ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker

ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker – The global race for future power

The Critical Technology Tracker is a large data-driven project that now covers 64 critical technologies spanning defence, space, energy, the environment, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotics, cyber, computing, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas. It provides a leading indicator of a country’s research performance, strategic intent and potential future science and technology capability.

It first launched 1 March 2023 and underwent a major expansion on 28 August 2024 which took the dataset from five years (previously, 2018–2022) to 21 years (2003–2023). Explore the website and the broader project here.

Governments and organisations interested in supporting this ongoing program of work, including further expansions and the addition of new technologies, can contact: criticaltech@aspi.org.au.

What’s the problem?

Western democracies are losing the global technological competition, including the race for scientific and research breakthroughs, and the ability to retain global talent—crucial ingredients that underpin the development and control of the world’s most important technologies, including those that don’t yet exist.

Our research reveals that China has built the foundations to position itself as the world’s leading science and technology superpower, by establishing a sometimes stunning lead in high-impact research across the majority of critical and emerging technology domains.

China’s global lead extends to 37 out of 44 technologies that ASPI is now tracking, covering a range of crucial technology fields spanning defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and key quantum technology areas.1 The Critical Technology Tracker shows that, for some technologies, all of the world’s top 10 leading research institutions are based in China and are collectively generating nine times more high-impact research papers than the second-ranked country (most often the US). Notably, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks highly (and often first or second) across many of the 44 technologies included in the Critical Technology Tracker. We also see China’s efforts being bolstered through talent and knowledge import: one-fifth of its high-impact papers are being authored by researchers with postgraduate training in a Five-Eyes country.2 China’s lead is the product of deliberate design and long-term policy planning, as repeatedly outlined by Xi Jinping and his predecessors.3

A key area in which China excels is defence and space-related technologies. China’s strides in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles reportedly took US intelligence by surprise in August 2021.4

Had a tool such as ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker been collecting and analysing this data two years ago, Beijing’s strong interest and leading research performance in this area would have been more easily identified…

Had a tool such as ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker been collecting and analysing this data two years ago, Beijing’s strong interest and leading research performance in this area would have been more easily identified, and such technological advances would have been less surprising. That’s because, according to our data analysis, over the past five years, China generated 48.49% of the world’s high-impact research papers into advanced aircraft engines, including hypersonics, and it hosts seven of the world’s top 10 research institutions in this topic area.

The US comes second in the majority of the 44 technologies examined in the Critical Technology Tracker. The US currently leads in areas such as high performance computing, quantum computing and vaccines. Our dataset reveals that there’s a large gap between China and the US, as the leading two countries, and everyone else. The data then indicates a small, second-tier group of countries led by India and the UK: other countries that regularly appear in this group—in many technological fields— include South Korea, Germany, Australia, Italy, and less often, Japan.

This project—including some of its more surprising findings—further highlights the gap in our understanding of the critical technology ecosystem, including its current trajectory. It’s important that we seek to fill this gap so we don’t face a future in which one or two countries dominate new and emerging industries (something that recently occurred in 5G technologies) and so countries have ongoing access to trusted and secure critical technology supply chains.

China’s overall research lead, and its dominant concentration of expertise across a range of strategic sectors, has short and long term implications for democratic nations. In the long term, China’s leading research position means that it has set itself up to excel not just in current technological development in almost all sectors, but in future technologies that don’t yet exist. Unchecked, this could shift not just technological development and control but global power and influence to an authoritarian state where the development, testing and application of emerging, critical and military technologies isn’t open and transparent and where it can’t be scrutinised by independent civil society and media.

In the more immediate term, that lead—coupled with successful strategies for translating research breakthroughs to commercial systems and products that are fed into an efficient manufacturing base—could allow China to gain a stranglehold on the global supply of certain critical technologies.

Such risks are exacerbated because of the willingness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to use coercive techniques5 outside of the global rules-based order to punish governments and businesses, including withholding the supply of critical technologies.6

What’s the solution?

These findings should be a wake-up call for democratic nations, who must rapidly pursue a strategic critical technology step-up.

Governments around the world should work both collaboratively and individually to catch up to China and, more broadly, they must pay greater attention to the world’s centre of technological innovation and strategic competition: the Indo-Pacific. While China is in front, it’s important for democracies to take stock of the power of their potential aggregate lead and the collective strengths of regions and groupings (for example the EU, the Quad and AUKUS, to name just a few examples). But such aggregate leads will only be fully realised through far deeper collaboration between partners and allies, greater investment in areas including R&D, talent and commercialisation, and more focused intelligence strategies. And, finally, governments must make more space for new, bigger and more creative policy ideas – the step-up in performance required demands no less.

Partners and allies need to step up and seriously consider things such as sovereign wealth funds at 0.5%–0.7% of gross national income providing venture capital, research and scale-up funding, with a sizable portion reserved for high-risk, high-reward ‘moonshots’ (big ideas). Governments should plan for:

  • technology visas, ‘friend-shoring’ and R&D grants between allies
  • a revitalisation of the university sector through specialised scholarships for students and technologists working at the forefront of critical technology research
  • restructuring taxation systems to divert private capital towards venture capital and scale-up efforts for promising new technologies
  • new public–private partnerships and centres of excellence to help to foster greater commercialisation opportunities.

Intelligence communities have a pivotal role to play in both informing decision-makers and building capability. One recommendation we make is that Five-Eyes countries, along with Japan, build an intelligence analytical centre focused on China and technology (starting with open-source intelligence).

We outline 23 policy recommendations for partners and allies to act on collaboratively and individually. They span across the four themes of investment and talent; global partnerships; intelligence; and moonshots. While China is in front, it’s important for democracies to take stock of their combined and complementary strengths. When added up, they have the aggregate lead in many technology areas.

  1. Visit the Critical Technology Tracker site for a list and explanation of these 44 technologies: techtracker.aspi.org.au/list-of-technologies. ↩︎
  2. Australian Signals Directorate, ‘Intelligence partnerships’, Australian Government, 2023 ↩︎
  3. See ‘China’s science and technology vision’ on page 14. ↩︎
  4. Demetri Sevastopulo, Kathrin Hille, ‘China tests new space capability with hypersonic missile’, Financial Times, 17 October 2021 ↩︎
  5. Fergus Hunter, Daria Impiombato, Yvonne Lau, Adam Triggs, Albert Zhang, Urmika Deb, ‘Countering China’s coercive diplomacy: prioritising economic security, sovereignty and the rules-based order’, ASPI, Canberra, 22 February 2023 ↩︎
  6. Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey, Tracy Beattie, The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy, ASPI, Canberra, 1 September 2020, online; State Department, China’s coercive tactics abroad, US Government, no date, online; Bonnie S Glaser, Time for collective pushback against China’s economic coercion, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 13 January 2021, online; Marcin Szczepanski, China’s economic coercion: evolution, characteristics and countermeasures, briefing, European Parliament, 15 November 2022, online; Mercy A Kuo, ‘Understanding (and managing) China’s economic coercion’, The Diplomat, 17 October 2022. ↩︎

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

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.

Countering China’s coercive diplomacy

Countering China’s coercive diplomacy: prioritising economic security, sovereignty and the rules-based order

What’s the problem?

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly using a range of economic and non-economic tools to punish, influence and deter foreign governments in its foreign relations. Coercive actions have become a key part of the PRC’s toolkit as it takes a more assertive position in international disputes and seeks to reshape the global order in its favour.

This research finds that the PRC’s use of coercive tactics is now sitting at levels well above those seen a decade ago, or even five years ago. The year 2020 marked a peak, and the use of trade restrictions and state-issued threats have become favoured methods. The tactics have been used in disputes over governments’ decisions on human rights, national security and diplomatic relations.

The PRC’s tactics have had mixed success in affecting the policies of target governments; most governments have stood firm, but some have acquiesced. Undeniably, the tactics are harming certain businesses, challenging sovereign decision-making and weakening economic security. The tactics also undermine the rules-based international order and probably serve as a deterrent to governments, businesses and civil-society groups that have witnessed the PRC’s coercion of others and don’t want to become future targets. This can mean that decision-makers, fearing that punishment, are failing to protect key interests, to stand up for human rights or to align with other states on important regional and international issues.

What’s the solution?

Governments must pursue a deterrence strategy that seeks to change the PRC’s thinking on coercive tactics by reducing the perceived benefits and increasing the costs. The strategy should be based on policies that build deterrence in three forms: resilience, denial and punishment. This strategy should be pursued through national, minilateral and multilateral channels.

Building resilience is essential to counter coercion, but it isn’t a complete solution, so we must look at interventions that enhance deterrence by denial and punishment. States must engage in national efforts to build deterrence but, alone, it’s unlikely that they’ll prevail against more powerful aggressors, so working collectively with like-minded partners and in multilateral institutions is necessary.

It’s essential that effective strategic communications accompany all of these efforts.

This report makes 24 policy recommendations. It recommends, for example, better cooperation between government and business and efforts to improve the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The report argues that a crucial—and currently missing—component of the response is for a coalition of like-minded states to establish an international taskforce on countering coercion. The taskforce members should agree on the nature of the problem, commit to assisting each other, share information and map out potential countermeasures to deploy in response to coercion.

Solidarity between like-minded partners is critical for states to overcome the power differential and divide-and-conquer tactics that the PRC exploits in disputes. Japan’s presidency of the G7 presents an important opportunity to advance this kind of cooperation in 2023.
 

Introduction

We treat our friends with fine wine, but for our enemies we have shotguns.
—Gui Congyou (桂从友), former PRC Ambassador to Sweden, 20191

The PRC’s use of economic and non-economic coercive statecraft has surged to previously unseen levels,2 as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more aggressively pursues its ‘core interests’, or bottom-line issues on which it isn’t willing to compromise.3 Those tactics have increasingly been deployed in reaction to other states—especially developed democracies—when they make foreign and security policy decisions that displease the CCP.

Coercive diplomacy encompasses a range of ‘grey zone’ or hybrid activity beyond conventional diplomacy and short of military action. It’s ‘the use of threats or negative actions to force the target state to change behaviour’.4 Much of this is economic coercion—the weaponisation of interdependence in goods and services trade and investment. The use of punitive actions to coerce sits alongside the positive inducements also used to influence as part of a carrot-and-stick approach to foreign relations. The exploitation of economic leverage is often accompanied by other coercive tools as part of a multidomain effort to influence a target. This includes cyberattacks, arbitrary detentions and sanctions on individuals.

The PRC’s use of coercive statecraft presents a particular challenge, as its authoritarian governance allows it to harness a range of malign tactics as part of its broader strategic efforts to reshape the existing global order in its favour. As a hybrid threat, this coercive conduct is often used in a way that exploits plausible deniability and a lack of democratic and market-based restraints. The PRC’s coercive behaviour is rarely formally or clearly declared; nor does it necessarily rely on legitimate legal authority.

While other states, including developed democracies, have and use coercive powers, the nature, scale and intent of the PRC’s conduct pose a distinct threat to the rules-based international order.

The PRC’s use of these tactics is weakening the rules-based, liberal international order. While the methods don’t always cause significant economic harm or succeed in immediately changing a target state’s policy, they have done so and have caused other harms, for example by encouraging an environment of self-censorship and promoting a culture in which policymakers avoid public discussions or advancing policy development in certain areas. Another harm is the disruptive nature of the information environment surrounding the PRC’s coercive actions, which places enormous pressure on politicians and decision-makers (including because some commentators question what ‘concessions’ a government will make to potentially unwind the PRC’s punitive measures).

Some states are nonetheless making difficult decisions in defiance of the PRC’s tactics, which alienate policymakers and populations. However, the PRC’s tactics are probably also functioning as a highly successful signal for many countries, especially developing states, deterring them from making decisions that could provoke PRC aggression. This means that states are compromising important decisions with implications for the international order, human rights and national security.

The main analysis in this report is based on an open-source dataset of examples of coercive diplomacy. The dataset draws on information from news articles, policy papers, academic research, company websites, social media, official government documents and statements made by politicians and business officials. The research team gathered as many examples of coercive diplomacy as could be identified publicly from 2020 to 2022. This carries forward the methodology used for ASPI’s 2020 report, The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy.5

In relying on open-source research and mostly English-language sources, this approach does carry limitations. This isn’t intended to be an exhaustive or comprehensive documentation of coercive diplomacy across the world. There will be cases of coercion that have remained private,66 and there may be publicly known cases not captured, especially in countries where English-language reporting is unavailable. This dataset has been compiled to identify trends in the PRC’s use of coercive diplomacy and insights into how and where it operates and how it can be better countered.

In addition to this dataset, the report overviews the PRC’s strategic outlook and analyses a series of in-depth case studies of PRC coercion: Australia, Lithuania and the Republic of Korea. We also conducted modelling of the economic impact of simulated coercive restrictions against those states and analysed the information environment surrounding the actual cases of coercion that they have experienced. The report then concludes with our policy recommendations.

  1. ‘How Sweden copes with Chinese bullying’, The Economist, 20 February 2020, online. This is a reference to ‘My motherland’, the theme song of a Chinese movie about the Korean War. See Fan Anqi, ‘China warns “irretrievable consequences”, “unbearable price” amid US’ Taiwan remarks swings’, Global Times, 24 May 2022, ↩︎
  2. Fergus Hanson, Emilia Currey, Tracy Beattie, The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy, ASPI, Canberra, 1 September 2020. ↩︎
  3. For more on China’s core interests, see Appendix 2. ↩︎
  4. See Ketian Zhang, ‘Chinese non-military coercion—tactics and rationale’, Brookings, 22 January 2019. ↩︎
  5. Hanson et al., The Chinese Communist Party’s coercive diplomacy. ↩︎
  6. For example: Primrose Riordan, ‘China’s veiled threat to Bill Shorten on extradition treaty’, The Australian, 5 December 2017, online; Fergus Hunter, ‘Australia abandoned plans for Taiwanese free trade agreement after warning from China’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 2018. ↩︎

Be’er Sheva Dialogue 2022 – Proceedings and Outcomes

The Eighth annual Be’er Sheva Dialogue was held in Canberra on 21 November 2022. We kindly thank the Australia Israel Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), the Pratt Foundation and the Embassy of Israel in Australia for their support and partnership in the development of this year’s Dialogue.

The Dialogue is named in honour of the Battle of Beersheba (1917), with the 2022 Dialogue marking the 105th anniversary of the battle. Since its inception in 2015, the Dialogue has brought together defence officials, senior parliamentarians and analysts from both Australia and Israel to discuss areas of shared strategic interests and challenges, as well as the potential for collaboration.

Discussions during the Dialogue affirmed the significant potential for growth in the security relationship, especially military to military cooperation and sharing experiences and perspectives of defence industry. A recurring message during the Dialogue was that Israel’s experience with respect to sovereign development of defence and security capabilities and enhancement of weapon systems could be a valuable one for Australia to learn. This was highlighted by the Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister the Hon Richard Marles MP in opening the Dialogue:

Australia looks to Israel as an example of a nation which has been a leader in defence strategic thinking—be it in regard to its defence industry capabilities (and the innovation system, economy and workforce built around that) or in regard to its deep cultural relationship with science and technology. As we look forward, we need to think about how we can continue to deepen our bilateral relationship, which also extends to the relationship between our militaries and defence industries.

Richard Marles, Be'er Sheva 2023

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The Be’er Sheva Dialogue remains an invaluable forum for having these candid and constructive debates.

We look forward to the 2023 Be’er Sheva Dialogue in Israel.

The latest flashpoint on the India-China border: Zooming into the Tawang border skirmishes

The latest flashpoint on the India-China border: Zooming into the Tawang border skirmishes

Overview

On 9 December 2022, Indian and Chinese troops clashed at the Yangtse Plateau along the India-China border. The confrontation was the most serious skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops since Galwan in 2020.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s latest visual project provides satellite imagery analysis of the key areas (including 3D models) and geolocates military, infrastructure and transport positions to show new developments over the last 12 months.

Tawang is strategically valuable Indian territory wedged between China and Bhutan. The Yangtse Plateau is an important location in Tawang because it enables visibility over key Indian supply routes to the region.

Our analysis reveals that rapid infrastructure development along the border in this region means the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can now access key locations on the Yangtse Plateau more easily than it could have just one year ago. While India maintains control of the commanding position on the plateau’s high ground, China has compensated for this disadvantage by building new military and transport infrastructure that allows it to get troops quickly into the area. 

This new ASPI work builds on satellite analysis that ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre carried out in September 2021, focused on the Doklam region (‘A 3D deep dive into the India-China border’). 

The latest analysis aims to contextualise India-China border tensions by examining the terrain in which this clash took place, and provides analysis of developments that threaten the status quo along the border – a major flashpoint in the region.

The India-China border continues to become more crowded as infrastructure is built and large numbers of Indian and Chinese outposts compete for strategic, operational and tactical advantage. This increases the risk of escalation and potential military conflict stemming from incidental or deliberate encounters between Indian and Chinese troops. These ongoing tensions, and clashes, deserve more attention from regional governments, global policymakers and international organisations.

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State-sponsored economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes: tackling an invisible but persistent risk to prosperity

As part of a multi-year capacity building project supporting governments in the Indo-Pacific with defending their economic against the risk of cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, ASPI analysed public records to determine the effects, the actual scale, severity and spread of current incidents of cyberespionage affecting and targeting commercial entities.

In 2015, the leaders agreed that ‘no country should conduct or support ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.’

Our analyses suggests that the threat of state-sponsored economic cyberespionage is more significant than ever, with countries industrialising their cyberespionage efforts to target commercial firms and universities at a grander scale; and more of these targeted industries and universities are based in emerging economies.

“Strategic competition has spilled into the economic and technological domains and states have become more comfortable and capable using offensive cyber capabilities. Our analysis shows that the state practice of economic cyber-espionage appears to have resurged to pre-2015 levels and tripled in raw numbers.”

In this light, we issued a Briefing Note on 15 November 2022 recommending that the G20 members recognise that state-sponsored ICT-enabled theft of IP remains a key concern for international cooperation and encouraging them to reaffirm their commitment made in 2015 to refrain from economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes. 

This latest Policy Brief, State-sponsored economic cyber-espionage for commercial purposes: tackling an invisible but persistent risk to prosperity, further suggests that governments should raise awareness by better assessing and sharing information about the impact of IP theft on their nations’ economies in terms of financial costs, jobs and competitiveness. Cybersecurity and intelligence authorities should invest in better understanding the extent of state sponsored economic cyber-espionage on their territories.

On the international front, the G20 and relevant UN committees should continue addressing the issue and emphasising countries’ responsibilities not to allow the attacks to be launched from their territories. 

The G20 should encourage members to reaffirm their 2015 commitments and consider establishing a cross-sectoral working group to develop concrete guidance for the operationalisation and implementation of the 2015 agreement while assessing the scale and impact of cyber-enabled IP theft.

State sponsored economic cyberespionage Briefing note
Defending against cyber IP theft Project flyer

‘Impactful projection’: long-range strike options for Australia

Executive Summary

The Australian Government has stated that the ADF requires greater long-range strike capability. This was first stated by the previous government in its 2020 Defence Strategic Update (DSU), which emphasised the need for ‘self-reliant deterrent effects’. The present government has endorsed that assessment: Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles has stated that ‘the ADF must augment its self-reliance to deploy and deliver combat power through impactful materiel and enhanced strike capability—including over longer distances.’ He’s coined the term ‘impactful projection’ to describe the intended effect of this capability, which is to place ‘a very large question mark in the adversary’s mind.’

The term may be new, but the concept is not. To us, it’s a restating of the concept of deterrence by denial; that is, having sufficiently robust capabilities to convince an adversary that the cost of acting militarily against us isn’t worth any gains that might be made.

But the need for the ADF to have those kinds of capabilities has become much more urgent. As the 2020 DSU noted, we no longer have 10 years of warning time of conventional conflict involving Australia. Moreover, this is not just the prospect of conflict far from Australia’s shores. People’s Liberation Army (PLA) force-projection capabilities have grown dramatically in the past two decades and include long-range conventional ballistic missiles, bombers and advanced surface combatants that have already transited through Australian waters.

The ‘worst case’ scenario for Australia’s military strategy has always been the prospect of an adversary establishing a presence in our near region from which it can target Australia or isolate us from our partners and allies. PLA strike capabilities in the archipelago to our north or the Southwest Pacific, whether on ships and submarines or land-based missiles and aircraft, would be that worst case. That could occur as China sought to ‘horizontally escalate’ a conflict with the US to stretch its military resources. So, an enhanced ADF long-range strike capability is not primarily about a conflict off Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

Unfortunately, the ADF’s strike cupboard is rather bare. Defence is acquiring more modern maritime strike and land-attack missiles for its existing platforms. But, even if equipped with better weapons, strike systems built around fighter planes or surface combatants are unlikely to have the ‘affordable mass’ or range needed to deter or defeat a major power’s attempts to project force against Australia.

There’s no doubt that the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) commissioned by the Albanese government is considering new strike options. According to the review’s terms of reference, those capabilities need to be delivered by 2032–33. In this report, we consider options to increase the ADF’s strike power in that time frame.

We start with the US Air Force’s B-21 Raider bomber, which was recently rolled out in California. The B-21 has become a topical issue here but so far there’s been little reliable information to inform the public discussion. This report is a first step in investigating the public data that is currently available on the B-21, while also analysing the B-21’s suitability for Australia’s needs.

As an extremely stealthy bomber that can deliver large amounts of ordnance across our near region, the B-21 is the ‘gold standard’ in strike capability. It could potentially be delivered by 2032–33. But that capability comes at great cost. We estimate the total acquisition cost for a squadron of 12 aircraft to be in the order of $25–28 billion and have a sustainment cost that would put it among the ADF’s most expensive current capabilities (but be significantly less than nuclear-powered submarines).

But that cost is potentially offset by a number of factors. A single B-21 can deliver the same effect as many F-35As. Moreover, B-21s would not require the ‘overhead’ of supporting capabilities such as air-to-air refuellers when operating in our region. Moreover, the B-21 can prosecute targets from secure air bases in Australia’s south, where it has access to workforce, fuel and munitions.

Of course, there are other options for long-range strike. These have their own constellations of cost, capability and risk. Long-range missiles, including hypersonics, have also received much recent attention. But they may be deceptively expensive; the further we want a missile to fly, the more expensive it is, and none of its exquisite components are reusable. Moreover, history suggests that very large numbers of missiles will be needed to defeat an adversary—more than we’re ever likely to be able to afford or stockpile.

Any assessment of capability options needs to be informed by robust cost–benefit analysis. The B-21 certainly has a high sticker price, but if, by virtue of its stealth, it can employ cheaper, short-range weapons, then in the long run it may be more affordable and deliver greater effects than long-range missiles alone. It was analysis of this kind that persuaded the USAF to go down the path of a new bomber. Of course, such exercises are assumption-rich activities, and all assumptions need to be rigorously tested; what’s valid for the US might not be for Australia.

Then there are several options that fall under the heading of the ‘Goldilocks’ bomber: a strike system that doesn’t have the eye-watering cost of the B-21 but still delivers a meaningful capability enhancement. One option is provided by ‘palletised munitions’ dropped from military cargo aircraft. There are two attributes of this approach that have appeal in Australia’s circumstances. The first is that many of the components, such as the missiles and aircraft, are already in ADF inventory or are being acquired. The second is that airlifters can operate from the short and unprepared airfields found in our region. More strike aircraft operating from more locations enhances the survivability of our strike system and complicates the adversary’s operating picture.

Another Goldilocks approach is potentially provided by autonomous, uncrewed systems. They will still need to be large to provide the range needed for impactful projection. However, it’s possible to discern what the solution could look like; for example, a larger version of the Ghost Bat that can deliver ordnance across our near region. At some point, the future of strike will involve larger crewed and uncrewed systems supported by large numbers of ‘the small, the smart and the many’—cheap, disposable systems that Australian industry can responsively produce in mass. The key question is: can that be done within the DSR’s 2032–33 target time frame?

There is potentially a way for Australia to have its cake and eat it too: by hosting USAF B-21s. Under the Enhanced Air Cooperation stream of the US Force Posture Initiative, USAF B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft visit northern Australia. In future, having our major ally rotate B-21s through northern Australia could obviate the requirement for Australia to have this kind of long-range strike capability in its own order of battle. Ultimately, the issue comes down to how much independent, sovereign strike capability the Australian Government requires. And any sovereign Australian capability adds to the overall alliance pool, which is the core concept underpinning AUKUS.

This report also examines some of the main arguments against the B-21. While all of them need to be considered seriously, we would also note that the world has changed. The September 2021 AUKUS announcement under which Australia will acquire a nuclear-powered submarine capability demonstrates that. Things that were previously inconceivable are now happening, so we shouldn’t dismiss the B-21 out of hand. Our recommendation is that the Australian Government should engage with the US Government to gain access to the information on the B-21 program so they can make an informed decision on its viability for Australia.

This analysis will form part of wider ASPI program of work looking at the strategic and capability questions that Australia is grappling with, including deterrence and long-range strike.

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

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.”

Counterterrorism Yearbook 2022

The Road from 9/11

It’s been its been over two decades since the 9/11 attacks when two planes hit the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. Close to 3,000 people died and many others were injured, and even more people were traumatised by the experience and the loss of loved ones. Today’s release of the Counterterrorism (CT) yearbook 2022 coincides with the anniversary of the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and the deaths of 174 people. These and other acts of terror have left an indelible mark and shaped the years that followed.

Australia’s overall security environment is increasingly challenging to navigate. Emerging threats such as information operation campaigns, cyberattacks and climate change are increasing the complexity of the world. In 2022, major geopolitical events including Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s continuing coercive operations and aggression, occupied a significant space in national discourse. Foreign interference and espionage have continued to rise to the forefront of intelligence agencies priorities.

Yet, terrorism prevails as a significant security concern for Australia and the wider region. These continuing challenges mean that ASPI’s 6th edition of the Counterterrorism Yearbook is as important as ever.

ASPI’s Executive Director, Justin Bassi, notes in the preface of this 6th edition of the CT Yearbook, that ‘while terrorism is no longer assessed by ASIO to be our top security threat, it hasn’t disappeared and in fact continues to be one of the predominant security concerns for Australia and the region.’

The 2022 yearbook was co-edited by Katja Theodorakis, head of ASPI’s Counterterrorism, CVE and Resilience program and Gill Savage, an ASPI senior fellow, considers CT challenges through the lens of the world context, today’s challenges and explores wider policy considerations through a range of chapters from 16 expert authors. The yearbook includes chapters on trends in terrorism, precrime policing and extremism, radicalisation of teenagers, strategic competition and CT, public trust, multiculturalism and bioterrorism and resilience.

Theodorakis notes in her introduction that:

‘For most of the past two decades, terrorism and extremism were largely seen as an external issue brought to Australia by foreign problems. Even when talking about ‘homegrown jihadists’, extremist ideological motivations were generally ascribed to global terrorist sources in faraway places.’

The presence of motivated violent extremist groups continues and are increasingly accompanied by issue-specific radicalised individuals. A key aspect of the changing environment is the use of social media by extremist groups to tap into public discord arising from Covid lockdowns and vaccination mandates as well as violence driven by divisive political agendas in democratic countries such as the White House riots in 2020.

Today’s CT environment is an increasingly complex one, the impact of which hasn’t diminished. It represents a challenge that requires governments, community and academia to continue to work together.

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: Views from The Strategist, Volume 6

The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report, North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 6, is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months, building on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building and Australia’s north.

This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as maritime law enforcement, equatorial space launch, renewable energy infrastructure, rare earths and critical minerals, agriculture, Industry 4.0, advanced manufacturing, fuel and water security, and defence force posturing. It also features a foreword by the Honourable Madeleine King MP, Minister for Northern Australia.

Minister King writes, “Northern Australia promises boundless opportunity and potential. It is the doorway to our region and key to our future prosperity.”

The 24 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.

This is a link to the previous volume 5.