The big wins for a stronger Australia out of AUSMIN talks

This week’s AUSMIN dialogue between Australia and the United States has delivered some important policy agreements that will strengthen the vital US-Australia alliance in the face of a strategic outlook that Australia’s National Defence Strategy, released in April, characterises as “the most challenging environment since the Second World War”.

Of greatest concern in confronting the risks ahead must be that China will seek to impose unification on Taiwan, against the wishes of the Taiwanese people, through use of force, if necessary, with a crisis potentially coming as early as this decade.

China also continues aggressive provocations, notably against the Philippines, in an effort to dominate and control the South China Sea.

In the longer term, Chinese success in these territorial disputes would see it then well placed to control maritime trade routes that are vital to Australia’s security and economic prosperity in the 2030s and beyond.

In the face of this growing challenge, Australia and the US must continue to strengthen their alliance and reinforce credible deterrence against the risk that Beijing will seek to use military force to achieve its geostrategic ambitions in the coming decade and beyond.

The latest round of AUSMIN talks saw very practical and sensible steps being taken towards this goal.

Most importantly, AUSMIN saw agreement between Canberra and Washington that Australia’s defence facilities in the north will be enhanced to enable greater access and sustained use by US military forces during a crisis. This makes eminent sense.

Australia’s key role in any future war with China would be to act as a secure rear area for US and allied forces to operate from and to sustain and support allied military operations in what is likely to be protracted major power war lasting months or longer.

The agreement out of AUSMIN to enhance airbases at Darwin and Tindal in the Northern Territory, and to consider upgrades to the “bare bases” at Curtin, Learmonth and Scherger, as well as at the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, will give US and ADF forces greater flexibility to conduct forward operations in a crisis.

Important agreements were made on combined logistics, sustainment and maintenance that builds on a demonstration of pre-positioned US Army equipment at Albury-Wodonga and will consider requirements for establishing a logistics support area in Queensland.

It is sensible for Australia and the United States to prioritise the steps needed to ensure that the US, and other allied partners in the Indo-Pacific, can operate on a sustained basis from Australia in a future war in the Indo-Pacific.

AUSMIN 2024 thus has produced some practical and sensible outcomes which will not only contribute to strengthened deterrence to ideally prevent such a war from happening in the first place, but also ensure that Australia and the United States and other partners are best placed to respond if a crisis were to emerge.

The second key outcome from AUSMIN is a focus on technology co-operation that can lead to key new military capabilities. There has been important progress on new mechanisms which can circumvent onerous defence trade regulations that would otherwise stifle the prospect of progress under AUKUS Pillar 2.

These include greater integration between the US and Australia on defence innovation, and enhanced co-operation within the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise to enable co-development of long-range missile capabilities to facilitate ‘impactful projection’. Of key importance is an agreement on securing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on building the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), and continued work on developing hypersonic weapons, with both supporting the urgent requirement for greater long-range strike capabilities for the ADF and also for the US military.

AUSMIN has produced an opportunity for greater co-operation to counter threats in new domains such as space and cyberspace. For example, AUSMIN has reinforced the importance of norms of responsible behaviour in space, and opposed Russia’s development of a nuclear weapons-based anti-satellite capability. Given the importance of the space domain for Australia’s security and prosperity, it’s vital that states stand together to oppose and deter any move by Moscow to deploy such a destabilising weapon, that would effectively destroy the 1967 Outer Space Treaty even if the weapon itself was never used, and in doing so, ensure that space was a battleground in future wars.

The government’s approach to AUSMIN is a welcome one, which recognises the importance of the US-Australia alliance, and which is based on undertaking practical steps that strengthen Australia’s ability to support the US in deterring a major power crisis. Key defence capabilities such as the nuclear powered but conventionally armed submarines, won’t appear until the mid-2030s, so its important for government to work with the US and other allies to strengthen defence capabilities now. In this uncertain environment, dialogues such as AUSMIN that generate practical steps towards enhanced defence co-operation are more important than ever.