries become ‘increasingly global partners with growing strategic convergence’. The US now holds more joint defence exercises with India than with any other country. Such cooperation puts the two countries in a strong position to fulfill Tillerson’s vision of serving ‘as the eastern and western beacons of the Indo-Pacific’.

Engagement with Japan, too, has deepened. This year’s Malabar exercise—an annual naval exercise in the Indian Ocean involving the US, India and Japan—was the largest and most complex since it began a quarter-century ago. Focused on destroying enemy submarines, it involved more than 7,000 personnel from the US alone, and featured for the first time aircraft carriers from all three navies: America’s nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, Japan’s Izumo helicopter carrier, and India’s aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.

As Tillerson pointed out, this trilateral engagement among the US, India and Japan is already bringing important benefits. But ‘there is room to invite others, including Australia, to build on the shared objectives and initiatives’.

So far, Australia has sought to avoid having to choose between its security ally, the US, and its main economic partner, China. Despite Defence Minister Marise Payne’s recent declaration that ‘Australia is very interested in a quadrilateral engagement with India, Japan and the United States’, the government seems to be hedging its bets. For example, while it sought this year to rejoin the Malabar exercise—from which it withdrew a decade ago to appease China—it sought to do so only as an ‘observer’.

This approach is untenable. If Australia is to free itself of Chinese meddling, it will need to go beyond implementing new domestic safeguards to take a more active role in defending rules and norms beyond its borders, both on land and at sea.

In the coming years, the Indo-Pacific power balance will be determined, first and foremost, by events in the Indian Ocean and East Asia. Containing China will therefore require, first, efforts to restrict the country’s maritime activities—such as measures to safeguard vital sea lines and build maritime domain awareness—and, second, geo-economic initiatives to counter China’s coercive leverage over smaller countries. All of Asia’s democratic powers must be on board.

Calls by the US for closer cooperation bode well for this process, though the US still needs to focus more on the globally ascendant and aggressive China than on a declining Russia. The overwhelming victory of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—who has touted the idea of establishing a ‘democratic security diamond’ in the Asia–Pacific—in his country’s recent general election is also likely to help to drive cooperation forward.

To be sure, any entente among Asian democracies is unlikely to take the shape of a formal alliance. Rather, the objective should be for democratic powers to reach a broad strategic understanding, based on shared values. It is those values, after all, that set them apart: as Tillerson recognised, while Trump’s upcoming visit to Beijing will undoubtedly draw much global attention, the US cannot have the kind of relationship with non-democratic China that it can have with a major democracy.

By pursuing cooperation, the Indo-Pacific’s democratic powers can shore up an inclusive, rules-based order that underpins peace, prosperity, stability and freedom of navigation in the region. That is the only way to thwart China’s effort to establish itself as the hegemon of an illiberal regional order.

The United States courts India

It can’t be mere coincidence that US secretary of state Rex Tillerson’s first major foreign policy speech on 18 October was about America’s relations with India. The address, delivered on the eve of his visit to South Asia, was described by a think tank official in Washington as America’s ‘love letter’ to India.

India has steadily risen in the estimation of the Trump administration, particularly since the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June. The term ‘Indo-Pacific region’ appeared prominently in the joint statement issued by President Donald Trump and Modi at the end of the latter’s visit. Since then, it has come into vogue in Washington’s official circles as a substitute—some would say replacement—for ‘Asia–Pacific region’, the term traditionally used to describe the vast expanse stretching from India to Japan, Australia, and beyond. This change emphasises both the importance of the Indian Ocean in US military strategy and the increasing geo-political prominence of India in American policy.

In his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Tillerson stressed that India and America are ‘two bookends of stability—on either side of the globe’ and that the ‘emerging Delhi–Washington strategic partnership’ is needed to anchor the rules-based world order for the next hundred years. His emphasis on the terms ‘strategic partnership’ and ‘rules-based world order’ acquired greater significance when in the same speech he characterised China (India’s chief competitor if not major antagonist in Asia) as a ‘destabilizing force’ in the region and accused Beijing of ‘provocative actions in the South China Sea [that] directly challenge the international law and norms that the United States and India both stand for’.

Tillerson’s choice of words in describing India’s and China’s respective roles in the Indo-Pacific region clearly sent the signal that the US considers India an ally, not only in the traditional strategic sense but also as a partner in the shaping of a future world order based on rules and norms. In contrast, he implied that China is a habitual violator of international norms and America’s principal military and political adversary in the region. Although the Trump administration’s assessment of India’s role and potential as an ally builds on the policies pursued by the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, this formulation clearly states what was only implied in the earlier administrations’ approaches to India.

That’s music to Indian ears. Furthermore, the Indian foreign policy establishment has found Tillerson’s references to Pakistan, both in the CSIS speech and during his subsequent visit to South Asia, even more exhilarating. While praising India to the skies, the secretary of state told high-ranking Pakistani officials that the US will no longer tolerate Islamabad’s patronage of terrorist groups operating from Pakistani territory and bent on destabilising Afghanistan. In his CSIS speech, Tillerson declared that the US expects ‘Pakistan to take decisive action against terrorist groups based there that threaten its own people and the broader region’. During his stopover in Kabul on the way to Pakistan, the secretary of state said he will pressure Islamabad to take action on the support that the Taliban and other terrorist organisations receive. He also made it clear that future US aid to Pakistan will be ‘conditions-based … It will be based upon whether they take action that we feel is necessary to move the process forward for both creating opportunity for reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan but also ensuring a stable future Pakistan’.

Most, if not all, of Tillerson’s statements about Pakistan concentrated on the twin and interrelated issues of terrorism and Pakistan’s role in the ongoing civil strife in Afghanistan. It’s commonly acknowledged in Washington that in Afghanistan Pakistan clandestinely supports the Taliban while ostensibly behaving like an ally of the US. There’s also considerable apprehension within policymaking circles in the US that Islamabad’s formidable nuclear arsenal may fall into the hands of Islamic extremists because of the increasingly radical atmosphere and chaotic conditions in the country.

The secretary’s interaction with Pakistani leaders was remarkably different in both tone and content from the statements he made in New Delhi. In India, his emphasis was on larger global and regional issues and the possibilities of cooperation between India and the US in tackling those issues. Pakistan was hardly mentioned. That was a clear signal—if one was needed—that the US no longer links the two South Asian rivals when formulating policies towards the region.

American interests in Pakistan derive from Washington’s concerns about terrorism and stability in Afghanistan, where American forces continue to be engaged in that country’s longest war. Relations with India, on the other hand, are treated independently of those local concerns, and are linked with broader issues of global and regional stability.

It was clear from Tillerson’s remarks that the US sees India as a major regional bulwark against the expansion of Chinese influence and power. The secretary of state more than once emphasised, even if tacitly, that India and the US share the strategic goal of curbing Chinese power and must work together politically and militarily towards that end. While the Indians didn’t openly dispute Tillerson’s thesis on China (and indeed probably agreed with it in their heart of hearts), they didn’t endorse it publicly.

President Trump’s aptitude for frequently sending contradictory signals—as he did recently regarding Pakistan—make the Indians wary of taking the secretary of state’s exuberance at face value. More importantly, geographic and economic constraints make it difficult for India to take an overtly anti-China stance, despite occasional crises erupting on its borders with China and an unstated geo-political rivalry between the two Asian giants. One hopes that Washington understands those constraints and will make haste slowly in its courtship of India.

ASPI suggests

Image courtesy of Flickr user Brian Talbot.

The ‘America First’ pendulum has been in full swing this week, as the President returned from his time abroad to stamp on the progress made by the Paris climate agreement and ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the travel ban that blocked entry to travellers from six Muslim-majority states. But never fear, H.R. McMaster, White House national security adviser, and Gary D. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to reassure the world that, despite hard facts and the clear disappointment of the Europeans, the Trumpian jaunt overseas was a smashing success. That’s based largely on The Donald’s apparent reconfirmation of commitment to NATO and Article V—which in actual, as opposed to alternative, reality, did not happen. Read David Frum’s and Dan Drezner’s double smackdown of the ‘most extraordinary op-ed of 2017 (and not in a good way)’ for more. But on a different note, a longer read from The New Yorker looks at the psychological strain of keeping skeletons in the cupboard—perhaps a good read for those who have to front the press with feel-good stories about a White House that’s still “finding its way”?

Three great reads that are simultaneously nostalgic and forward-thinking emerged this week. First up, a longread from Foreign Policy discusses American political amnesia when it comes to global tragedy, arguing that comfort and complacency about the postwar order has caused Americans to forget about their leading role in maintaining the international system. Over at The Atlantic, Ben Sasse offers some comments on his new book, The Vanishing American Adult, which laments the disappearance of virtue from American politics. And a final piece from Aeon leaves readers with an interesting thought: ‘that the US needs its dreamers most when the world seems to be shaming them’.

A couple of fresh research efforts take the cake this week. The headliner, a massive joint effort between our friends at the Perth USAsia Centre and the United States Studies Centre, is titled America’s Role in the Indo-Pacific (PDF). The project involved an extensive polling effort across six Indo–Pacific countries, and measured attitudes towards foreign investment in infrastructure, the Korean peninsula, and whether or not the US can be the global ‘rule-setter’ under Trump. China was one of the countries polled, which makes it an especially interesting study. Next up, Van Jackson—host of the fabulous Pacific Pundit podcast series—has offered some thoughts to the Naval War College Review (PDF) on grey zone operations, and has delved into a handful of poignant case studies. And, finally, a new read from the American Enterprise Institute argues that Iran is well on the road to increasing its spending on elite military forces. At the paper’s launch, US Special Ops Vice Commander Lt. Gen. Thomas Trask vowed to add the report to SOCOM’s required reading list, so have a gander now to get ahead of the curve.

Donald Trump said it best when he asked his trove of Twitter followers (or bots, you be the judge), ‘Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe”???’ The New Yorker has admirably tried its hand, while the geniuses behind Merriam-Webster’s Twitter persona have tossed in the dictionary and given up entirely. For more, #covfefe’s got you covered.

But after the week that was, I’d hardly blame you if you were keen to jump ship. Literally, jump. Off the ship. Into the ocean. Fortunately, this piece from New Republic looks at what’s in store for the future-gazing members of the “seasteading movement”—those who wish to live politically independent, utilitarian, energy-efficient life on the high seas, in floating structures powered by nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, as the author concludes, while technology can do plenty to improve the world, it can’t help us to bypass unsavoury politics. Keep those snorkels stored for another day.

Apropos nothing—not at all related to the fact that my boss is a massive science nerd and wanted it included—here’s a great NY Times science story on colliding black holes and gravitational waves.

Podcasts

For those in need of a fresh take on China beyond the headlines, look no further than this great little offering from Chinoiresie, dubbed The Little Red Podcast Series. Each episode sits around the half-hour mark, and features experts, academics, journalists and policymakers who look beyond ‘mainstream narratives of modern China’. For instance, the latest episode is an interview on freedom of the press with Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, who recently made the news after being held in detention in Guangzhou. A must-listen for all you Sinophiles out there.

And for something a little out of left field, tune in to the latest episode of Undark (37 mins), which follows the travels of writer Jeff Marlow as he looks at how lethal viruses like Ebola develop and are transmitted across species. Marlow spent a considerable time in the Democratic Republic of Congo preparing this cover story for the Undark magazine. Both the report and the podcast are worth checking out, if you’ve got an abiding interest in biosecurity.

Videos

In a beautiful finale (12 mins), The Measure of a Fog, acclaimed film director Ian Cheney wrapped up his six part series on climate change and the challenges it poses to humanity—‘from the scientific and technical to the emotional, psychological, and political.’ The series, and the finale that wraps up findings from the six episodes, is a must-watch for anyone (cough) who needs a lesson on the serious impacts that climate change will have on our planet.

While he’ll be touching down in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue right about now, US Secretary of Defense James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis sat down with CBS’s John Dickson for a detailed discussion on defeating ISIS, Trump’s message to NATO leaders and North Korean missile tests. He also briefly touched on haunting people’s nightmares. Check it out (and be afraid) here (13 mins).

Events

A big few weeks ahead here in the capital, so whip those diaries out, Canberrans.

First up, US–Australia relations bigwig Kim Beazley and former US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper sit down and discuss future of our two countries’ alliance, and how we might navigate a turbulent Asia–Pacific, on 13 June at ANU’s National Security College. This level of insight on the Alliance’s defence and security mechanisms is a rare opportunity, so make sure you register soon.

And second, also on 13 June, the nation’s capital offers you a beautiful setting for a poignant topic. At the National Portrait Gallery, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Australian Red Cross will host a discussion on the important role of wartime journalism, a profession in danger as it becomes increasingly difficult for correspondents to report from war zones, and how that impacts on the international community’s responses to conflicts and humanitarian crises. Be a part of the action by signing up here.

Australia’s island outposts in the Indian Ocean

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Last November the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories agreed to examine the strategic importance of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories (IOT)—the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island. The Committee is looking at the changing regional security environment and security contingencies; defence capability in the territories and associated infrastructure development; the scope of maritime, air and other cooperation with Indo-Pacific partners; and impacts on local communities.

I recently participated in a public forum convened by the Committee. My remarks were based on a submission I authored with the University of Wollongong’s Sam Bateman. Our submission is here (#2). (Sam and I previously wrote the ASPI report, Our western front: Australia and the Indian Ocean.)

While the IOT comprise the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island, it’s important to point out that defence capability and strategic issues vary greatly between them.

But their strategic value is limited by their remoteness and difficulties of resupply, particularly by sea. As can be seen in the table below the IOT are closer to Southeast Asia than they are to main air bases in Australia.

Providing satisfactory sovereignty protection around Christmas Island is a particular concern. It’s got no secure anchorage and its wharf area at Flying Fish Cove is fully exposed to north-westerly winds. There can be periods of several weeks on end during the wet season (November through April) when ships are unable to get alongside to discharge their cargo. Small amounts of cargo can then be lightered ashore but nothing in any quantity.

There are several reasons why a major development of the Cocos Islands like Diego Garcia isn’t a good idea. In comparison with Diego Garcia, the land area of the Cocos Islands is smaller (only about 14 square kilometres) and the main lagoon less navigable. The work required to develop a main base at the Cocos Islands would be extensive, highly damaging to the environment and disruptive for the local population.

The resupply of fuel to support the anti-air defences of the islands would be extremely difficult. Daily aviation fuel requirements could be in the order of hundreds of tons or greater, particularly if fighter aircraft were to be deployed there. Resupply in such quantities would be highly problematic if the islands were under air attack from Southeast Asia. There’s also the issue of weather. Diego Garcia is five degrees closer to the equator than the Cocos Islands which means that it’s much less affected by cyclones and bad weather.

An unhardened base there would be a liability more than an asset. Despite their current strategic importance, the IOT would be extremely difficult in time of conflict to defend against an adversary with access to bases in Southeast Asia. Indeed, their location is within 600 nautical miles of Sumatra and Java, and thus vulnerable to air or missile attack. It would be virtually impossible for Australia to retake them if they were occupied by such an adversary.

For those reasons, Sam and I don’t support major defence infrastructure developments in the islands, beyond the upgrading of the Cocos airfield and increases to the current storage arrangements for aviation fuel and marine diesel.

An expanded and well-resourced Australian strategic presence on Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands would enable closer maritime security and other forms of defence cooperation with a range of Indo-Pacific partners. These might include the US, France and the UK as long-standing strategic partners, and Singapore and Malaysia (the Southeast Asian members of the Five Power Defence Arrangements).

India, with whom our strategic relationship is slowly growing, may also have an interest in access to the IOT: the latest strategy document of the Indian Navy, Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy (2015), puts an increased focus on ‘undertaking cooperation and coordination between various navies, to counter common threats at sea.’ (ASPI’s Malcolm Davis took a close look at India’s interest in the Cocos islands in his submission (#9) to the Committee.) There may, in due course, be some Australian interest in approaching New Delhi about using India’s Port Blair for our P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft on a reciprocal basis.

From time to time Indonesia has expressed concerns about the presence of US marines in Darwin and may also have concerns about any American use of the IOT especially Christmas Island. Given the IOT’s proximity to Indonesia, Canberra should keep Jakarta informed about possible American use of the IOT, and the extent to which any developments there might affect Indonesia. There may also be scope for Australia–Indonesia maritime cooperation around the IOT, something that ASPI’s executive director Peter Jennings supported in his submission (#11) to the Committee.

Australia’s fortunate to have our offshore island outposts in the Indian Ocean. By investing in them in the years ahead the government has an opportunity to increase their strategic importance and utility.

Old friends and opportunity cost

Image courtesy of Pixabay user robbrownaustralia.

President Obama was a good ally. His agreement to take up to 1,250 refugees placed by us in the Pacific was as extraordinary as it was helpful. As ambassador in Washington I found a degree of discomfort with our approach to border protection, particularly at mid-levels in his administration. When doubts were raised, the embassy pushed back. When the New York Times editorialised against Australia’s ‘brutal and ruthless treatment’ of refugees, my response was that ‘brutal and ruthless’ described ISIS against whom we fought and whose victims were eligible for consideration in our refugee program. We wanted to deter those contemplating a dangerous journey.

In the end Obama got that. The agreement represented our ally’s grasp of our sensitivity to securing our maritime approaches and an appreciation of the proportionately large Australian immigration program and refugee intake. It’s not surprising really that Trump was taken aback by an agreement, scarcely a ‘deal’ that required quite a detailed interaction with us to comprehend. The response of some of our commentariat—that Trump’s questioning of that agreement was a major strike on the alliance—displayed a level of self-awareness Trump’s critics assign him.

Hard talk is common between allies. As a minister and ambassador I have been involved in a lot of it over matters much more consequential than this and over much longer than 25 minutes. None were, I must admit, quite so brusque. This is a reflection of the rollout gone wrong in the US. The PM had to stick to his guns. The issue is important to us and couldn’t be let go, but it’s a real pity it had to be done, and that it was the only part of the president’s broader initiative we got to discuss. The PM had no space to mention critical regional issues, let alone broader aspects of the Trump order.

We needed to talk to Trump about his initiative, not to criticise his desire to tighten US vetting, which is already very tight. Loose talk by the administration that it targeted Muslims in areas where the struggle with ISIS is most intense posed a challenge to our interests, particularly those of our service personnel in Iraq. Our troops run one of three major bases training the Iraqi Army. The coalition presence is a mixed blessing to the Baghdad government. It knows its authority requires that indigenous forces, particularly those under their control, are perceived to be freeing Iraq from ISIS. But it’s under pressure on two flanks. Shia militia backed by Iran are sceptical of the US and allied presence and sometimes threaten to make their objections kinetic. On the other flank, and heavily entailed in the training effort, is the attempt to reattach the minority Sunni Arab tribal elements, many of whom have gone over to ISIS. The language around the administration’s initiative plays into some bad narratives in Iraq, potentially increasing the risk to our troops. We need a chance to point this out.

The PM also needs the opportunity to talk to Trump about East and Southeast Asia and our concerns about trade, particularly the TPP and our East Asian trading partners and US approaches to institutions like the East Asia Summit. We are worried about mixing trade and security agendas and anxious about the administration’s views on activities in flashpoint areas in the South and East China Seas and on the Korean peninsula. The foreign minister has had useful conversations on these matters with her new US counterpart and Vice President Pence. We need the PM to have one with President Trump.

Last week, outside the White House, policy stabilised. Defense Secretary Mattis toured North Asia with a message of guarantees and continuity. Secretary of State Tillerson calmed his agency and moderated his tone from his confirmation hearings. Former national security adviser Flynn contacted his Chinese counterpart, arranging a friendly presidential letter to Xi. The subsequent Trump call to Xi addressed no major issues in detail but assured US adherence to the One China policy.

The week concluded with a bonding visit by Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe, who has conducted brilliant regional diplomacy following Trump’s election. He has assured the administration’s support for the inclusion of disputed islands under the American guarantee. With Trump he positioned himself closer to the idea of a bilateral trade treaty. One can’t help thinking both Xi and Abe might be concluding Trump has strong views, weakly held.

One pattern seems to be emerging. While Trump’s views appear disruptive, they don’t carry a detailed policy tail. He has reactions on issues where he argues the US has been disadvantaged and demeaned. These are not framed policies. He does not have a plan for relief let alone revenge. His appointees have detail but not for his apparent agenda. This does not mean that much more aggressive US policy challenges won’t emerge. It does mean they can be shaped.

Abe is already well down the shaping road. We have a well-developed perspective on the issues the Trump administration has decided to confront. We became a very effective ‘muse’ for the Obama administration on Indo-Pacific politics. A reward was this refugee agreement. Unfortunately, having to defend it cost us temporarily the opportunity to play the muse again. It won’t be easy or pleasant for Turnbull to resume the conversation. At least he has the advantage of a huge bipartisan outpouring of affection for Australia, together with the acknowledged significance of the alliance in Congress and with the American commentariat. They will also have noted Turnbull’s restraint and the minimal leaking of internal Australian government thoughts. The conversation, when a peg develops to hang it on, must resume.

Trump and Australia

Image courtesy of the US Department of Defense.

Donald Trump spoke to Malcolm Turnbull within 24 hours of his election. The event produced a quaint response in commentary redolent of an older era in the character of allied relationships.

On the one hand, there was gratitude that our important ally hadn’t overlooked us. On the other, Trump’s election campaign, wherein the candidate disparaged China, trash-talked the TPP, and criticised Seoul and Tokyo for not pulling their weight in support of their own defence, simply reinforced the views of some senior politicians and academics that we should disconnect from the alliance and concentrate on Asia. Turnbull’s focus on their mutual business experience, while understandable, kept contemplation of the significance of the call brief.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Turnbull was the second political leader president-elect Trump spoke to after his election victory. The priority we were assigned is significant. It reflects, in part, the fact that we have a unique status in the Trump view of alliances—the only one where the American partner’s contribution wasn’t criticised by candidate Trump. Privately, his policy advisers and campaign team made thoroughly clear to us that they understand both the value of past and current commitments in military campaigns and the importance to the US of facilities we share, capabilities we’re acquiring from American industry, and mutually embedded military and intelligence personnel.

From our point of view, the product of those facilities, the technological advantages we gain from US equipment and our involvement in the development of new capabilities under the ‘third offset strategy’ are crucial to Australia’s defence and unaffordable in any other relationship. Our current status with Washington has evolved well beyond the situation that existed at the end of the Cold War.

The challenge now is how we use that connection to influence American policy in our region where all our friends and allies are deeply disturbed by what they heard from the GOP nominee. Trump’s campaign positions translated into administration policy would result in the suspension of America’s leadership of the post–World War II liberal international project. Originally, the project focused on global free trade, a rules-based system for the global commons, and a comprehensive Western alliance under a system of American extended deterrence. More recently, those priorities have been joined by an effort on nuclear disarmament and a coordinated response to climate change.

A Trump indifferent to South Korean and Japanese nuclear weapons would dramatically destabilise our major trading partners in North Asia. A Trump declaration that China was a currency manipulator—a perception outdated by at least five years—and the promised imposition of a 45% tariff in his ‘first one hundred days’ plan, would be ruinous to the regional and global economy. However, Trump now denies he ever said the former, and the latter would seem to fly in the face of the, albeit undetailed, protestations of mutual respect in the phone conversation between President Xi Jinping and the president-elect. Over the weekend, Newt Gingrich described the promise of a large, high border wall with Mexico as a ‘campaign device’, an elegant exposition of a ‘non-core promise’. Asian leaders will hope that such ‘devices’ will come to characterise plans with regard to the Indo-Pacific.

Currently, the Asian leaders’ conversations with Trump and his team have been bilateral. They will have noted, however, the priority assigned the Australian conversation. They know that Australia wants nothing from the US beyond what it already has and which is unchallenged. They want Australia to be avidly engaged with the US. They know our regional policies and aren’t uncomfortable with them (with the possible Chinese exception to our South China Sea position). Quickly we will become message-bearers.

A recent article in Foreign Policy by Trump advisers Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro appears to be the underpinning of possible Trump secretary of state Rudy Giuliani’s intervention this week on a more militaristic approach to policy in the Asia–Pacific region. He said that the Trump administration would undertake a massive military build-up aimed at countering China and curbing its ambitions. The article and the broader policy direction indicate that under Trump US leadership on the liberal international agenda will be suspended while the commitment to enhance American military capabilities and economic power will accelerate.

There’s much in the Foreign Policy article that will disturb Asian policymakers. It’s a root-and-branch criticism of the implementation of Obama’s Asian pivot but not the priority. They characterise Obama’s implementation as ‘feckless and mendacious’, particularly in its responses to perceived Chinese initiatives. They’re hard-line on North Korean approaches, Taiwan’s defence and South China Sea signalling. As part of their countermeasures, they propose a massive build-up of the US Navy from 274 ships to 350 with a strong Pacific Ocean focus.

Trump plans to end sequestration in defence spending and massively increase the defence budget. In the light of the ‘third offset strategy’, the focus on platform numbers is antiquated. As the Trump administration evolves, they may eventually realise that it’s not the sum total of navy and air force platforms that counts but the capabilities they deploy.

We’re in for a wild ride which will test our maturity and effectiveness. Abandoning the field isn’t an option.