Tag Archive for: United States of America

Impactful mateship: Strengthening the US–Australia defence relationship through enhanced mutual understanding

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AUKUS, and the Australian Government’s release of the 2023 report of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), reinforce to Canberra and Washington DC that there’s an urgent need to continue strengthening the US–Australia alliance. Those efforts underpin allied cooperation within the Indo-Pacific, which is an increasingly complex security environment. 
 
This report highlights 9 opportunities for both US and Australian defence decision-makers at a vital time in the relationship as it develops in complexity and builds towards the ambitions of AUKUS over the coming decade. 
 
A series of ‘quick wins’ for the US DoD are recommended, including arranging more training for inbound DoD personnel and conducting allied-centric training for relevant US-based action officers and planners at US headquarters. US DoD Funding should be provided for US action officers to visit Australia to build rapport with their counterparts and facilitate appreciation for the relationship in person. Broadly, US professional military education at every level should incorporate Australian Defence-centric views when appropriate, and the DoD can better leverage its US liaison network throughout Australia earlier in planning and when considering new initiatives. 
 
Recommended quick wins for Australian Defence to include further leveraging of US-based Australian Defence personnel and encouraging greater transparency with US counterparts regarding capacity. Enhanced transparency would provide maximum clarity on capacity challenges at all echelons, especially regarding the potential impacts of a future crisis within the Indo-Pacific. It’s also recommended that Australian Defence provide greater clarity regarding sovereignty and security concerns for the US DoD. 
 
Finally, this report also makes a major long-term recommendation that will require more resourcing, coordination and focus from US and Australian defence decision-makers, and that’s to establish and empower a US Forces Australia headquarters (USFOR-A) to synergise US DoD efforts with the Australian defence establishment. It’s inevitable that the US–Australia defence relationship will grow in scope and complexity. That will quickly outgrow and challenge the current coordination structure, which was built and implemented decades ago. This report also notes that there are lessons to be learned from the US–Japan bilateral coordination mechanisms, especially in the light of the US–Japan–Australia defence relationship, as it is set to grow in importance in the coming years.

Escalation risks in the Indo-Pacific: a review for practitioners

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The outbreak of war in the Indo-Pacific is a real possibility. Increased competition, a growing trust deficit between global and regional powers and potential miscalculations heighten the risk. There needs to be a more engaged Australian discussion on conflict-escalation risks and how they might be managed.

Policymakers and leaders need to understand escalation risks as they manage Australia’s relationship with the US, China, North Korea and Australia’s key regional defence partners over coming decades. In rhetoric and in action, Australia also needs to be attentive to how the acquisition and employment of our own new capabilities—strike missiles, evolving cyber capabilities and nuclear-propelled submarines—affect strategic stability dynamics in a fast-changing world.

Multiple factors mean that there are all-too-imaginable possibilities for inadvertent and accidental escalation around flashpoints like the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and in the East and South China Seas. Moreover, the maritime nature of the Western Pacific as a military theatre, combined with emerging technologies like hypersonics, means that decision makers could face very strong pressures toward pre-emption in a crisis. Put more simply, the fear-driven pressure to ‘shoot first’ could be very strong and very dangerous.

Managing these risks has clearly been made a priority by the Australian government – with senior ministers frequently talking about ‘guardrails’ – and the report suggests some options for doing so.

‘With a little help from my friends’: capitalising on opportunity at AUSMIN 2022

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The annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations have been the primary forum for bilateral engagement since 1985. The Australian Minister for Defence and Minister for Foreign Affairs will meet with their American counterparts in Washington in 2022, in the 71st year of the alliance, and it’s arguably never been so important.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is proud to release ‘With a little help from my friends’: Capitalising on opportunity at AUSMIN 2022, a report featuring chapters from our defence, cyber and foreign policy experts to inform and guide the Australian approach to the 2022 AUSMIN consultations.

In this report, ASPI harnesses its broad and deep policy expertise to provide AUSMIN’s principals with tangible policy recommendations to take to the US. The following chapters describe Australia’s most pressing strategic challenges. The authors offer policy recommendations for enhancing Australian and US collaboration to promote security and economic prosperity.

The collection of essays covers topics and challenges that the US and Australia must tackle together: defence capability, foreign affairs, climate change, foreign interference, rare earths, cyber, technology, the Pacific, space, integrated deterrence and coercive diplomacy. In each instance, there are opportunities for concrete, practical policy steps to ensure cohesion and stability.”

The 2022 US midterm elections and what they might mean for Australia

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On 8 November, Americans will vote in midterm congressional elections to determine all 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives and one-third of the 100 seats in the Senate. This ASPI commentary outlines what the midterm election outcomes could mean for Australia’s strategic interests by examining the role of congressional committees in US foreign, security and defence policymaking. While most core elements of the Australia–US relationship are bipartisan and enduring, changes to the congressional committees can influence policy areas that overlap with or are vital to Australian interests. Even small changes in the way Congress works could determine how much priority Australian strategic interests receive. Canberra should therefore be highly attuned to the changes in committee structure and membership. 
 
Once the new Congress settles in, the Australian Government will have a brief window of opportunity to feed into and influence outcomes in US foreign, security and defence policymaking. After that point, campaigning will consume Congress, making it harder for Australian diplomats, politicians and other officials to be heard leading up to the 2024 US presidential election. AUSMIN in December 2022, the outcomes of the Defence Strategic Review and AUKUS pathway review (both expected March 2023) along with major Quad meetings held in the first half of 2023, all fall within this window and provide opportunities for senior Australian Government representatives visiting Washington to engage with both their Administration counterparts and with members of Congress including, for example, the strong friends of Australia in the AUKUS Working Group. 
 
This analysis of the midterms and their implications for Australia is informed by a series of meetings with congressional committee staff members (policy analysts and researchers). Those individuals serve both Democratic and Republican members of Congress and work in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Australian views on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

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Australian officials surveyed for this research view the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) as an opportunity to bring more investment into the Indo-Pacific region, shape standards setting, form collective solutions to supply-chain risks, and influence the direction of clean energy infrastructure. The IPEF is viewed as a potentially innovative way to boost regional investment rather than as a mechanism to strengthen the usual substance of trade agreements, such as market access into the US.

While we note that the officials interviewed aren’t the ultimate decision-makers and that there’s a new government in Canberra with its own emerging priorities, this report offers insight into the potential opportunities for Australia to shape the framework.

AUKUS Update #1: May 2022

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On the 16th of September 2021, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US announced the creation of a new trilateral security partnership called ‘AUKUS’—Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The three national leaders stated, ‘We will foster deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains. And in particular, we will significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities.’

At a time of rapidly increasing strategic uncertainty, when it’s increasingly clear that authoritarian regimes are willing to use military power to achieve their goals, it’s important to monitor the implementation of AUKUS so that governments and the public can assess whether it’s achieving the goal of accelerating the fielding of crucial military technologies.

To track the implementation of AUKUS, ASPI will publish regular updates on progress. This is the first of those updates.

Meeting Antarctica’s diplomatic challenges: Joint approaches for Australia and the United States

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This report describes current security and environmental policy challenges related to Antarctica and proposes options for Australia and the United States to address them. It assesses the current and potential future actions of strategic competitors like China and Russia, and proposes policy responses.

It suggests ways in which the US and Australian governments can work more closely to protect and promote the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), advancing support for an approach to governance that the two nations have felt for decades is in their respective national interests. This requires both countries (as well as others) to make a clear-eyed assessment of current and future fault lines and move more quickly to address political and environmental challenges that have implications well beyond Antarctica. In particular, this involves determining when it’s necessary to counter the ambitions of strategic competitors, such as China and Russia, in the Antarctic context, and when cooperation may be the more appropriate objective.

The current Antarctic governance regime, while far from perfect… achieves a great deal that’s in the long-term national interests of Australia and the US. The ATS shouldn’t be dismissed as out of date; it can still be effective in addressing core regional concerns of both countries. Both countries can use their influence to insist on the implementation by all countries of ATS rules and can invoke those rules to fight for environmental protection and policies that support scientists. It’s unlikely that a more effective set of treaties could be negotiated today. Australia and the US should spend more time at both senior and working levels to coordinate positions and on outreach to other governments on Antarctic issues.

What is AUKUS and what is it not?

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What IS the new AUKUS partnership between the US, the UK and Australia? How does it fit with the Quad, ASEAN and other new forums like the government-tech Sydney Dialogue?

This new ASPI Insight sets out what AUKUS is—a technology accelerator that’s’ about shifting the military balance in the Indo Pacific. Just as importantly, it sets out what AUKUS it isn’t, to reset some of the discussion that has made some assumptions here. AUKUS isn’t a new alliance structure, a competitor to the Quad between Australia, India, Japan and the US, or a signal of decreased commitment to ASEAN forums by the AUKUS members.

And the Insight proposes some focus areas for implementation of this new ‘minilateral’ technology accelerator, including having  a single empowered person in each nation charged with implementation and ‘obstacle busting’. This is to break through the institutional, political and corporate permafrost that has prevented such rapid technological adoption by our militaries in recent decades. As is the case with James Miller in the US, this person should report to their national leader, not from inside the defence bureaucracies of the three nations.

On purpose and urgency, the report identifies a simple performance metric for AUKUS implementers over the next three years. On 20 January 2025, when the Australian prime minister calls whoever is the US president on that day, AUKUS has become such a successful piece of the furniture, with tangible results that have generated broad institutional, political and corporate support that, regardless of how warm or testy this leaders’ phone call is (think Turnbull-Trump in January 2016), AUKUS’s momentum continues.

Collaborative and agile. Intelligence community collaboration insights from the United Kingdom and the United States

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The central aim of this report is to generate insights from the US and UK intelligence communities’ collaboration efforts. It identifies insights so that members of Australia’s national intelligence community, including the ONI, can use them to enhance the community’s collaboration and agility for the purpose of giving Australian decision-makers an insight edge over others. We acknowledge that agencies must contextualise those insights to Australia’s specific circumstances, and we’ve sought to do some of that in this report. The report isn’t intended as an academic think piece but as a guide-and goad-to actions that can advance and protect Australia’s wellbeing, prosperity and security.

This report doesn’t seek to second-guess the internal insights that it explores. Instead, it takes an external perspective, informed by experience in relevant agencies and by perspectives from intelligence-community partners and analysts in the UK and the US.

ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance

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The ANZUS Treaty was signed on 1 September 1951 in San Francisco. It was the product of energetic Australian lobbying to secure a formal US commitment to Australian and New Zealand security. At the time, the shape of Asian security after World War II was still developing. Canberra worried that a ‘soft’ peace treaty with Japan might one day allow a return of a militarised regime to threaten the region.

ANZUS at 70 explores the past, present and future of the alliance relationship, drawing on a wide range of authors with deep professional interest in the alliance. Our aim is to provide lively and comprehensible analysis of key historical points in the life of the treaty and indeed of the broader Australia–US bilateral relationship, which traces its defence origins back to before World War I.

ANZUS today encompasses much more than defence and intelligence cooperation. Newer areas of collaboration include work on cybersecurity, space, supply chains, industrial production, rare earths, emerging science and technology areas such as quantum computing, climate change and wider engagement with countries and institutions beyond ANZUS’s initial scope or intention.

The treaty remains a core component of wider and deeper relations between Australia and the US. This study aims to show the range of those ties, to understand the many and varied challenges we face today and to understand how ANZUS might be shaped to meet future events.

Watch the launch webinar here.

Tag Archive for: United States of America

ASPI DC provide expertise to MITRE on Indo-Pacific Wargaming exercise

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On November 2nd and 3rd, ASPI DC Analysts, Greg Brown, Bronte Munro and Iain MacGillivray participated in MITRE’s Sage Dragon exercise re: influence competition in the Pacific. The team provided unique insights into Australia’s strategic outlook in the region and helped informed allied decision making in the hypothetical scenarios.

Despite progress, major challenges lie ahead for AUKUS

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Discussions during a trilogy of AUKUS-related events in Washington on the one-year anniversary of the deal’s announcement suggest the novel strategic partnership is about much more than submarines, the transfer of nuclear propulsion know-how and Anglosphere chumminess.

Political officials, scholars and practitioners gathered last week under the auspices of ASPI, the Center for New American Security and the Centre for Grand Strategy at King’s College London to identify key successes and primary challenges for the partnership.

The political leadership in all three countries appears fully aboard with AUKUS—the deal has survived a change in government in Australia and a change in prime minister in the UK—and officials describe levels of cooperation not seen since World War II to streamline advanced technology sharing. Participating officials described AUKUS as a new paradigm of defence integration across a broad spectrum of advanced technologies to maintain scientific and engineering advantages while improving a collective defence posture among the three countries.

For the US, this project represents an overdue shift of attention to the Indo-Pacific and a determined effort to make good on longstanding promises of a geostrategic pivot to the region and the looming Chinese threat with the help of steadfast partners. It also portends a change in the American approach to alliance capability sharing. AUKUS helps to further anchor Australia in the American defence orbit and should make Beijing think hard about how to respond to a Canberra that’s increasingly willing to push back against Chinese aggression. In the UK, the AUKUS agreement is seen as necessary to show strength alongside allies with shared interests and values, but also as part of the UK’s new ‘global Britain’ strategy in the wake of its departure from the EU.

The much-publicised submarine component of the pact—so-called pillar 1—appears to be moving forward apace. All parties expect that a plan to provide Australia with nuclear-propelled submarines will be announced, as scheduled, in March. The details are being held close by officials, but a year into talks, confidence is growing that delivery may occur earlier than the parties expected at the beginning of discussions. Besides the actual capacity-enhancing propulsion technology transfer, AUKUS partners see pillar 1 as a ‘big bet’ signal that will demonstrate a capacity to meet the defence coordination challenges of the second pillar, relating to artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other emerging technologies.

The decision of the AUKUS partners to take their case for the sharing of nuclear-propulsion technology to the International Atomic Energy Agency in the interests of transparency, and the response from most of the international community to consider, accept or support the argument in good faith, portend success for pillar 1. Some allies and partners have expressed concerns about AUKUS’s effects on nuclear proliferation and possible further destabilisation of the Indo-Pacific, but the Chinese information campaign to discredit AUKUS has so far failed to gain much traction.

Despite widespread support for AUKUS and a desire for its success, three pressing issues were repeatedly raised throughout the discussions.

First, there is a lack of clarity around AUKUS’s strategic purpose and what each partner aims to achieve. The inability to define specific, shared goals beyond banalities of protecting the ‘rules-based order’ or technology sharing to ‘deter Chinese aggression’ may belie a failure to identify different threat perceptions and risk appetites, which, if accounted for, help determine how to rank the technologies that are critical to advancing specific interests for each partner.

Does AUKUS strengthen integrated deterrence against a common threat, namely China, or may some technology transfers—even discussion of them—trigger escalation in some scenarios? If power projection is itself a goal for one or more of the partners, pillar 2 activities need tailoring. It is understandable that more time is needed here given that the efforts under pillar 1 are the initial priority. Determining metrics for measuring AUKUS’s worth is necessary before making any further claims of success, however.

Second, the story of AUKUS—or lack of one—also poses a challenge. The narrative on the need for the deal in the first place hasn’t really registered beyond nuclear submarines meeting Australia’s defence needs, resulting in confusion from regional allies and partners, and giving rise to concerns that AUKUS could destabilise the Indo-Pacific region. Canberra, London and Washington need to have explicit and uncomplicated discussions with allies and partners about what they intend the deal to accomplish more broadly.

Is AUKUS a trial run for a similar, future initiative with Japan, France or other countries in the Indo-Pacific? The potential for Chinese disinformation to colour perceptions of the deal will grow the longer that the AUKUS members delay announcements and fail to fully explain its parameters and objectives. This effort will require the AUKUS partners to gain a more comprehensive understanding of why allies and friends may be sceptical, regardless of Chinese influence.

Finally, a major concern is the failure so far of AUKUS partners to assess the role of commercial industry, supply chains and broader society in enabling pillar 2 to succeed. Shared bureaucratic, legal and practical infrastructure is needed to support sustained advanced technology sharing across myriad critical technologies—all of which are at various stages of development. Each partner needs to conduct a comprehensive review of its supply chains and skills gaps to ensure shared technology is utilised and retained.

Pillar 2 is fundamentally different from pillar 1. A top-down approach needs grassroots support for AUKUS to succeed. Pillar 2 exceeds the scope of traditional defence capability sharing, and this alone will necessitate creative and uncomfortable changes at all levels to ensure its success. Long-term momentum may be difficult to sustain without greater industry and civil-society stakes in AUKUS’s development and a better understanding of its potential benefits. Domestic diplomacy will need the support of think tanks, educational institutions and ‘track 2’ planning to clarify and refine AUKUS over time.

ASPI launches Washington DC office

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Australia’s first overseas think tank presence was officially opened today by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Australia, the Hon Richard Marles MP.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has gained global attention for its research and today launched its office in Washington DC.

The Deputy Prime Minister said, ‘in so many ways, the product of ASPI is critically important, not only in informing the Australian public, but those of us in government who seek to play a role in this space.’

On the importance of think tanks, Marles stated: ‘for those of us who believe in democracies, it’s really important that the value of modern democracies is advocated.’

ASPI Executive Director, Justin Bassi, said ‘as one of the most important US allies, it’s important Australia is competing in this marketplace, and providing US decision makers and the US public with a perspective from the most critical part of the world.’

ASPI’s Washington presence will be led by Mark Watson, a former lawyer and diplomat with over thirty years experience in international relations and national security.

ASPI’s DC office will build on its existing great reputation in the United States by serving a unique role as an authoritative Australian voice in the American capital for think tank perspectives on Australian security, defence and foreign policy.

In-conversation with General David H. Berger, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps

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Recently, ASPI was joined by General David H. Berger, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. In conversation with ASPI’s Executive Director Peter Jennings, General Berger discussed defence reform and capability acquisition, the US-Australia alliance and the strategic outlook in the Indo-Pacific, including the latest developments between China and Solomon Islands.

Note: The welcome and introduction of the session unfortunately had to be removed due to technical issues.

Bio: General David H. Berger assumed the duties of Commandant of the Marine Corps on July 11, 2019. A native of Woodbine, Maryland, General Berger graduated from Tulane University and was commissioned in 1981.

He commanded at every level – including a Reconnaissance Company; 3d Battalion, 8th Marines in Haiti during Operation SECURE TOMORROW; Regimental Combat Team 8 in Fallujah, Iraq during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. As a General Officer, he commanded 1st Marine Division (Forward) in Afghanistan during Operation ENDURING FREEDOM; I Marine Expeditionary Force; U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific/Fleet Marine Forces Pacific; and Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

General Berger’s staff and joint assignments include serving as Assistant Division Commander of 2d Marine Division; policy planner in the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate, J-5; Chief of Staff for Kosovo Force (KFOR) Headquarters in Pristina, Kosovo; and Director of Operations in Plans, Policies, and Operations, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps; Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration.

General Berger’s formal military education includes the U.S. Army Infantry Officer Advanced Course, U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and U.S. Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting. He holds multiple advanced degrees including a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Darwin US fuel storage facility

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Fifteen kilometres from Darwin CBD, there’s a plot of mud and dirt that is about to become a $270 million asset for the United States defence force.

By September 2023, the East Arm fuel storage facility is expected to be able to store 300 million litres of military jet fuel to support American defence activities in the Northern Territory and Indo-Pacific region.

Dr Teagan Westerdorf speaks to ABC News. Read the full piece here. 

ASPI appoints inaugural director of Washington DC office

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ASPI is delighted to announce the appointment of Mr. Mark Watson as the inaugural director of ASPI’s Washington DC office.

With more than 30 years’ experience in national security and international relations, Mark comes to ASPI with expertise in policy analysis, stakeholder mapping and engagement, strategic planning and business management, and public-private partnerships in the national security community.

Mark is a trained Chinese linguist, holding degrees in Law and History from the University of Sydney, an Honours degree in Strategic Studies from Deakin University and a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of New England. He also completed post-graduate studies in the Economic and Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China at the University of Hong Kong, and is a graduate of the Senior Executives Leadership Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

During his time as a diplomat, Mark had postings to Port Moresby, Hong Kong, Singapore, London and, most recently, at the Australian Embassy in Washington DC. In that role, Mark was responsible for maintaining and developing partnerships with US Defence, national security and policy analysis communities, as well as with the private sector companies supporting those communities.

Most recently, Mark established Sydney Avenue Consultants; a strategic advice consultancy specialising in national security and defence community issues. He is also currently the National Security Strategic Adviser at Bondi Partners.

ASPI’s Executive Director Peter Jennings welcomes the new appointment and said Mark would reinforce ASPI’s commitment to become a more active participant in United States think tank debates about defence and national security, and to strengthen the US-Australia relationship. Mark’s knowledge of the Washington DC stakeholder environment and leadership experience will be invaluable for establishing ASPI’s presence in DC.

‘I really feel a great of sense of responsibility in opening ASPI’s first overseas office, particularly one located in a city I know well – Washington DC. It is a unique opportunity for ASPI and for me personally, and I am looking forward to getting to the US as soon as possible to get the office up and running,’ comments Mark on his appointment.

‘This move comes at a time when the US-Australia alliance has never been more integral to Australia’s strategic planning than it is following the announcement of the AUKUS agreement. As President Biden said at the launch of AUKUS: “This is about investing in our greatest source of strength — our alliances — and updating them to better meet the threats of today and tomorrow.”

‘That is a sentiment that I think applies equally well to ASPI and the reason we are opening an office in Washington at this time. To help Australia better meet the threats of today and tomorrow.’

We are excited to welcome Mark to the ASPI leadership team and look forward to working with him. Mark will join us in Canberra until January 2022, when he is anticipated to be on the ground in DC.

ASPI to open an office in Washington DC

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Today the Minister for Defence, the Hon Peter Dutton, MP announced that the Australian Government will support the Australian Strategic Policy Institute to open an office in Washington DC.

Chair of the ASPI Council Lt Gen (Ret’d) Ken Gillespie said “The whole ASPI team is delighted at the Government’s decision to support the opening of a Washington DC Office.

We are particularly pleased that this comes at the time of the 70th Anniversary of the US-Australia alliance and also in ASPI’s 20th year of operations.

Australia has a deep interest in contributing to strategic policy thinking in Washington DC through that city’s lively think tank community.

I am grateful to Mr Dutton for his endorsement of the quality, depth and value of ASPI’s work in contributing to contestability of policy advice.”

How the United States of America engages with the Indo-Pacific region, with China, with America’s regional friends and with treaty allies matters profoundly to Australia and to global security.

ASPI will seek to further strengthen the bilateral relationship by becoming a more active participant in United States think tank debates about defence and national security. 

These think tanks are often the source of new policy ideas and are designed to be able to experiment, develop and explain innovative policy ideas.

The Executive Director of ASPI, Peter Jennings said: “ASPI’s Washington DC office will operate as a branch and be an integral part of ASPI in Canberra, as such, the business model will mirror ASPI’s which has been successfully developed over twenty years.

ASPI’s work focuses on non-partisan empirically grounded original research, a capacity for policy innovation and an ability to shape real-world policy outcomes.

We are proud of the achievements of the organisation over the past twenty years and look forward to the next twenty.

We thank the Minister for Defence for his support to ASPI as well as for the continuing support the Institute receives from Parliament, the Defence organisation and the wider public service, our sponsors and supporters.”

US and Australia must deepen defence cooperation on climate security

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Robert Glasser and Erin Sikorsky write on recent climate-driven disasters and how Australia and the US can cooperate to tackle this crisis.

Read the full article here.

Ask ASPI – Trump’s Russia Problem

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In this Ask ASPI episode, Renee Jones talks to Stephen Loosley about the current state of play between the Trump administration and Russia.