Tag Archive for: Indo-Pacific

Frigate deployment shows Germany’s intent in the Indo-Pacific

/in

The German Navy frigate Bayern is making its way home after its six-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Earlier this week, the Brandenburg-class ship made its last refuelling stop in Spain before heading to its home port in Wilhelmshaven.

The core of the ship’s mission was to ‘fly the flag’—to reannounce Germany’s ongoing commitment to the Indo-Pacific and the active role it intends to play geostrategically.

Formally billed as a training mission, the deployment also had both diplomatic and security-policy mandates. The Bayern and its crew engaged in training with German partners in the region, notably Australia, Singapore, Japan and the United States. But it was also about showcasing that Germany, in cooperation with its international partners, advocates and stands ready to defend the freedom of sea routes and compliance with international law in the region.

The deployment is a central component in the practical implementation of the German government’s Policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific. It is a formal contribution to maintaining a rules-based international order. In-depth cooperation with partners in the region is essential to achieve this goal. This includes joint exercises, but also participation in monitoring the UN sanctions against North Korea and, on the way there, supporting the NATO operation Sea Guardian and the EU’s Atalanta mission, visiting ports and crossing the South China Sea.

As Australian captain Gary Lawton stressed when the Bayern visited Perth, the Indo-Pacific region has become increasingly strategically important for both Germany and the European Union, and the visit was an opportunity to strengthen cooperation and understanding between the German and Australian navies.

The Bayern’s participation in monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea was aimed at applying pressure to Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. The UN Security Council tightened the sanctions further in 2017 and also sanctioned the delivery of oil and oil products. The purpose of such naval missions is to prevent these sanctions from being undermined by ships transferring their cargoes on the high seas.

Germany regularly emphasises the importance of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as a comprehensive and globally applicable legal framework, above all the freedom of navigation in international waters anchored in UNCLOS, but also the mandatory dispute settlement mechanisms regulated therein.

The arrival of the frigate in Australia was an especially important event in the two countries’ relations, given that the last time a German Navy ship visited Australia was in 1988. Back then, the German Navy’s sailing training ship Gorch Fock docked in Sydney.

In September 2020, the German government adopted the Indo-Pacific guidelines as a framework for strengthening its presence in the region, due to the decisive influence that events in the Indo-Pacific will have on shaping the international order in the coming years. The central pillars of this policy are diversifying Germany’s economic partnerships, promoting the rule of law, and strengthening multilateralism and security cooperation.

On 1 August, Germany joined ReCAAP, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia. Security consultations were also held at ministerial level with key partners Japan and Australia. The strategic partnership with Australia was recently expanded into an ‘enhanced strategic partnership’. During the German presidency of the EU Council, the EU and ASEAN upgraded their relations to a strategic partnership in December 2020. Germany is also advocating the European Indo-Pacific strategy that has been in effect since September 2021.

In terms of security policy, the German government referred to the increasingly expansionist behaviour of China in the Indo-Pacific region. While then foreign minister Heiko Maas and then defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer avoided naming China explicitly in their statements flanking the Bayern’s departure in August 2021, it’s clear that the Bayern’s trip was intended to send a signal to the Chinese over their claims to power in the region.

Other countries like Japan and South Korea feel the threat of an ever more assertive China as well. And the US also expects more support from partners like Germany in Asia. China’s upgrading of its military over the past few years hasn’t gone unnoticed and developments are being closely monitored by Germany as a proponent of peace and stability in the region, but also as an exporting nation. A good 90% of global trade takes place by sea, mostly via the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The effects of an interruption in the supply chains to and from Europe became clear at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The deployment of one ship may seem like a small act. But given the gruesome and complicated history of Germany in the 20th century and its consequent general reluctance to deploy forces internationally, it is a significant step.

This is the first unilateral military mission of the reunited Germany conducted outside the framework of an international peacekeeping mission. As such, it’s an important symbol of Germany’s readiness to fulfil its international duties and take up more responsibility in security and military affairs.

For Germany, the goal is to bring peace, stability and adherence to international law to the region, and do so in close cooperation with like-minded partners.

The new German government will have no choice but to follow this path and refrain from any form of fence-sitting when it comes to defending the core values and the way of life of Western, liberal and free societies in Europe and other regions of the world.

The security consequences of America’s focus on China

/in

During the Cold War, Europe was America’s strategic priority. East Asia was largely a sideshow, even though the United States fought bloody wars in Korea and Vietnam, and also provided security for Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

But in the unfolding new cold war between the US and China, America’s strategic priorities have flipped. Today, US security strategy is dominated by the China threat, and East Asia has replaced Europe as the principal theatre of the world’s defining geopolitical contest. And the security consequences of this shift in America’s focus are becoming increasingly visible.

Most notably, America’s adversaries are taking advantage of its preoccupation with China to test US resolve. Iran, for example, has hardened its position in the stalemated negotiations on reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal from which US President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew in 2018. Iranian leaders appear to be betting that President Joe Biden will be extremely reluctant to resort to military force and get bogged down in a new Middle Eastern war when the US is planning for a potential conflict with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military threats against Ukraine are apparently based on similar calculations. Putin believes that he now has a far freer hand to restore Russia’s influence in its immediate neighbourhood, because the US can ill afford to be distracted from its strategic focus on China.

The recent actions by Iran and Russia vividly illustrate America’s strategic dilemma. To increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome in its cold war with China, the US must maintain its strategic discipline and steer clear of secondary conflicts that could divert its attention and resources. Biden’s abrupt—and botched—withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 underscores his administration’s determination in that regard.

How America’s standoffs with Iran and Russia play out remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet that the US will sooner or later encounter similar tests elsewhere. Some regional powers will be tempted to bully weaker neighbours because they think that the US pivot to East Asia will make American military intervention much less likely.

To be sure, America’s focus on China will affect different regions differently, with much less impact on regional security in Latin America and Africa than in the Middle East. In Latin America and Africa, US policy in the coming years will likely emphasise economic, technological and diplomatic competition with China. The losers will be countries where China has negligible influence or interests.

The greatest security impact of the US strategic shift to East Asia will be felt in the Middle East, the region that relies most heavily on America for its security needs. In all likelihood, focusing on China will dramatically curtail America’s role as the region’s policeman. While the US will continue to provide arms and aid to its most important allies and partners, the Middle East as a whole will have to live without the US as its security provider.

More generally, if the US maintains its strategic emphasis on China, it will unavoidably lose considerable geopolitical influence. Countries that lose American largesse will understandably feel less beholden to the US.

But the diminution of America’s global stature could also bring significant benefits—for both the US and the rest of the world. Strategic discipline would make the US less likely to wage unnecessary wars. The dark side of US unipolarity during much of the post–Cold War era has been America’s recklessness in resorting to military force. According to the US Congressional Research Service, in the three decades since the Cold War ended, the US has used its armed forces abroad every year. In particular, it has squandered an immense amount of blood and treasure in two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Elsewhere, America’s new geopolitical orientation will force countries that have until now counted on US protection and support to learn to fend for themselves. For example, some Middle Eastern countries have sought to rebuild ties and foster peace in preparation for American disengagement: relations between some Gulf states and Israel have improved dramatically in recent years.

In Europe, ‘strategic autonomy’ may be mostly rhetoric for now. But as the US makes it increasingly clear to its European allies that the region is a secondary priority, they will have to turn their rhetoric into action.

Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright once claimed that the US is the world’s ‘indispensable nation’. That description has arguably been true for most of the post–Cold War era. In the age of the US–China cold war, America may be the indispensable power for East Asia, but not for other regions. As this new reality takes hold, the rest of the world will have no choice but to adapt. That could lead to more military conflict, but it could also lead to more peace.

Germany ramps up Indo-Pacific engagement

/in

After 16 years of Angela Merkel’s leadership, a tight race on election night and almost two months of coalition negotiations in Germany, the Social Democratic Party, or SPD, returned to power with Olaf Scholz the new chancellor. With the Greens and the Free Democratic Party, they’ve formed the Ampelkoalition (traffic light coalition)—the federal republic’s first ever three-party governing arrangement.

The new chancellor is widely expected to largely continue Merkel’s legacy, but the coalition agreement outlining policy plans for the next four years signals changes in German’s approach to the Indo-Pacific.

Since the September election, two important announcements were made regarding future German activity in the region. In November, the chief of the German Navy, Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, said he would send vessels into the Indo-Pacific every two years with the intention of increasing cooperation with Japan, Australia and the US, and to advocate for peace, free navigation and maintenance of the rules-based international order in the South China Sea. The announcement came during a visit to Tokyo by the German frigate Bayern on its seven-month voyage through the region.

In September, the German Air Force will participate in Pitch Black, a multinational exercise hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force and scheduled to take place over northern Australia. Germany plans to send six Eurofighters, three refuelling tankers and three transport aircraft, a significant step up in its Indo-Pacific participation.

While the navy and air force plans were put in place under Merkel, the new coalition has signalled its wish to increase Germany’s presence in the Indo-Pacific.

If the Scholz government stays true to that promise, then we’re likely to see Germany engage with more confidence, bluntness and interest to intensify cooperation with regional nations.

The coalition agreement aims to strengthen cooperation on multilateralism, democracy, climate protection, trade and digitalisation, and to expand cooperation between the EU and ASEAN. The agreement specifically seeks increased cooperation on multiple levels with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea as values-based partners.

The agreement also seeks a stronger strategic partnership with India and says Germany wishes to address the impacts of climate change and to ‘stand up for those affected by rising sea levels’.

If the coalition contract is to be taken at face value, German engagement with Beijing may be blunter than that of past administrations.

The agreement sets out a China policy driven by values and not afraid to criticise Beijing’s internal affairs and geopolitics. The agreement opposes Beijing’s ‘one-China’ policy and strongly supports democratic Taiwan’s inclusion in international organisations. It takes the position strongly that all changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait must happen peacefully and with mutual agreement. The new government wants China to return to the ‘one country, two systems’ principle for Hong Kong and it has undertaken to address human rights violations in Xinjiang against the Uyghur and Kazakh minorities.

This approach to China contrasts with the coalition contract at the start of Merkel’s final term in 2018. That deal chose to not address China’s human rights abuses in detail and only briefly mentioned its growing geopolitical importance. The 2018 contract favoured trade and investment for Germany’s economic benefit. Merkel’s stance on China was at times considered too lenient and she appeared reluctant to make concrete statements condemning Beijing.

The 2021 agreement repeatedly uses the term ‘Indo-Pacific’, which was not mentioned in the 2018 agreement, as Germany adopts new terminology championed by India, Australia and the US.

Indications are that the Scholz government will not be shy about stepping on Beijing’s toes. While some media outlets have suggested that the agreement signals a ‘break with China’, Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times has downplayed the potential impact on relations. It says the ‘landscape of China–Germany cooperation will not change’ as ‘Scholz’s party has always advocated for dialogue with China’. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian has already warned Germany that issues such as Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan are ‘all China’s internal affairs’.

While Scholz has not been an outspoken critic of Beijing, Germany’s new foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has made strong statements critical of China. Baerbock, who was the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, has described China’s Belt and Road Initiative as ‘hardcore power politics’ and has urged a ban on products from Xinjiang, saying Europe must make sure that ‘products from forced labour do not come onto our market’. Since becoming foreign minister on 8 December, she has spoken out against previous styles of German diplomacy, stating that ‘eloquent silence is not a form of diplomacy in the long run, even if it has been seen that way by some in recent years.’ She aims to establish a values-driven relationship with China based on ‘dialogue and toughness’.

This week, Baerbock made her first official trip to the US, meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She stressed the importance of the German-American relations, stating that Europe has ‘no partner stronger than the US’.

How much Germany’s Indo-Pacific policies of the next four years end up reflecting those outlined in the coalition agreement remains to be seen. If Scholz’s SPD could govern alone, we would likely witness a continuity of Merkel’s policy in the region. A significant deciding factor will be how much room Scholz will grant Baerbock to implement her own policies. If she is able to develop freely in the role, then Beijing can expect some difficult years ahead with Berlin.

Making Indo-Pacific alliances fit for deterrence

/in

As great-power competition intensifies, the role of deterrence and the potential for escalation have taken on renewed importance in the security calculations of Australia and other US allies. How to manage deterrence and escalation is an inherently political question. For deterrence to be effective, allies have to find ways to agree and credibly commit to what they are willing to do for each other. And nowhere is this more important than in relation to the role of US nuclear weapons.

Ahead of the highly anticipated release of the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review in early 2022, attention has turned to the role that allies play in US nuclear policy. Recent reporting indicates that US allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific have pushed back against moves by Washington to limit, in declaratory terms, the circumstances in which it would consider using nuclear weapons.

While in the past some US allies expressed sympathy for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, none today is willing to sign it, as their focus has turned to the challenges of deterrence and escalation in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. However, allies can’t afford to simply react to changes in US policy. They must actively prepare for and seek to manage escalation in a broader geostrategic, technological and political context.

US allies therefore need to become more embedded in, and proficient with, discussions with Washington over escalation and nuclear deterrence. In the Euro-Atlantic area, NATO is rediscovering its integrated approach to deterrence strategy and posture—including the ‘sharing’ of US nuclear weapons. Even in the Indo-Pacific, long gone are the days when the US and its allies were content with a division of labour that saw Washington manage the risk of great-power conflict with little input from its allies.

Consultations with Japan and South Korea on extended deterrence have created an expectation of greater transparency from Washington over the circumstances in which the US would employ nuclear weapons. Still, alliances in the Indo-Pacific remain far from the necessary political and military discussions to achieve deterrence communication, alignment of force structure and posture, and crisis management. And no framework exists for managing enduring differences about how allies engage their respective populations, and communicate to adversaries, on the sensitive issue of nuclear weapons.

How can US alliances in the Indo-Pacific start building a common understanding of escalation and a common deterrence culture? In our recently published, edited open-access book, leading Indo-Pacific, European and US experts address that very question. Three distinct, but closely related, findings emerge from their analysis.

First, there’s a need to move from consultation over US nuclear posture and deterrence, which often entails the US informing allies what has happened, to a more genuine joint development of assessments, concepts and planning for deterrence. Even if deterrence dialogues and committees established in the US–Japan and US–Korea alliances a decade ago have (in NATO terms) helped ‘raise the nuclear IQ’ in these alliances, there are limitations that can arise from constrained formats that encourage a perception of the US ‘educating’ its allies rather than the development of concepts and strategies that guide a common approach.

Second, Indo-Pacific allies urgently need to more systematically address their own force structures and the ‘hardware’ cooperation aspects of deterrence in their alliances. In Australia’s case, new conventional long-range strike capabilities are emerging, yet thinking about their use and effect remains nascent and focused on the tactical level. In the Japanese and South Korean cases, conventional strike capabilities now provide these allies with greater options for direct influence on the dynamics of escalation. At the same time, the limits of US nuclear posture in the Indo-Pacific—whose visible elements today rest solely on nuclear-capable aircraft based outside the region—are also coming into sharper relief through the increasing vulnerability of these forces, the overuse of strategic bombers for signalling, and the lack of any significant adjustment in the face of major strategic shifts since US nuclear weapons were withdrawn from the region in 1991.

The third theme to emerge from the volume is the need for governments to properly engage populations about all of these issues. A key lesson from NATO’s travails of the 1970s and 1980s is that agreeing on and implementing changes to force structure and posture to improve deterrence capabilities and operational effectiveness are insufficient if these same measures fail to reassure allies’ own populations. Like deterrence, reassurance is ultimately psychological, but there’s reluctance today in many countries to publicly address requirements for deterrence and escalation management, or even arms control.

The claim of a binary choice between seeking nuclear disarmament and relying on deterrence is a false one, because it ignores that the ultimate goal of increased security depends on the broader strategic environment in which it is sought. It’s time for Indo-Pacific allies, including Australia, to start articulating the value of nuclear weapons for regional security against the threats we face today, even as they remain committed to nuclear disarmament if and when circumstances render that feasible.

Ultimately, developing a shared understanding of escalation dynamics; maintaining political unity about a shared approach to deterrence; moving from consultation to joint assessment, policy and planning; conducting reviews of alliance force structure and posture and their implications for escalation; and engaging in public campaigning for nuclear deterrence are all mutually reinforcing.

Together, these measures would be transformative for US alliances in the Indo-Pacific because they involve accepting a degree of heightened strategic risk that many allies have so far eschewed. Failure to agree on expectations and commitments in relation to deterrence and escalation pathways runs the risk of the US and its allies not being able to take unified action during a crisis.

The adverse implications for the future of US alliances in the Indo-Pacific that would inevitably flow from this should be enough to energise policymakers to strive for closer cooperation on deterrence and escalation.

Why the Indo-Pacific needs its own hybrid threats centre

/in

The brisk construction of AUKUS—the new Australia–UK–US technology-focused trilateral that made world headlines in September—reflects how much the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific is changing, and how quickly. Traditional security issues continue to loom large, but today’s most pressing challenges are shifting to less familiar domains: cyberspace, technology and the information environment.

Many of these emerging challenges fall into the category of ‘hybrid threats’. They include cyberattacks and data theft, disinformation and propaganda, foreign and electoral interference, attacks on critical infrastructure, lawfare (the use or misuse of legal systems to target critics), economic coercion and supply-chain disruption. The aim is to undermine and destabilise societies, whether overtly, covertly or using proxies.

The Indo-Pacific will have to grapple with a huge range of hybrid threats and find a path forward. The stakes are high. The region is at the centre of global geopolitics, as one of the most dramatic contests for power in human history plays out before us. It is also the globe’s chief incubator of innovation, provider of digital labour and maker of critical technologies. The disruption caused by hybrid threat activity will impact on the Indo-Pacific more than on any other region of the world.

Many hybrid threats are difficult to detect and attribute. Those being targeted may not be aware of the malicious activity occurring under their noses, and even once it comes to light, the culprits may be difficult to pinpoint. The Covid-19 pandemic has only amplified the situation. With many adjusting to home-based work, and in various stages of travel restrictions and lockdowns, populations are more vulnerable to threats emanating from cyberspace and connected technologies than ever before. All this makes countering hybrid threats and implementing deterrence measures incredibly difficult.

The Indo-Pacific contains more than half the world’s millennials—a generation of digital natives ripe for disruption and malign influence. Online platform use across the region is enormously diverse. Internet users in Southeast Asia, for example, can traverse a mix of local, American, Chinese and North Asian platforms. This creates a fragile online environment in which bad-faith actors, including state and non-state actors (such as extremist and conspiracy groups), can thrive.

Some groups have leveraged legitimate public concerns over vaccine roll-outs and data privacy to build and propagate conspiracy theories that undermine trust in democratic institutions. So it’s no surprise that the region’s governments, civil-society sector and business communities struggle to keep pace with these emerging challenges, which blur the line between conflict, peace and standard economic activity. Many face the same challenges but lack an awareness of what is happening elsewhere, resulting in ineffective, poorly coordinated deterrence measures.

Responses to traditional security challenges have developed over many decades. There are protocols, frameworks and international groupings to monitor, manage and counter security threats. The patchwork of approaches on offer—engaging with multilateral bodies, international diplomacy and long-term alliance frameworks—isn’t perfect, of course. But there are agreed norms, and forums to consult in the event of a crisis or to learn from others’ experiences.

Multilateral bodies are a vital part of the international system, but because of how they’ve been set up, they’re often years behind the real-time challenges that states and societies are facing. Certain topics, such as technology and disinformation, are given scant attention. The Indo-Pacific hasn’t yet constructed the regional architecture or built the organisational capacity to discuss emerging security challenges, let alone how to deal with them. This gap leaves it vulnerable to strategic imbalance: unable to monitor and counter hybrid threats, or to implement the deterrence measures that North America, Europe and other regions are increasingly coordinating on through independent bodies set up to deal with these challenges.

Cooperation on emerging security challenges is difficult in a region of great cultural, linguistic, economic and political diversity. But it’s not impossible.

The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), based in Helsinki, offers a template the region can learn from and adapt. Hybrid CoE was officially established in 2017 by nine participating states, NATO and the European Union. Over the past four years, a further 30 states have joined, and the organisation continues to tackle a growing crop of regional challenges. Hybrid CoE thrives in bringing together expertise from across the European Union, NATO and allied partner nations. This international collaboration brings greater benefits than any state could produce alone.

An Indo-Pacific hybrid threats centre would increase the region’s capabilities to prevent and counter hybrid threats. It would need to focus on topics of importance to the region. These would not always be the same as the pressing security challenges that Europe, for example, faces. But, like Hybrid CoE, the centre would produce research, offer policy advice, facilitate regional track 1.5 dialogues and capacity building, run regional exercises and training, and spearhead collective defence measures.

To be truly valuable, the centre would need to be fully independent. That independence would need to be guaranteed and fiercely protected by its founders. Without this, it could be subject to the unique interests of its funders and fail to deliver on its promise.

Governments, multilateral and minilateral bodies in the Indo-Pacific, including ASEAN and the Quad, should help to shape and support the creation of such a centre. The global business community, particularly large internet and technology companies—heavily invested in the region’s growing markets—also have a role to play. One question worth exploring is whether such a centre should run as a public–private partnership, rather than exclusively by governments. There is a sound logic to this, given that the private sector builds and maintains the very infrastructure that malign actors exploit in their attacks. Neither governments nor industry can always address large-scale hybrid threats alone; solutions require creative strategic thinking across sectors.

A hybrid threats centre could be a forum for collaborative multilateral discussions on strategies, initiatives and capacity building for countering hybrid threats. As the Indo-Pacific starts to emerge from Covid-19, it could also help support social resilience and cohesion across the region by providing an opportunity for states and other stakeholders to share lessons and collaborate on common challenges.

With its young population and rapidly growing economies, the Indo-Pacific will be the focus of global strategic competition for decades as rising states flex their muscles and find ways to assert their political power. If an Indo-Pacific hybrid threats centre is designed to meet the requirements of the region and its key stakeholders, is independent and is informed by a strong evidence base, it can act as a fulcrum, bringing together governments, industry and civil society at a time when greater collaboration and regional resilience is more needed than ever.

South Korea’s and Australia’s shared future is about a lot more than armoured vehicles

/in

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s fourth meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, held in Canberra today, built more momentum in the quiet achiever of Australia’s key regional partnerships. Japan, India and the US have had all the publicity (and for good reason given the accelerating Quad and AUKUS agendas). Those paying attention to Indo-Pacific security and the unfolding decoupling in the digital world between the US and China know South Korea is an essential partner.

The relationship between Australia and South Korea has been one with latent potential for at least a couple of decades, seeming to need something that could turn that latency into real cooperation. Covid-19, China and high-technology decoupling might be the catalysts we needed.

The Moon–Morrison meeting follows the September meeting of Australian and South Korean foreign and defence ministers. That ‘2+2’ showed South Korea is now very clearly taking its role in Indo-Pacific security seriously. It also demonstrated the impressive technological sweep of South Korea’s economy and the contribution the country can make in areas from public health to critical minerals and space to supply chains.

South Korea is one of the planet’s ‘big tech’ leaders in both the commercial and defence worlds (think LG, Samsung, Hyundai, Hanwha, Korea Aerospace Industries, LIG Nex1 and others) so it must be part of growing minilateral and bilateral cooperation to make high-technology supply chains more resilient and less vulnerable to natural or state-directed shocks.

In sheer strategic and defence terms, South Korea shifted from its sole focus on the threat from North Korea several years ago and has been pursuing a force structure for its military that is able to play a part in deterring conflict in the wider region. Seoul is showing strategic imagination that’s being translated into real military capability in a timely way.

This shift in focus is the only reasonable explanation for building up its navy’s surface and sub-surface capabilities to provide more offensive firepower and conduct wider regional engagements, with an aircraft carrier program being the most obvious symbol of this greater strategic reach. South Korea’s force-projection capabilities are not just maritime, though. In its latest mid-term defence plan, released in 2020, the South Korean government invested in independent surveillance and reconnaissance, and precision strike capabilities. Its development of widely capable missile and missile-defence systems has broader application than only deterring Pyongyang.

All these developments provide a platform for defence-to-defence cooperation from research and development to operational concepts and shared capabilities between Australia and South Korea.

The more important area for Moon and Morrison to work on, though, is the high-technology one that encompasses low-emissions technologies, space, critical-minerals, semi-conductors, artificial intelligence and uncrewed systems. The good news is that the foreign and defence ministers’ meeting shows this is starting to happen, with most of these areas picked out for direct bilateral cooperation.

There are two big moves open to provide more substance and momentum to this nicely developing bilateral. One is in the traditional defence realm and would be South Korea winning the multi-billion-dollar contract to supply up to 450 heavy, tracked, crewed infantry fighting vehicles to the Australian Army. Morrison and Moon signed the already announced, smaller $1billion contract for Korea’s Hanwha to build 30 self-propelled tracked howitzers for the army on this trip, but that’s tiny in comparison with the infantry fighting vehicle program. It’s too early for Defence to have finished its evaluation of the German and South Korean options, so we shouldn’t expect any announcement during this visit.

While it makes no strategic sense for Australia to be spending between $18 and $27 billion on these armoured vehicles (because no one can say where Australia would need to deploy them for any sensible purpose in our region) were South Korea to win the contract, the resulting program could be more important for its by-products than for the vehicles themselves.

Australia would have to build a deep technical working relationship with South Korean industry and its government research and development efforts, and this relationship could be used for cooperation on more useful capabilities that both countries need like missiles, small satellites, new energy systems for military purposes and unmanned systems. That’s an indirect way to extract value from a dubious army armoured vehicle program, but if it’s really going to proceed, then it makes sense to extract benefits out of it that matter to our strategic environment.

Moon’s visit now signals some alignment with Australia on the bigger strategic picture around the Quad, AUKUS and the systemic challenge posed by China but without him needing to bind South Korea to this publicly. Seoul might work with the Quad, but is unlikely to join it, and similarly might watch and benefit from the increasing deterrent capabilities the AUKUS partners will bring to the region, but where South Korea may find it easier and more productive to make a difference is through showing how its government departments and agencies work closely and productively with its ‘big tech’ firms.

ASPI’s Sydney Dialogue would be the right forum for this, because unlike the Quad and AUKUS, it’s about bringing governments and their key technology firms together, with a focus on common goals. It’s about changing the largely adversarial and regulatory relationship that governments like those of the US and Australia (along with the EU) have with the ‘big tech’ world. The centrality of the digital world for everyone’s future makes this approach divisive and counterproductive, and the systemic challenge from the tightly coupled authoritarian Chinese state–corporate model is forcing rapid change which requires closer government–industry cooperation.

Given this, the most obvious step available right now to inject substance beyond the government-to-government discussions is for Morrison to invite South Korea to participate in the 2022 Sydney Dialogue on emerging and critical technologies. This would take advantage of a key South Korean strength by connecting the strategic and defence aspects of our bilateral relationship to the economic and technological ones.

If we understand our strategic environment and the future of our digital world as it is affected by this, the future of the relationship won’t be about South Korea equipping the Australian Army with tracked howitzers and large armoured fighting vehicles.

Instead, it will be through deeper cooperation in the areas of strength that South Korea’s defence organisation and military are pursuing and that are relevant to maritime and air power, missiles, space and strike capabilities. And in a bigger strategic way, it will be through the contribution that the unique partnership between South Korea’s government and its ‘big tech’ sector can make to how the world’s powerful and creative democracies can harness the digital world for common prosperity, security and wellbeing—as I hope to hear from Korean president’s presentation at next year’s Sydney Dialogue.

ASPI’s decades: Quad 1.0 and Quad 2.0

/in

ASPI celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This series looks at ASPI’s work since its creation in August 2001.

Quad 1.0 had a tentative start and then crashed. Reborn in 2017, Quad 2.0 has had two leaders’ summit in 2021.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has become a grouping.

Australia, India, Japan and the US first got together in December 2004, when they responded to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami with coordinated humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. The initial meeting among officials from the four countries happened on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila in 2007, followed by the first Quad naval exercise.

China’s opposition to Quad 1.0 was ‘swift and forceful’. The Chinese government sent a formal note of concern to the foreign ministries of the four countries in May 2007, William Tow recorded. Beijing launched a campaign against the concept via Chinese academics, Tow wrote, and it ‘soon became nigh-on impossible to meet a Chinese foreign policy scholar without hearing a variant on why the Quad was bad’.

The Howard government qualified its support, murmuring that the Quad focus might be confined to trade and culture. Quad 1.0 was taking water, and it sank after the Rudd government was elected in November 2007.

Kevin Rudd devoted nearly two pages of his memoirs to the reasons for reluctance about Quad 1.0. He denied that discontinuing it was appeasing China, instead pointing to the possibility of zigzags in the way New Delhi or Tokyo dealt with Beijing. ‘Australia would run the risk of being left high and dry as a result of future policy departures in Tokyo or Delhi. Indeed, that remains a danger through to this day,’ Rudd wrote.

Australia was already bound by what Rudd called the ‘far-reaching’ provisions of the ANZUS Treaty to support the US in the event of an armed attack on US forces in the Pacific. ‘Strengthening a bilateral alliance is one thing,’ he said. ‘Embracing a de facto quadrilateral alliance potentially embroiling Australia in military conflict arising from ancient disputes between Delhi, Tokyo and Beijing is quite something else.’

As for Quad 2.0, that got one Rudd sentence: ‘The extent to which political and strategic circumstances may have changed a decade later is another matter entirely.’

What changed—and hardened—was the way the Quad viewed China.

Returning as Japan’s prime minister in 2012, Shinzo Abe began work on the Quad’s second coming, describing it as a ‘democratic security diamond’ that would be all about the maritime domain. Abe’s diamond image was based on ‘a strategy whereby Australia, India, Japan, and the US state of Hawaii form a diamond to safeguard the maritime commons stretching from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific’.

Just as diamonds are formed by high temperature and pressure, so the Quad bonds four democratic powers that feel the force and weight of Asia’s coming power.

Asia’s strategic environment was witnessing one of the most important power shifts in history, Anthony Bergin and David Lang wrote in 2014:

The biggest strategic question we face is not simply whether the future for our region will be one of war or peace: it’s also about the nature of that peace. Will it be a peace governed by rules and norms or a peace governed by power and coercion?

Bergin and Lang were writing on an ASPI project with Japan on strengthening the rule of law in the Asia–Pacific:

Australia and Japan share an interest in minimising the role that coercion plays in the Asia–Pacific and maximising cooperation across the region. We’re both liberal democracies, with a strong bilateral security relationship, an alliance with the United States and a genuine commitment to the rule of law.

The recommendations from the project read like a playbook for Quad 2.0: maritime security, rule of law in conflict-affected states, trade and economic cooperation, cyberspace and internet governance, airspace and outer space, the East Asia Summit, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Abe wanted Japan to be a ‘first tier’ country, Brad Glosserman wrote, but his administration could well be ‘peak Japan’ as a regional power. Two ‘lost decades’ had downsized Japan’s horizons and the demographic trajectory fed the increasingly inward focus of the Japanese people. Glosserman diagnosed a diminishing popular inclination to compete with China and a reluctance to embrace Abe’s ambitions:

Japan must be pushed to do more even while its partners remain conscious of the domestic circumstances that create resistance to such initiatives. Australia can play a key role in this effort. Canberra has emerged as Tokyo’s preferred security partner (after the US). The two governments have overcome a bitter and difficult history to forge a ‘special strategic partnership’ that reflects shared values and interests and includes an expanding institutional infrastructure with regular meetings of the two top leaderships, an array of security instruments and coordination with their alliance partner, the US.

Quad 2.0 was revived in 2017 during the East Asia Summit by Abe, Narendra Modi, Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull.

Times had changed and it was time to get the band back together.

ASPI’s Quad 2.0: New perspectives for the revived concept noted that this second coming ‘has become one of the most debated and contested ideas in current geopolitics’.

Huong Le Thu surveyed Southeast Asian perceptions of the Quad, collecting answers from government agencies, militaries, academia, think tanks, businesses, media and university students in all 10 ASEAN countries.

A majority opinion (57%) across ASEAN supported the initiative as having a useful role in regional security; only 10% of respondents opposed it. There were reservations that the ‘anti-China’ nature of the Quad was dangerous (19%), but more thought that ‘an anti-China bulwark’ was necessary (35%).

On challenges ahead for the Quad, the distribution of responses was even. The most popular answers were that the interests of the four nations may be too divergent for common actions (27%), the Quad was unclear about its own mission (24%) and the grouping would ‘provoke’ Beijing (22%).

‘Refreshingly,’ Le Thu wrote, ‘the study found that there isn’t much of a gap between the respondents from ASEAN countries and the Quad countries. Hence, there’s a level of “like-mindedness”—both in support for the Quad and in ambiguity about its future.’

The joint ‘vision statement’ issued following the first Quad leaders’ summit in March 2021 ranged from vaccines on land to vessels at sea to ‘meet challenges to the maritime order in the East and South China Seas’.

Four disparate democracies could do much together, not least to reassure Southeast Asia that it had options (Quad-speak: ‘strong support for ASEAN’s unity and centrality’).

Michael Shoebridge commented that the Quad was developing as a working forum for leaders to generate momentum on practical actions: ‘This may be what Beijing is most anxious about—a multilateral grouping that is action oriented and agile enough to provide new challenges to how China wants the world to work.’

Australia walked away from Quad 1.0 in 2008 because it had high hopes about China and doubts about Japan and India; Canberra bet on Beijing rather than Tokyo and New Delhi. The terms of the race changed dramatically, the stakes are even higher, and Australia has put new wagers on Japan and India to reinforce its traditional bet on the US.

Quad 1.0 sunk, Rudd said, because the US and India weren’t keen and neither was Japan after Abe departed from his first term as leader in 2007.

Quad 2.0 arrived, Rudd commented, because Xi Jinping had ‘fundamentally altered the landscape’ by projecting Chinese power. Strategic circumstances had ‘changed profoundly’.

The mission of Quad 2.0 becomes more than patrolling the Indo-Pacific—the ambit of Quad ambition meets today’s angst and ambiguity.

Australia, India, Japan and the US are driven together as much as they’re naturally coming together.

For the Biden administration, the Quad puts an exclamation point on the shout that the US is back.

Ever seeking to anchor the US in Asia, Canberra and Tokyo now have another anchor point in New Delhi. The anchor image responds to a permanent reality: China will always be in Asia, while the US presence is always a choice Washington makes.

Choosing the Quad, the US is renewing its promise to the Indo-Pacific as much as joining with three fellow democracies.

The four democracies are present at the creation of Quad 2.0, but conception had much to do with China’s coercion.

Drawn from the book on the institute’s first 20 years: An informed and independent voice: ASPI, 2001–2021.

Australia needs to revamp the Japan relationship to secure its Asian interests

/in

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s trip to Japan in November 2020 for a historic summit deepened a relationship with Japan that is Australia’s strategic anchor in Asia; it was his sole official trip overseas in close to 19 months. The most important geopolitical, economic and security fault lines in the world run through Australia’s and Japan’s own backyard.

Australia’s relationship with Japan has never been closer, and Japan is of growing importance to Australia. It is the world’s third largest economy and is Australia’s second largest source of foreign investment and third largest trading partner (it was second until commodity exports fell last year).

The ‘special strategic partnership’ between the two countries rests on deep economic complementarity, shared strategic interests, and deepening trust and familiarity.

But the Australia–Japan relationship must be reimagined to cope with accelerating economic, environmental and social changes in both countries and a dramatically changing geopolitical environment. Australia must embrace Japan as a ‘most favoured partner’ for the relationship to deliver on its potential to help deal with these challenges.

There is no room for national complacency about how ready the relationship is to serve this purpose. In addition to the transformation of the economic relationship, much about the region’s direction is yet to be negotiated and is too uncertain to take the present-day congruence of strategic outlooks between Japan and Australia for granted. The active, vital task of reimagination must be grasped by Canberra and Tokyo now.

The energy trade underpinning the two countries’ growing security relationship is already ebbing as Japan turns to decarbonisation of its economy. The shared strategic approach to China and the rise of global protectionism—notably in the United States and Europe—makes a far closer political and cultural relationship essential to both nations.

Australia, Japan and the region face a rising and more assertive China and an increasingly inward-looking US that no longer commands economic or political primacy in Asia.

The US alliance framework remains the bedrock of Australian, Japanese and regional security and stability. The Quad that includes India alongside Australia, Japan and the US reinforces that. But it is through open economic engagement that Australia needs to entrench US interests in Asia where US policies have been less supportive of the multilateral rules-based system. Japan shares those interests and brings serious economic heft to the task. Australia’s experience in the face of Chinese trade coercion demonstrates to the world that the open and contestable markets that the multilateral system helps to guarantee significantly blunt the effect of intervening in markets for political or economic gain because it offers alternative markets and suppliers.

The multilateral trading system is a vital strategic and security interest for Australia and Japan. It is also a crucial element in comprehensive regional security that integrates national security, economic and environmental sustainability objectives. This is the agenda to which the two countries must persuade their partners in the region, including China.

Today’s thriving Australia–Japan relationship cannot be sustained and elevated without substantial strategic investment from Australia. The old complementarities in fossil-fuel-based energy and raw materials trade will not sustain the relationship as they have done in the past.

It is true that billions of dollars of Japanese investment now seek opportunities in hydrogen and renewables in Australia. That is the promise. Working closely with Japan, one of the world’s largest energy importers, will bring technology and investment to Australia’s trade and economic transformation. But that won’t happen without substantial national investment and joint national strategies to encourage and facilitate the massive transition in our trade that needs to take place to encourage it. The challenge requires a joint Australia–Japan energy initiative that combines government, industry, experts and stakeholder groups to accelerate and facilitate the energy transition needed in our trade.

There are significant assets from both countries’ investment in the relationship since its historic post-war foundation in the 1950s and 1960s. But the government-to-government, institutional and interpersonal ties that have serviced the relationship to date are not adequate to service the relationship now emerging.

A huge investment is needed in building the capabilities to manage the new relationship with Japan—not only to develop the familiarity with and understanding of how decisions are made, but to grasp how the levers of power and institutions work. That is an agenda that includes but goes well beyond Japanese language and Japan studies. Priorities include introducing and rewarding qualifications in Japan-literacy and experience in the public service and business; expanding the New Colombo Plan to postgraduate students; growing exchanges between officials; and a reverse JET program that brings Japanese graduates to teach in Australian schools.

An improved Australian understanding of Japan will help both countries work together in managing the big geopolitical, economic and social impacts of critical and emerging technologies, including 5G, 6G, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

Fully embracing the Japan relationship is a whole-of-nation endeavour for Australia—one that will have to be led by the federal government but must engage all levels of government, the national cabinet, businesses and stakeholders across the community.

Australia need not wait for reciprocity in these initiatives but is likely to find Japan a willing partner.

Indo-Pacific Endeavour shows Australia’s security found in, not from, Asia

/in

The announcement of the AUKUS partnership has prompted the old accusation that Australia is ‘trying to find its security from Asia rather than in Asia’ to resurface in public debate, most recently in former prime minister Paul Keating’s National Press Club address last week.

The basis for this view is twofold. First, Australia is seeking the assistance of the United States and United Kingdom—neither of which could be described as Asian by any reasonable definition—to obtain nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS necessarily rests upon the longstanding ANZUS alliance with the US, our historical, constitutional and contemporary security links with the UK, and the legacy of trust from intelligence-sharing with both countries through the Five Eyes. Undeniably, a commonality of language, culture and respect for democracy is a part of it too, though this is sometimes reduced to the racially tinged epithet ‘Anglosphere’.

Second, the desire for nuclear propulsion seems to have given the impression that Australia seeks greater range and underwater speed so we can zoom through and past our neighbours to get to East Asian flashpoints. It implies a sense of Australia’s impatience with the vacillation of the ASEAN nations in confronting new maritime security realities, and a go-it-alone approach. The truth of how the future submarines may confirm or disprove this impression remains to be seen and, assuredly, many things will have changed before they hit the water.

But the ‘security from Asia rather than in Asia’ accusation obscures the significant and growing efforts of the Royal Australian Navy to engage in the region, as demonstrated by the recently concluded Indo-Pacific Endeavour (IPE) mission. While in many ways it’s an example of classic naval diplomacy—with port visits, joint exercises and gifting of medical stores from HMA Ships Canberra and Anzac—the activities across Southeast Asia in the past three months actually represent the cumulative effort of the joint services and a whole-of-government approach from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the Australian Civil-Military Centre.

To underscore the point of finding security in Asia, IPE 21 took the unprecedented step of appointing Captain Constancio Reyes of the Philippine Navy as the task group’s deputy commander, an invitation which also marked the milestone of 75 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Such was the enthusiastic reception for Reyes’s appointment that other regional navies have already registered interest in participating should multinational command become an ongoing feature. It is a significant signal of trust between nations.

With IPE now in its fourth iteration, and ably led this year by Commodore Mal Wise despite the unenviable constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, why are such achievements being overlooked? One answer is that, unlike a visiting British carrier strike group or German frigate, an Australian task group visiting the ASEAN nations is less remarkable for the fact that it is our neighbourhood, and our engagement efforts are regular and longstanding.

Rather than mere symbolism, IPE’s activities with each partner nation were painstakingly negotiated over 2021 to ensure the highest value for them. As a prosaic matter, the only time IPE seems to make headlines is when a Chinese intelligence vessel berths alongside or lasers are pointed at aviators. No journalists were onboard this year, and all interactions with foreign navies have been described as ‘safe and professional’.

There are legitimate questions to consider about the implications of nuclear-powered submarines for Australia’s immediate neighbours. Concerns about nuclear proliferation will be asked and must be answered. Port visits by Collins-class submarines have been an important part of the RAN’s naval diplomacy in the past 20 years, from the regular replenishment visits to Singapore to more diplomatically freighted visits to Brunei and New Caledonia. With no requirement for refuelling, and representing the most closely guarded military technology, the future of such visits by nuclear-powered submarines is unclear. But earlier versions of IPE had the explicit task of introducing Australia’s landing helicopter docks to the region and reassuring our neighbours that, despite their being amphibious assault ships, there was no intention to assault anyone. IPE could one day fulfil a similar function for the nuclear-powered submarines.

In any case, the notion of Australia finding security either in or from Asia is a false dichotomy. We must continue doing the former where we can, the latter where we must—and both will be done better alongside the friends and allies we maintain from outside our immediate region.

South Korea–Australia relations and the fine line between cooperation and friction in East Asia

/in

As the Australia–Japan security relationship continues to strengthen, there’s concern among the South Korean security community that that may come at the expense of their country’s own interests.

Security cooperation between South Korea and Australia has become closer over the past decade, reflected in the holding of joint maritime military exercise Haedori–Wallaby since 2012 and the biennial 2+2 meeting of foreign and defence ministers since 2013. Australia has also occasionally participated in the US–Korea amphibious exercise SsangYong, the anti-biological warfare exercise Able Response, and the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise.

The speed with which security cooperation has been developing between South Korea and Australia, however, doesn’t match the development of cooperation between Australia and Japan. The security relationship between Australia and Japan has been enhanced to the point that they’re often called ‘quasi allies’. Consequently, there’s a view in Seoul that Canberra is more supportive of Japan’s security posture than of Korea’s.

Concerns peaked after Australian prime minister Tony Abbott remarked in October 2013 that Japan was ‘Australia’s best friend in Asia’. Then, the conservative government in Seoul had assessed that the North Korean regime would soon collapse. South Korea hoped to rule out any possibility that Japan would interfere if a contingency should arise on the peninsula. South Korean concerns about any such intervention were founded on the United Nations Korea Command—Rear being located in Japan.

This gives the UN HQ legal grounds to dispatch UN troops from Japan to Korea in the event of a Korean contingency. Another (mis)perception in South Korea that has hindered security cooperation between Seoul and Canberra has been Australian support for the efforts of the US and Japan to construct a missile-defence system in the region.

In 2017, tensions heightened between Pyongyang and Washington when North Korea threatened to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile towards the US mainland. Australia’s prime minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that Australia would invoke its alliance treaty to defend the US if that eventuated.

Australia’s position wasn’t appreciated by the South Korean government, which saw these remarks as escalatory and unnecessarily provocative eye-for-an-eye exchanges. It feared that they’d damage South Korea’s efforts to mitigate tension between North Korea and the US.

In 2020, Japan and Australia agreed to sign a reciprocal access agreement, a bilateral arrangement that would enable Australia to dispatch a large number of military personnel to Japan for exercises on Japanese soil.

By 2021, Japan had enhanced its role as a key node of the US-led security network in East Asia and beyond. It achieved this by enhancing its security cooperation with Great Britain and France, and in May conducted a military exercise in Japan with France, the US and Australia.

Given the already very close security relationship between Japan and Australia, some in the South Korean security elite are concerned that their enhanced, and expanding, security cooperation as part of the US-led network might result in Japan emerging as a regional hub of that alliance network.

While South Korea has expanded its security cooperation in the region and has joined various multilateral military exercises in the Pacific and Indian Oceans with different groups of states, it has two major concerns.

South Korea doesn’t feel comfortable with Japan taking a central role in exercises in the East Sea or Northeast Asia and remains concerned about its diminished security status and the possibility of being ‘demoted’ in relation to Japan in the northern axis of the US-led security network.

South Korea also remains concerned that participation in such exercises would risk unnecessarily provoking China, complicating cooperation between Seoul and Beijing on North Korea.

If Australia were perceived by South Korea as becoming too deeply engaged in security cooperation with Japan, it would again raise suspicion that Australia is more supportive of Japan than of South Korea.

To maintain its position within the US-led security network, South Korea needs to be more active in joining military exercises organised by the US. One way to enhance the Korea–Australia bilateral relationship would be for Korea to join the Australia-led exercises in the Pacific along with the US, rather than the Japan-led exercises in Northeast Asia.

In this context, it’s worth noting South Korea’s participation in the Talisman Sabre military exercise involving Australia and the US in 2021. While, strategically, Korea has been hesitant to join military exercises that might be seen as targeting China, it has good reasons to participate in them from an operational perspective, especially to enhance interoperability.

As it seeks to enhance its security cooperation with Australia, whether bilaterally or more broadly, South Korea must walk a fine line.