Tag Archive for: ANZUS at 70

ANZUS at 70: Cyberspace

Ten years ago, in September 2011, Australia and the US stretched ANZUS to cover cyberspace. That year’s AUSMIN communiqué addressed the challenges posed by growing cyber threats, specifically endorsing a joint statement on cyberspace. The statement committed Australia and the US, ‘in the event of a cyber attack that threatens the territorial integrity, political independence or security of either of our nations … [to] consult together and determine appropriate options to address the threat’.

The inclusion of cyber matters was seen as maintaining the relevance of ANZUS in the face of new threats. Both countries had been grappling with cybersecurity since the first warnings of imminent cyberwar in the early 1990s. The inclusion of cyberspace—notably extending the remit of Article V—suggests more than simply diplomatic discussion: it implies the possibility of a conflict triggered by a cyberattack.

Ten years have passed since the statement. There’s been no cyber-triggered conflict. Yet the online environment has become more dangerous, adversaries more numerous and capable, and actual and potential costs higher and more widespread. The number of attacks has increased by orders of magnitude, and the breadth of attacks—their form, purpose and targets—has similarly expanded. Perpetrators can lurk in systems for years without being detected. Means and methods are multipurpose: they can be used for attacks, for intelligence collection and for criminal purposes, including extortion, and the blurring of intent, effect and consequence. The lucrative nature of cyber operations, underpinned by the technologies’ ease of access, has created a hypercompetitive market for malware and new business models, and services for hire are available to both criminals and nation-states.

We’ve also gained a better understanding of how cybertechnology may be used in or to shape a conflict from cases in the Middle East (most notably Israeli and Iranian activities, but also Islamic State, Syrian and Turkish activities), Eastern Europe (especially the Russian use of cyberattacks in concert with conventional warfare in Georgia and Ukraine) and our own region (Chinese activity, including against Indian infrastructure during border clashes).

So cyberspace has become contested in more ways than expected. It’s now intrinsic to warfare but, perhaps more importantly, it’s being used to shape the strategic and operational environment. There are costs imposed on individuals, companies and institutions, not just national governments, almost always without redress, undermining resilience and trust.

Given such events, the inclusion of cybertechnology under ANZUS seems to have served little purpose. Yet that would be too superficial a judgement, on three counts.

First, there’s the nature of the ANZUS alliance. Much of its value lies in the slow institutionalisation of expectations, practices and world views between a large, capable partner and a small, willing partner. The alliance, predicated on our shared strategic interests, still works best within the traditional portfolios of defence and diplomacy.

Notably, initiatives under the ANZUS banner have more substance than those outside its remit. For example, cybertechnology has been discussed at all AUSMIN meetings since 2011, which have produced further agreements on the application of international law in cyberspace and on the joint development of advanced cyber capabilities, which have realised outcomes. In contrast, initiatives agreed by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2016 lacked the support of an institutional framework and ongoing political impetus: though worthy, they have largely fallen by the wayside. That may be a measure of ambition; it also reflects priorities.

Second, because cyber matters have lain primarily with the intelligence and security agencies, it’s been the Five Eyes relationship, not the ANZUS alliance per se, that’s driven operational cooperation. Operational needs have been allowed to drive policy and legislative responses.

Australia’s constitutional provisions (no bill of rights and no first amendment, for example) have made it easier for Canberra to lead the Five Eyes on banning Huawei from 5G networks, weakening encryption to meet internal security needs and legislating step-in powers over critical infrastructure.

Third, there’s the nature of cybertech. Its value to nation-states lies in its invisibility, subterfuge and deniability—characteristics especially valued by the intelligence community. But that nature, and the speed and transience of change in that domain, also make it hard to apply ‘normal’ tools of strategy, statecraft and defence. Yet a strategic, and statecraft, understanding of cybertech is needed: digital technologies are inextricable from daily life, individuality, economic activity, broader technological progress, institutions and the social substrate of nations. How cyber interference—the dark side of digital—is managed has consequences for trust in systems, institutions and governments: without care, that may work in favour of authoritarians and against democracies.

Those challenges may—and probably should—prompt a change in the role of the alliance. Cyberpower is but part of a broader diffusion and reaggregation of power resulting from digital technologies and social, economic and political realignments over the past 30 to 40 years.

So, while ANZUS still remains the stuff of bedrock, especially for Australia, it may make sense to expand Article II cooperation to strengthen our democracies, build resilience, improve technological competitiveness and provide guardrails to improve certainty during rapid change in the environment. If we’re less confident about a ‘secure, resilient and trusted cyberspace that ensures safe and reliable access for all nations’, as envisaged by the 2011 AUSMIN declaration, then we’d better be prepared for the alternative.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: Extended nuclear deterrence

The extent to which the ANZUS Treaty turns upon the US provision of a nuclear umbrella to its smaller ally is a topic both complex and controversial. J.G. Starke opined that, while the treaty certainly didn’t prohibit resort to nuclear weapons in fulfilment of acting ‘to meet the common danger’, a simple test of proportionality meant the common danger would have to be virtually existential.

Some believe that Australia doesn’t face existential threats, and therefore that any US commitment to resort to nuclear weapons in defence of Australia is meaningless. Others have argued that the US has never provided any such public commitment anyway—that Australia has occasionally claimed such protection, but without any direct confirmation from a US president (the person who would need to approve the use of US nuclear weapons).

Moreover, the supposed nuclear relationship seems, at first glance, to find little expression in direct defence cooperation. There are no specific ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements of the sort that the US has with some of its NATO allies, for example, under which the host country supplies and operates tactical-range delivery vehicles and the US supplies and controls the nuclear warheads.

But parts of that picture are misleading. The second clause of the Nixon Doctrine, for example, does offer a general nuclear assurance to US allies in Asia. The joint facilities do constitute a unique and highly prized form of alliance nuclear sharing. Moreover, some readers will remember that the ANZUS alliance broke apart precisely over the issue of extended nuclear deterrence when New Zealand declared itself nuclear-free back in the mid-1980s—and interpreted that to mean that its own ally’s nuclear-powered or -armed vessels couldn’t enter the country’s ports or airfields.

Bob Hawke, the Australian prime minister at the time, underlined the policy difference between Canberra and Wellington, insisting that Australia couldn’t claim the benefits of nuclear deterrence if it wasn’t prepared to contribute to it.

But the ending of the Cold War, a decade of US unipolarity in the 1990s, and a subsequent focus on the ‘war on terror’ post-9/11 has meant that—in the intervening years—Australian policymakers typically haven’t had to spend much time contemplating issues relating to the nuclear side of the alliance.

That’s changing fast. Nuclear weapons may have been of marginal interest to Australian governments in the quarter-century following the end of the Cold War but, in recent years, that interest has returned with a vengeance, driven by a series of ominous geopolitical events: more competitive great-power relations, a rapidly shifting power balance in Asia, the apparent weakening of US commitment to its allies—and even to a liberal world order—under the Trump administration, and the growing risk of a more densely proliferated nuclear world (advertised by North Korea’s successes in its nuclear-testing and ballistic-missile programs).

The strongest evidence of a new, heightened, Australian engagement with the central questions of extended deterrence comes from the defence strategic update of 2020, and the apparent rejection of US extended deterrence that unfolds there. With remarkable aplomb, the document notes that US conventional and nuclear weapons have been central to the deterrence of nuclear attack on Australia, but then abruptly states that Australia intends to become more self-reliant in deterring adversaries.

The text of paragraph 2.22 of the update carries weighty implications, suggesting as it does a willingness to move towards an independent Australian nuclear capability. The growth of Australian interest in long-range offensive strike capabilities seems to complement that shift in declaratory policy.

Both the shift in language and new interest in long-range missile technologies, including land-strike capabilities, suggest that some important judgements have been made behind closed doors in Canberra. Those judgements apparently concern the broader durability of the US alliance system in general, and the waning credibility of US extended nuclear deterrence in particular. But, if so, the government has been reticent about building a public consensus around those decisions.

Such reticence is understandable. For one thing, Australians aren’t used to thinking about nuclear weapons as direct contributors to the country’s defence; they’re more inclined to see them as abstract contributors to global order. Moreover, there’s certainly no bipartisan consensus on the question of an Australian nuclear-weapon program. Given that any such program would straddle decades, embarking on such a course in the absence of some degree of bipartisan consensus would probably be a recipe for failure.

Then there are the challenges the country would face in the diplomatic, technical and strategic realms. If it wished to build a nuclear arsenal, Australia would have to leave the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and abrogate the Treaty of Rarotonga (the foundation document of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone). It would need to acquire fissile materials, construct a safe, reliable nuclear warhead, and either build or purchase a delivery vehicle appropriate to its needs. And it would need a strategic policy that explained to potential adversaries, allies and neighbours just how Australia envisaged using its nuclear arsenal.

All in all, that’s a challenging set of policy hurdles. With a new administration in the White House, perhaps both allies will be more prepared for a serious discussion about extended nuclear deterrence and what comes after.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: The Howard government and the alliance

The American alliance, of which the ANZUS Treaty is part but far from the whole, is based fundamentally on shared interests and values. How it operates is also influenced by personalities. It transcends particular US presidents and Australian prime ministers, but it’s also true that individuals have an impact on its functioning.

During the Vietnam War era, Lyndon B. Johnson and Harold Holt were famously close. It was the opposite with Gough Whitlam and Richard Nixon. John Howard had a personally cool relationship with Bill Clinton and an extremely close and warm one with George W. Bush. Howard has written in his autobiography, Lazarus rising, ‘We were closer friends than any other two occupants of the leadership positions we once respectively held.’ It’s fascinating to speculate how things would have gone if Howard had won the 2007 election, after he had suggested that year that al-Qaeda would be praying for Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential election (something he later privately regretted saying).

Rather like Scott Morrison, Howard arrived in office after a political career built on domestic politics and policies, rather than any wide expertise or sustained interest in foreign policy. Circumstances, however, dictated that his international stance would be a significant and defining part of his prime ministership. He took Australia into our longest war, in Afghanistan, and also into one of our most controversial, in Iraq. Both engagements were driven by Australia’s commitment to the alliance.

Howard was the first (and so far the only) prime minister to invoke the ANZUS Treaty, after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. This was primarily to underline Australia’s declaration of solidarity with America and its people, rather than for any operational purpose. But as Allan Behm, from the Australia Institute, told me, the treaty’s invocation was in vastly different circumstances—a terrorist attack—than the more conventional military threats that were in the minds of its drafters.

Howard from the start brought to his prime ministership the strong commitment to the alliance that marks Australian leaders, especially from the Liberal side of politics. He wanted to reinvigorate the links with traditional friends, after the Labor Party’s emphasis on building Australia’s connections with Asia. John McCarthy, the Australian ambassador in Washington when the Howard government was elected, recalls conveying an offer relating to military training assistance in Australia (which didn’t go anywhere at the time).

But there’s no doubt—as Howard himself attests—that being in Washington on 9/11 gave a deep emotional element to that commitment, symbolised by bringing ANZUS into play. He had already been impressed with Bush (whom he had contacted during the Clinton presidency) in their talks the day before the terrorist attack. But the shock and immense impact of that frightening day and its aftermath put the relationship on another, highly bonded, footing.

The initial commitment of Australian forces to the Afghanistan war was an easy one (to the extent that any decision for war can be easy), for Howard and for Australia. America’s allies, and many other countries, were appalled by the attacks and uncertain and apprehensive about what might follow. There was a demonstrable justification for removing the terrorists’ safe haven in Afghanistan, and a broad coalition of nations joined the effort. Few would have predicted, however, that the war would drag on so long, and that Australian forces would be there for most of it. The conflict cost the lives of 41 Australian soldiers in theatre and injured or deeply scarred many more. For the most part, after the initial phase, the Australian public seemed to pay little attention to the conflict.

Given the strength of their relationship, Bush could rely on Howard supporting his attack on Iraq, although this was problematic in strategic terms, didn’t enjoy bipartisan support in Australia, and sparked large anti-war demonstrations here as well as in other countries. Howard was cautious, however, in how he handled Australia’s role; Australian forces were deployed in a way that minimised the risk to them. As a result, there were no combat losses. There was also no reference to ANZUS.

While the commitment in Iraq was a measure of the Howard government’s loyalty to the alliance, it took a toll (albeit temporary) on support for that alliance. In 2007, according to the Lowy Institute poll, that support was at 63%, which was the lowest point in the poll’s history (lower than during the Donald Trump presidency, which also brought a dip).

Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, wrote in The Australian on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion that Howard had made it clear that:

alliance considerations were prominent in his thinking in 2003. That is appropriate. An alliance is a serious matter. It requires that you support your ally when it is in the right, even in the hard cases … There is no point in being an ally in name only. Indeed, our reliability as an ally contributes to our access and influence in Washington.

But our alliance does not require us to support our ally when that ally is in the wrong … The Iraq war made the US weaker, poorer, less respected and less feared. Given that we rely on US power for our own security, this is something that Australians ought to regret.

The Iraq decision didn’t cost Howard votes in 2004. In the election before that, in 2001, national security and alliance politics clearly played to his advantage. There were other factors in his defeat of Labor’s Kim Beazley, including the stand-off over the Tampa, a Norwegian freighter that had tried to land hundreds of asylum seekers (mainly Afghans) whom it had rescued, but the aftermath of September 11 was crucial.

Howard recounts in Lazarus rising a conversation with Bush in 2008. By then a former prime minister, he was in Washington, and Bush hosted a dinner for him. The president had an imminent meeting with new PM Kevin Rudd, and asked Howard about him. ‘I remarked, “He’ll stick by the alliance”.’ It was an assertion of the alliance’s strong continuity, although at a personal level the Rudd–Bush relationship went sour.

Howard was an alliance man to his bootstraps. His loyalty to the alliance took him, and Australia, well beyond what was required.

ANZUS at 70: Defending Australia

It’s taken many decades for Australia to come to terms with American expectations that we should be able to defend ourselves, short of nuclear war or a conventional attack by a major power. Those expectations have been made clear by successive US governments—beginning with President Richard Nixon in 1969 in what has been termed the Guam Doctrine.

However, it took Australian governments until the 1976 defence white paper, Australian defence, to acknowledge the need for increased self-reliance. That document observed that Australia had one significant alliance—the ANZUS Treaty—but that it was prudent to remind ourselves that the US ‘has many diverse interests and obligations’.

Thus, the 1976 defence white paper identified a critical new defence posture for Australia in the post-Vietnam era. For the first time in a public document, it called for increased self-reliance, which was described as a ‘primary requirement’. It stated that any military operations were much more likely to be in our own neighbourhood than in some distant or forward theatre, and that our armed services would be conducting joint operations together as the Australian Defence Force.

Coming from a Coalition government, that was radical stuff. The white paper made it plain that it was not Australian policy, nor would it be prudent, to rely upon US combat help in all circumstances. It said that an alliance doesn’t free a nation from the responsibility to make adequate provision for its own security. Furthermore, Australia’s self-reliance was seen as enabling us to contribute effectively to any future combined operations with the US because it would significantly reduce our demands upon US operational and logistics support.

The 1987 white paper, The defence of Australia, continued the theme towards defence self-reliance but made it plain that self-reliance ‘must be set firmly within the framework of our alliances and regional associations’ and that the support they give us makes self-reliance achievable. The white paper noted that self-reliance in defence ‘requires both a coherent defence strategy and an enhanced defence capacity’. It rejected the concept of self-reliance as being the narrow concept of ‘continental’ defence. The Hawke government had to make this plain because of US suspicions that Australia was tending towards isolationism. The white paper made it clear that to be self-reliant the ADF must be able to mount operations to defeat hostile forces in our own area of direct military interest. Thus, the fundamental objective of Australia’s defence policy was to develop the capacity for the independent defence of Australia and its interests. However, it emphasised that self-reliance doesn’t mean self-sufficiency.

The 1987 white paper correctly noted that its 1976 predecessor had failed to give substance or direction to the concept of self-reliance. That’s why the Hawke government commissioned the Review of Australia’s defence capabilities, which established a comprehensive approach needed to implement the principle of defence self-reliance. The review noted that Australia can scarcely pretend to contribute to the defence of broader Western interests if it can’t defend itself. The obligation to providing for our own defence is clearly spelled out in Article II of the ANZUS Treaty, which states that ‘the Parties separately and jointly by means of continuous and effective self-help … will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.’ The white paper noted that basic self-reliance is a minimum that any self-respecting country should contribute to an alliance. Our alliance with the US, it said, doesn’t free us from the responsibility to make appropriate provision for our own security.

Since the 1987 white paper, successive Australian governments have endorsed the concept of increased self-reliance and the need for Australia to demonstrate that we can defend ourselves short of a fundamental threat to our security. For example, the Howard government’s 2000 defence white paper declared that, ‘At its most basic’, Australia’s strategic policy aims to prevent or defeat any armed attack on Australia. It went on to say, ‘This is the bedrock of our security and the most fundamental responsibility of government.’ But it also went on to observe that the kind of ADF that we need isn’t achievable without the technology access provided by the US alliance. Self-reliance would remain an inherent part of Australia’s alliance policy, but we wouldn’t assume ‘that US combat forces would be provided to make up for any deficiencies in our capabilities to defend our territory’.

Those views continued until the watershed 2020 defence strategic update (DSU), which accepts that Australia no longer has the luxury of assuming prolonged warning time of a serious threat. It talks about the possibility of high-intensity conflict in which we must be able to hold a potential adversary’s forces and infrastructure at risk. And, in a complete turnaround from the stillborn 2016 defence white paper, the DSU makes it plain that the key force structure determinant now for the ADF is Australia’s immediate region of direct strategic interest, which is defined as including the northeast Indian Ocean, maritime and mainland Southeast Asia (including the South China Sea), and the Southwest Pacific. The DSU notes that the prospect of high-intensity conflict in the Indo-Pacific is less remote than in the past and that there’s greater potential for military miscalculation—including state-on-state conflict that could engage the ADF. Accordingly, ‘Defence must be better prepared for the prospect of high-intensity conflict.’

There’s also an emphasis in the DSU on increased self-reliance and bolstering national sovereignty by growing the ADF’s self-reliance for delivering deterrent effects, as well as such commitments as acquiring our own satellite imagery capability and the capacity to manufacture advanced guided weapons. However, none of that means a lessening of our alliance relationship with the US. If we’re to enhance the lethality of the ADF for high-intensity operations, that will undoubtedly mean even closer access to highly advanced American weapons. Without access to the world’s most technologically advanced military equipment, such as long-range strike weapons, the ADF can’t be a credible force capable of operating in a high-intensity environment in our own defence.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: ANZUS and New Zealand

A literal reading of the treaty suggests that ANZUS is a triangle. According to the all-important fourth article, each one of the three parties ‘recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on any of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes’.

But the spirit of the law isn’t the same as the letter. ANZUS established the strongest party as the regional security provider for the other two, whose obligations primarily are to support Washington as the dominant Asia–Pacific power. This meant that ANZUS wasn’t so much a triangle as a chevron with the US sitting at the apex. (Confused? Next time you spot a Citroën, look for the double chevron.)

When the US suspended its alliance obligations to New Zealand during the mid-1980s nuclear policy crisis, the chevron gave way to a single straight line. For Australian audiences, ANZUS became the bilateral alliance connection between Canberra and Washington, reflected in the regular AUSMIN consultations. On the other side of the ditch, ANZUS became the alliance that New Zealand used to have with the US. Politicians across New Zealand’s electoral spectrum found there was no domestic political gain in restoring those alliance links. Returning to New Zealand after signing the 2012 Washington Declaration with Leon Panetta, Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman insisted that Wellington’s strengthening security partnership with the US wasn’t ‘ANZUS in drag’.

How then to talk about the alliance connection between Australia and New Zealand, the third and consistently quieter leg of ANZUS? Governments in Wellington have adopted the formula of referring to Australia as New Zealand’s only formal ally. Declarations of fealty to that relationship regularly pepper New Zealand defence policy statements. The most recent defence white paper, issued in 2016, stipulates that ‘New Zealand has no better friend and no closer ally … While a direct armed attack on Australia is unlikely in the foreseeable future, should it be subject to such an attack, New Zealand would respond immediately.’ As for operations further afield, the 2018 strategic defence policy statement observes that the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) ‘must be able to operate effectively with New Zealand’s key security partners and ally Australia’.

But neither document mentions ANZUS. Both place the trans-Tasman military connection in the context of Closer Defence Relations (CDR), which was an initiative established in 1991 to mirror Closer Economic Relations. Yet CDR is not itself an alliance, and the 1944 Canberra Pact (in which New Zealand and Australia outlined their postwar plans for cooperation in the South Pacific) lacks the military obligations set out in the ANZUS Treaty less than a decade later. And, while the Anzac connection is a great talking point when prime ministers meet, the idea of an unbroken train of trans-Tasman military cooperation since the Gallipoli landings is an untenable myth.

The military alliance between New Zealand and Australia has an obvious source, which is ANZUS. There’s a small hint of this reality in the 2018 CDR Joint Statement: ‘The formal expression of our alliance and security partnership is found in the 1944 Canberra Pact, ANZUS Treaty and through Australia – New Zealand Closer Defence Relations instigated in 1991.’ But that framing is oblique enough to allow New Zealand to carry on its merry way. And yet that’s not how Canberra always likes to portray things. ‘We are close partners and ANZUS allies,’ says Australia’s (still current) 2016 defence white paper. In a May 2021 press conference with Jacinda Ardern in Queenstown, Scott Morrison weighed in on similar terms. ‘ANZUS arrangements were clear,’ he said, when asked if Canberra would expect Wellington’s support should Australia end up in an armed conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.

You say ANZUS, I say alliance, let’s not call the whole thing off is the line New Zealand sings to Australia. Yet, spoken about or not, ANZUS alliance obligations run across both sides of the Tasman Sea. Wellington would expect itself to respond to a direct attack on Australia. But the scenario Morrison was asked about might see New Zealand do an Alexander Downer and interpret its ANZUS obligations imaginatively. The recent saga over New Zealand’s approach to Five Eyes messaging to China on human rights reveals that Wellington wants some wiggle room. Sometimes Wellington will come to the party, other times it won’t, and all we’re talking about here are joint statements by foreign ministers. The commitment of New Zealand forces to a conflict that Australia is participating in raises the costs of commitment far higher.

There’s a real limit to how far Wellington will want its alliance commitments to Australia couched in Indo-Pacific terms, even though there are some NZDF capabilities (especially the forthcoming P-8 Poseidon aircraft) that could be useful to a coalition effort. But in between the defence of Australia and maritime combat in East Asia is a part of the regional real estate that could be the real test of New Zealand’s alliance commitments.

The South Pacific is where Australia and New Zealand are most intensely united in seeking a favourable equilibrium of power. Australian forces are very unlikely to engage the People’s Liberation Army on their own in a Taiwan Strait contingency. But in the South Pacific, a direct Australia–China clash, with or without the help of America (which delegates a great deal to Canberra’s leadership), could be more conceivable.

Should it get into warlike difficulty with China in a tussle for influence over Papua New Guinea’s future, for example, Australia wouldn’t just expect New Zealand’s help. Canberra would be likely to demand it. And should New Zealand demur, a crisis would emerge in trans-Tasman alliance relations that could make the mid-1980s look like a cakewalk.

Three and half decades on from the suspension of America’s alliance relations with New Zealand, the big ANZUS moment for Wellington could have more to do with Beijing and Canberra than with Beijing and Washington. This gives New Zealand extra reasons to be concerned about the deteriorating China–Australia relationship.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: Christmas cheer—Nixon, Whitlam and Vietnam

My late friend Andrew Peacock could spin a good yarn, but one story in particular still holds a peculiar resonance for Australian politics and history. Christmas 1972 saw Peacock in Washington DC. The Australian Coalition government of 23 years’ standing had just fallen to a resurgent Labor Party under a charismatic leader in Gough Whitlam.

The Vietnam War was still raging, even though peace talks in Paris had suggested that an end to the conflict wasn’t far away. In Dr Henry Kissinger’s immortal phrase, peace was at hand.

The war had been deeply divisive in Australia, as it was in the US. The traditional Australian scepticism and hostility on the vexed issue of conscription for the armed forces was an accompanying fire.

But the Paris talks had stalled, so, to bring North Vietnam to the table to finalise a peace deal, President Richard Nixon had authorised a massive bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong—Operation Linebacker II—which had resulted in widespread criticism both in the US and abroad.

Federal Labor had long opposed the war, and some of Whitlam’s new ministers were scathing about Nixon’s decisions. The administration responded angrily, and it was mooted that Australia–US relations, traditionally close, would spiral away. Peacock told an illuminating story. Visiting his friend Dick Cheney, then a senior Nixon aide, Peacock was at pains to make it clear that the new Australian Government wasn’t hostile to the US and that Whitlam was a sophisticated player with whom the Americans could deal. In short, Peacock was putting Australia’s interests to the fore.

Cheney listened carefully and then told his Australian visitor that the President should hear this. So they went around to the Oval Office. As Peacock recalled, Nixon’s famous secretary, Rose Mary Woods, explained that the President was out for a short while but would be returning. So Cheney suggested that they speak with the Vice President, the controversial Spiro T Agnew.

At that point, Peacock’s story became wonderfully funny as he described Agnew at his office desk, eating a salad sandwich, with beetroot juice dribbling down his shirt.

Agnew reacted badly to the Peacock story and was essentially dismissive of Australia as being akin to a banana republic.

However, a very different response came from Nixon when Peacock finally had the chance in the Oval Office to argue that relations between the US and Australia would essentially not change under the Whitlam government. Nixon nodded and said that he understood. Australia was an ally, and the US–Australia alliance would continue.

The tensions were real. There were industrial bans in both countries. But it’s likely that the administration’s anger was residing in the office of the National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger. The President was unhappy with the Australian language but unfazed by the furore.

The Australian–American relationship of the 1960s was dominated by the Cold War. The Vietnam War became a microcosm of the struggle between the US and its allies and the communist giants, the Soviet Union and China.

Australia had been an early entrant into the war in support of the government in Saigon. As early as 1962, Australian military trainers were attached to the South Vietnamese Army.

The Kennedy administration was cautious on its military commitment to Saigon; Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B Johnson, far less so. Unwilling to be the first President in the US history to lose a war, Johnson increased support for the South and, by the time of his retirement, there were half a million American troops deployed. In LBJ’s colloquial Texas slang, they were instructed to ‘bring the coon skin home to nail on the wall’.

An Australian taskforce of three battalions was in place, along with supporting air and naval units.

LBJ’s visit to Australia in November 1966 was in support of Prime Minister Harold Holt, who was personally close to the President. As a matter of fact, Holt’s slogan for Australian involvement in the war set a very low benchmark for cultural cringe, being ‘All the way with LBJ!’

A divided Australia reacted with anger during the visit, and demonstrations occurred in city streets alongside adoring crowds. Holt was returned convincingly in the federal election later that year, so Australia’s commitment to the war was endorsed electorally. Then came Tet.

The Tet Offensive, beginning January 1968, was a military debacle for the communist forces—the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army—but, in propaganda terms, it was an extraordinary victory in the living rooms of America (and of Australia). Television recorded the brutality of the fighting in Saigon, Hue and elsewhere, and the US military was obliged to recapture a part of the US embassy occupied by a Viet Cong suicide squad. The following March, LBJ made a television announcement of some importance to Americans and, indeed, the world: ‘I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.’

The political vacuum on the Democratic side of American politics for a new presidential nominee wasn’t filled by an anti-war candidate, such as Senator Robert F Kennedy (New York), who was assassinated, or Senator Eugene McCarthy (Minnesota). Vice President Hubert Humphrey stepped up and was defeated by Richard Nixon on a supposed ‘secret plan’ to end the war. Nixon began the painful process of American withdrawal and the ‘Vietnamisation’ of the conflict.

More importantly, early in his term in 1969, he introduced the notion of the Nixon (Guam) Doctrine, which required US allies to be far more self-reliant.

Australia under Whitlam was much more vigorous in its regional diplomacy and in its UN engagements. The well-crafted 1976 Defence White Paper finally presented by the Fraser government endeavoured to reflect the imperatives posed by the Guam Doctrine of shifting American strategic policy and the realities of British withdrawal from the region and a greater Soviet presence in the Pacific.

The Australian focus moved from expeditionary engagement to challenges closer to home. Unfortunately, the Fraser government never achieved the consistent budgetary objectives that it set for itself for defence policy.

Curiously, Australian foreign policy moved closely in alignment with that of the Nixon administration in one critical area.

Whitlam’s visit to Beijing in 1971 had virtually coincided with that of Kissinger. American moves to recognise China were more easily accommodated by an Australian Government that acknowledged China’s significance as it emerged in international affairs.

The Vietnam War had indeed strained relations between Australia and the US, but the alliance emerged intact, and Nixon’s Watergate disgrace and departure for San Clemente saw the significance of the tensions between the allies over the Christmas bombing campaign recede. The stress was there, but, as Peacock came to understand, the alliance was far more significant than a flurry of criticism between Canberra and Washington, however intemperate the language was on occasion and regardless of who the players happened to be.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: Konfrontasi and East Timor—America’s Indonesian balancing act

A persistent question lurking in the background of Australia’s alliance with the US has always been whether our powerful ally would come to our aid in a time of military crisis.

Contemplation of the strategic consequences and economic costs of having to go it alone is liable to induce quiet anxiety in policymakers, which Allan Gyngell captured with the book title Fear of abandonment.

In the historical record, evidence of that fear most frequently appears in relation to Indonesia.

There were two notable occasions since the signing of the ANZUS Treaty on which Australia turned to the US for assurances of military support in the face of a deteriorating security outlook between Australia and Indonesia. They occurred in advance of both the Australian-led international force deployment to East Timor in 1999 and the deployment of Australian forces to resist Indonesian guerrilla incursions into Malaysia during Konfrontasi in 1965.

The common wisdom is that on each of those occasions the support offered by the US fell far short of Australian needs and expectations, prompting fears that Australian forces would be exposed to greater peril.

That raises the question of how valuable the alliance has been when a specific Australian security interest was at stake, as opposed to a wider security challenge that directly implicated US interests. The answer reveals the complexity of managing what is for Australia a vital strategic triangle.

There’s a recurrent theme in the historical episodes that prompted Australian policymakers to either seek US military support or ask whether they could count on it: the strong desire of the US to preserve its own relationship with and interests in Indonesia.

Although the US was conscious of its alliance commitments and endeavoured to meet Australian needs, it did so in a manner designed not to disturb its own bilateral relationship with Indonesia. As the largest country in Southeast Asia, straddling pivotal waterways, Indonesia has long been courted by the world’s great powers as a strategic prize.

US concern to protect its separate strategic and economic interests there had a bearing on its diplomacy and on the nature of the practical military commitments it was prepared to give to Australia. In both cases, its primary aim—and its most valuable contribution to the immediate security challenge—was to apply the enormous weight of its statecraft to defusing the source of tension between Australia and Indonesia. Diplomatic and domestic political priorities served to limit the nature of the US military role.

But an examination of the record shows that the diplomacy was frequently hard-edged and came with clear red lines beyond which military escalation was an option.

In September 1999, with East Timor in turmoil, President Bill Clinton told Prime Minister John Howard that the US wouldn’t supply any combat troops to the international stabilisation force, INTERFET. Howard admitted to being ‘disappointed’ and ‘stunned’ that, on the one occasion when it was Australia asking for ‘boots on the ground’, the US demurred.

Pressure on Washington eventually produced an indispensable contribution, including logistics, intelligence, and the deployment of two warships to nearby waters, but, behind the scenes the US diplomatic balancing act is revealing. Separate visits to Jakarta in September by Defense Secretary William Cohen and US Pacific forces commander Admiral Dennis Blair offer a flavour of the months of diplomatic exchanges and internal debate.

Blair was the bluntest. He told the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) commander, General Wiranto, that East Timor was in a state of ‘anarchy’, the TNI was to blame, and the situation would do ‘irrevocable damage to Indonesia’s relationship with the rest of the world, including the US’, unless fixed.

Meeting Wiranto three weeks later, Cohen, too, was tough. Importantly, he warned that the TNI would be held accountable for any militia attacks on INTERFET troops. But then Cohen raised media reports claiming that Howard saw Australia as a US ‘deputy sheriff’ in the region. Cohen told Wiranto those reports ‘were wrong’, adding ‘it was in both our interests to have a positive bilateral relationship’. The clear message was that the US would look after its own affairs, and had its own interests, in the region.

The end of the Cold War had given the US more latitude to challenge the conduct of a valued partner, but government debate in Washington in 1999 mirrored that in Australia—how to prevent the East Timor crisis from imperilling relations with the anchor state in Southeast Asia just as it was making an arduous transition to democracy.

The same balancing act was evident decades earlier as Indonesia’s President Sukarno waged a multifaceted ‘confrontation’ to prevent the formation of Malaysia. At the height of the Cold War, and amid growing conflict in Vietnam, there was acute anxiety in Washington to avert a full-blown war over Malaysia. The US desperately wanted to prevent a terminal rupture in relations with Indonesia, which in turn would see its influence displaced by domestic and international communist forces.

Sustained pressure on Indonesia culminated in a visit to Asia by President Lyndon Johnson’s special envoy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In early 1964, Kennedy met Sukarno at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, where he conveyed administration concerns over the significant risk of ‘escalation into a serious war’ and the existence of US ‘treaty commitments in the area’. He pressed Sukarno to end guerrilla actions in Malaysia and return to the negotiating table.

Internal debate in Washington and diplomatic exchanges with Australia before the Kennedy trip show the US to have been keenly aware that, if Australian forces were deployed to Malaysian Borneo and clashed with Indonesian forces, Canberra would ‘invoke the ANZUS pact and call upon us for direct intervention against Indonesia’.

US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara made a handwritten notation that ‘we will have a serious prob under ANZUS’. On his return to Washington, Kennedy himself publicly declared that the US had ‘obligations under the ANZUS Treaty’ and war could easily escalate and spread.

Those warnings disguised private administration fears over the fate of substantial commercial investments in Indonesia—especially in the oil industry—and a loss of strategic advantage in the zero-sum game of the Cold War.

Washington was offering both carrots and sticks in exchange for a negotiated settlement. The carrot was more aid and investment. The references to ANZUS and the prospect of the loss of US aid and investment were the stick; they served to make the red lines clear and keep the pressure on Sukarno to pull back.

In this respect, ANZUS proved useful even as the US militarily stayed out of Konfrontasi as it escalated during 1964 and 1965, pointing to the burden it carried in Vietnam.

The pattern of US behaviour replicated earlier compromises and loose commitments to Australia during US-sponsored negotiations to cede West New Guinea to Indonesia in 1962.

But it isn’t entirely correct to say, as Hugh White does, that the US in the early 1960s ‘would not assure Australia of military support against a disruptive and increasingly well-armed Indonesia’.

The record suggests that Washington gave extensive thought to its treaty obligations. The threat of US intervention against the backdrop of those obligations provided valuable diplomatic leverage in reducing the risk of a wider conflict.

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: ‘Blood brothers’—American and Australian soldiers in 1918

In early 1918, a boatload of fresh-faced American doughboys disembarked on a wharf in Southampton in England. Their snappy clean uniforms and the sparkling rifles slung across their shoulders didn’t go unnoticed by the men of 30th Australian Field Artillery Battery. Gunner James Ramsay Armitage wrote in his diary:

We amused ourselves watching a lot of very brand-new looking Yanks arriving with their extraordinary-looking equipment … Some of the officers carried leather suitcases and umbrellas and looked more like commercial travelers than soldiers.

From that point until the armistice, Armitage saw plenty more Yanks, who sailed overseas in the months after America declared war in April 1917. Slowed by a lack of troop transports, General John J Pershing, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commander, improved the situation by allowing British Expeditionary Force (BEF) commander Field Marshal Douglas Haig to ship doughboys to Europe for training, and, if necessary, to fight alongside his British and Dominion units. In 1918, elements of 10 US Army divisions served with Haig’s troops.

Hamel

Four American divisions served with Lieutenant General John Monash’s Australian Corps. Among them was the 33rd American Division, composed of Illinois National Guardsmen. Before the doughboys arrived, Monash knew little about the US Army. While he commanded the 3rd Australian Division, he hosted several AEF officers who educated him about the American way of war.

Monash wrote to his brother:

With but very few exceptions, I have formed a very high opinion of the excellent qualities, both mental and technical, of these officers. My impression is that some of the divisional commanders are rather old, and not as receptive of new ideas as may be desirable, but their attitude toward these problems is in every way satisfactory, and they show themselves open minded and receptive to an admirable degree.

American soldiers were less impressed with their Australian counterparts. Their lack of discipline puzzled the doughboys, especially when Australian soldiers failed to salute superior officers.

While training with Monash’s corps, four companies of Illinois infantrymen were plucked to join an Australian offensive against German forces holding the Hamel salient. The operation was strategically essential because the German Somme offensive of 1918 had pushed a bulge into the British lines where the Germans had occupied Hamel, located just south of the Somme River a dozen miles east of Amiens. The ridge on which the village was situated provided the Germans with clear observation of Australian-held positions and made those positions easy prey for enfilading fire.

On 4 July 1918, American Independence Day, tanks led the attack with support from an artillery barrage that surprised the Germans. Facing only pockets of resistance, the Australians and Americans gained all their objectives in 93 minutes. The German forces were driven from Hamel and the surrounding woods and ridges.

The Americans’ battle performance garnered mixed reviews. The Illinois soldiers fought bravely but were also impetuous. After entering Hamel, they advanced beyond the objective line until an Australian officer advised them that ‘it was not up to them to go on and take the next town.’

The Hindenburg Line battle

From 8 August 1918, the British Army was in the midst of an offensive to drive the Germans from their positions near the old Somme battlefield. By mid-September, the Germans were forced back to their heavily fortified defensive zone, the Siegfriedstellung, also called the Hindenburg Line. British and Australian troops, helped by two American divisions, were planning to concentrate an offensive to demoralise the enemy and destroy its defences, including wire and dugouts.

Monash designed the battle plan, and General Henry Rawlinson, the British Fourth Army commander, and Field Marshal Haig signed it off. The American 27th and 30th divisions would spearhead the operation. The main objective was to break through the line near St Quentin, where Germans were entrenched on the canal and below the Bellicourt tunnel. Four hours later, an Australian division would leapfrog over the Americans to complete the attack. This was a formidable task for any experienced army, and the mission, in hindsight, had little chance of succeeding.

After training with the Australians, the 27th, composed of New York guardsmen, and the 30th, a mixture of North and South Carolina and Tennessee guardsmen, entered the front trenches on the night of 25–26 September, relieving two British and one Australian division. The line assigned to the doughboys faced the outer defences of the Hindenburg system, west of the entrance to the Bellicourt tunnel. Prominent features of the outer line were positions situated on the high ground opposite the Quennemont Farm, the Gillemont Farm and the so-called Knoll.

Preliminary operation against the Hindenburg Line

For the Americans to achieve their objective on 29 September, they would have to undertake a preliminary operation two days before to occupy the outer defences, including the farms and the Knoll. If successful, this would become the jumping-off point for the attacks. In the preceding days, the British III Corps had failed to capture that ground after several attempts, and now the far less experienced Americans were tasked with the job.

At 5.30 am on 27 September, the 106th American Infantry advanced towards the objective. They held the position briefly until German machine-gun fire drove them back. But not all of the Americans returned. Many wounded still occupied portions of the trenches around the farms and the Knoll.

A conference convened the following day with Americans and Australians in attendance. First on the agenda was the idea of adjusting the artillery fire to a line closer to the Americans in order that troops might advance under its protection from the start. But, according to Brigadier General KK Knapp, in command of the artillery supporting the operation, that was impractical due to a lack of time. Changing the barrage table by bringing it further back would put Americans near the Knoll and the farms at risk.

Knapp was well liked and trusted by the American officers, and they felt he ‘made every effort to give our men all possible advantage of artillery protection’. The idea of postponing the operation was also suggested to Monash, and, according to one of his biographers, he thought it was the better solution. However, Rawlinson overruled him. The Fourth Army commander said that a delay would mean changing the arrangements on other fronts, where troops were set to attack the next day.

Main operation against the Hindenburg Line

On the morning of 29 September, the Americans jumped off into heavy fog and low visibility. South of the line, the 30th American Division encountered relatively little resistance. By early afternoon, the 8th Brigade of the 5th Australian Division passed through the 120th American Infantry and, after mopping up in and around Bellicourt, continued attacking towards the east. The 120th was ordered into support positions, but some of its men lost contact with their regiment and fought with the Australians. Brigadier General HA Goddard, an Australian liaison officer, said the Americans ‘were like lost sheep, not knowing where to go or when to go’. That afternoon, mixed American and Australian units were unable to make any significant advances. The flanks were reinforced and the men dug in for the night.

To the north, the 27th American Division would run into trouble. The New Yorkers started their attack an hour earlier, at 4.50 am, with infantry advancing towards the jump-off point that they had failed to reach during the preliminary attack. Early reports received at division headquarters indicated that the 107th Infantry and 108th were ‘going well’. At 8.10, Americans were reported to have crossed the Hindenburg Line and be on their way to the tunnel, but an hour later the situation turned dismal.

Regimental messages indicated heavy doughboy casualties from machine-gun fire at Gillemont Farm. Reports from the 3rd Australian Division confirmed that many ‘Americans were leaderless near Gillemont trench and Willow trench.’

Portions of the 108th American Infantry managed to cross the main Hindenburg Line south of Bony at 8.00 am—a remarkable achievement against enormous odds—but the regiment couldn’t go beyond the line until joined by the 3rd Australian Division. Together, they captured Quennemont Farm at a heavy cost. German troops appeared from underground passages of the tunnel and surprised the Australians and Americans.

Casualties filled the battlefield. ‘They’d just became figures going down,’ remembered one New Yorker, ‘like pins in a bowling alley.’ Gunner Armitage also witnessed the carnage. From his artillery position, he saw doughboys fail to clear out German dugouts and machine-gun nests before going on to the second line of defence.

When darkness fell on 29 September, both American and Australian divisions halted in front of the Hindenburg Line, which was breeched over the next two days.

Conclusion

Monash had much to say about the Americans: they ‘showed a fine spirit, a keen desire to learn, magnificent individual bravery, and splendid comradeship’. But he heavily criticised their mopping-up skills. ‘American Infantry had either not been sufficiently tutored in this important matter,’ Monash wrote, ‘or the need of it had not penetrated their understanding.’

Of course, Monash wasn’t on the battlefield, meaning that his observations were gained second hand. In fact, the American soldiers had indeed mopped up, but encountered an enemy in great numbers who counterattacked with the skill and determination of an experienced army.

If the Americans were guilty of stalling the operation, Monash was partly to blame, his biographers write. One suggests that, in preparing for this offensive, ‘Monash was not at his best … His plan for capturing the Hindenburg Line was deeply flawed.’

Some of his own men supported that critique. ‘As individuals, the Americans were not to be blamed,’ recalled one Australian officer, ‘but their behaviour under fire showed clearly that in modern warfare, it was of little avail to launch an attack with men untrained in war, even though the bravery of the individual may not be questioned.’ Major General CH Brand, an Australian adviser to the 27th Division, thought the task undertaken by the Americans ‘would have sorely tried any veteran division’.

Simply put, it was unwise of Monash to charge the Americans with spearheading an operation of this nature. He should have placed the doughboys in reserve, rather than having them jump off into an operation that had little chance of success.

Despite heavy criticism of the doughboys, Monash summed up the Australian and American battlefield relationship in glowing terms: ‘The contingent of them who joined us acquitted themselves most gallantly and were ever after received by the Australians as blood brothers.’

This post is an excerpt from ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, published by ASPI with support from the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and edited by Patrick Walters.

ANZUS at 70: Japan—a critical partner for Australia–US security ambitions

This post is an excerpt from the ASPI publication ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, released on 18 August. Over the next few weeks, The Strategist will be publishing a selection of chapters from the book.

Japan is ANZUS’s most important Indo-Pacific security partner. Tokyo shares the regional outlook of Australia and the US, possesses advanced defence capabilities and is eager to work towards common objectives. Japan’s transformation from a postwar security dependant to a trusted security partner is a remarkable evolution and a much-needed addition to the emerging Indo-Pacific architecture. As Australia and the US mark 70 years of ANZUS, one of the most important ways Australia can support the keystone of its defence and security is through shoring up bilateral cooperation with Japan and exploring new frontiers in the trilateral Australia–US–Japan arrangements.

For decades, Australia and Japan viewed their relationship primarily in economic terms, but, since the early 2000s, the defence relationship has grown in leaps and bounds. The two nations have established a joint declaration on security cooperation, acquisition and cross-servicing, an information security agreement, a foreign and defence ‘2+2’ ministerial meeting and the joint air force Exercise Bushido Guardian. The relationship has grown beyond basic defence exercises as Tokyo and Canberra are now seeking interoperability between their armed forces and the capacity to respond jointly to shared challenges. The next step in the bilateral defence relationship will be to finalise a status of forces agreement, known as the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA).

The RAA will be Japan’s first status of forces arrangement with any partner beyond the US. This historic step will demonstrate the intimacy of the Australia–Japan relationship and provide the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) with greater flexibility to access and work with a key US ally. It will be of particular benefit to Japan, giving it the opportunity to use Australia’s large, remote training facilities, and benefit each country through improving ADF–JSDF coordination. Moreover, by improving interoperability between Australian and Japanese forces, the RAA will also benefit the US by enhancing coordination within its existing alliance framework.

While the RAA is undergirded by strong bilateral relations, the fast pace of growth in Australia–Japan defence cooperation is arguably the result of external security developments. In particular, China’s increasingly aggressive posture and waning confidence in future US security commitments to the region have weighed heavily on Japanese and Australian policymakers.

Chinese hostility is evident in the militarisation of the South China Sea, harassment of foreign vessels and aircraft in disputed territories and targeted cyber intrusions and attacks. Frequent Chinese military incursions around the disputed Senkaku Islands as well as Beijing’s support for the North Korean regime have increased Japan’s anxiety. In Australia’s case, Chinese-backed cyberattacks and punitive trade measures have rattled Canberra. More than any other dynamic in the region, China’s bullying behaviour has convinced Japan and Australia they need to invest more in their security partnership.

In terms of US credibility, concerns in Australia and Japan regarding the extent of US security commitments to the Indo-Pacific were generated long before the uncertainty wrought by the Trump administration. From the early 2000s, America’s allies in Asia were encouraged to bolster their national defence capabilities and enhance coordination with each other. That, coupled with decades of US attention and resources directed overwhelmingly towards wars in the Middle East, has brought America’s allies in the region closer together.

Once Donald Trump took office, his harsh rhetoric and occasional embrace of authoritarian regimes hastened the trend. The Biden administration is much more receptive to allies’ needs and shares Australia’s and Japan’s interest in closer security ties, using both bilateral and trilateral modalities. The strength of trilateral defence cooperation between Australia, the US and Japan is unique and provides each with a competitive security advantage.

Australia first proposed a trilateral dialogue with Japan and the US in 2001, and the trilateral framework was formalised in the following year. Trilateral meetings now range from the senior officials level to foreign and defence ministers, up to prime ministerial and presidential summits. In addition, practical defence cooperation includes both tabletop and real-world military exercises. To capitalise on the success of the trilateral, the three countries should continue to jointly pursue increasingly high-end defence activities. That includes intelligence sharing; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) activities; and cooperation in the cyber, space, science and technology domains in practical military exercises.

Based on the history, depth and breadth of their relationships, the trilateral structure can initiate collaborative security initiatives matched by no other regional defence grouping. In future, the trilateral could be bolstered by more Australia–Japan bilateral defence exercises in the vicinity of Japan and Australian participation in trilateral activities to practise defending Japan against missile debris or a missile attack. For instance, in the event of future North Korean missile launches and belligerent behaviour, the Royal Australian Navy’s Aegis-equipped vessels could provide Japan with air defence and intercept those threats. The three countries could also conduct combined ISR activities—in addition to UN-mandated missions—to monitor North Korean ship-to-ship transfers that circumvent trade sanctions.

Should the regional outlook deteriorate, another way to elevate cooperation could be for the three countries to privately identify concrete scenarios to embed in their military exercises. For example, designing operational planning around specific contingencies, such as a serious threat to Japan’s territory or conflict in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, would provide a clearer strategic objective for our combined military exercises. While Australia would seek to avoid a conflict as much as possible, it would most likely be compelled to influence the outcome of a major inter-state conflict in our region, whether in the form of logistics support or the provision of military forces in some capacity.

More than any other countries in the region, Australia and Japan recognise the stability flowing from the US alliance system. Both are steadfast in their support for continued US engagement, the preservation of democratic processes and systems, and the underwriting of future growth and prosperity through investing in new security frameworks.

Moreover, there’s growing acceptance that regional security challenges—be they pandemics, climate change, assuring supply chains or defending a rules-based system—can be addressed effectively only through collective action. As three countries facing multiple challenges, the Australia–US–Japan trilateral has an enduring value for the future of the ANZUS alliance, alongside bilateral Japan–Australia security ties.

ANZUS at 70: The joint facilities in the 1980s

This post is an excerpt from the new ASPI publication ANZUS at 70: the past, present and future of the alliance, released today. Over the next few weeks, The Strategist will be publishing a selection of chapters from the book.

The late Professor Des Ball once described the joint facilities as the ‘strategic essence’ of Australia’s American alliance. Though never holding an official position, Ball, who was essentially a man of the left, was a major influence on the public debate on the joint facilities in the 1980s. That debate cemented majority public opinion in favour of the facilities. His seminal book, A suitable piece of real estate, published in 1980, fed both sides of the debate. His view, in subsequent presentations, that their value outweighed the risks was important within the Australian Labor Party and further afield.

It might be argued that Robert McNamara, US Defense Secretary from 1961 to 1968, could be seen as the founder of the modern American alliance. He disciplined and extended the American nuclear force posture. His ‘triad’ (a force of land-based missiles, bombers and strategic missile submarines) required the development of a complex of communications and surveillance technologies that took Australia from the status of a strategic backwater into the heart of the US system of global deterrence. On his watch, Australia came to host facilities for communications with submarines (North West Cape), surveillance of Soviet nuclear capabilities (Pine Gap) and early warning of Soviet attack (Nurrungar).

Those developments changed Labor policy from a flirtation with non-alignment to support for the alliance relationship. The qualifications were that Australia should have full knowledge of the joint facilities’ operations and be in a position to give concurrence to their use in war and more generally. The Whitlam government experienced something of a shock when, during the Middle East war of October 1973, North West Cape was used without prior Australian knowledge. Its concerns were resolved by an agreement that didn’t hinder the use of the facilities but assured Australia of forewarning. Whitlam had cast some doubt on the continued operation of the various joint facilities when agreements fell due for renewal. He didn’t operate on that doubt, but some in the Labor Party harboured concerns that the facilities may have played a role in his eventual dismissal.

Labor leaders were well aware that threats to remove the joint facilities could have severe electoral consequences. More than that, however, they formed the conviction that the facilities were critical for global stability, vital to the Western alliance, important for the achievement of arms control agreements and, as the decade went by, increasingly of direct relevance to Australia’s defence. They were also a ticket to the top table. Important for the US, they were a mechanism that permitted Australia considerable flexibility in advancing foreign policy initiatives that didn’t bring them into contention. Bob Hawke’s ministers developed a mantra along those lines that informed their debating points as criticisms emerged in public campaigns during their time in office.

First, there had to be honesty about the facilities’ risks and purposes. One risk was that they made Australia a nuclear target. A vital and now long-forgotten report of the Joint Parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Threats to Australian security, their nature and probability, published the year before Hawke assumed office, was helpful in that regard. It highlighted a view from Des Ball that claims of widespread nuclear targeting of Australia were ‘quite exaggerated’. He could not ‘imagine any scenarios involving nuclear bombs falling on Australian cities’. Attacks would be limited to the joint facilities. Unpleasant, obviously, but we could live with the risk: a nuclear war was most unlikely.

Among America’s allies, Australia had a unique status. Defending them, including NATO, Japan and South Korea, effectively consumed American security as it risked a devastating attack on the US if nuclear weapons were used. Australia was unlikely to find itself in a situation where aiding our defence would a risk nuclear attack on the US. Therefore, with Australia agreeing to host facilities that would draw a nuclear attack, it could be said the US was consuming ours. We were definitely burden-sharing.

As well as acknowledging the risks, ministers wanted to be able to state honestly that Australia had full knowledge of the capabilities of the facilities and concurred with their operations. In the 1980s, fortuitously, technological changes meant that the US needed to change the character of those operations. Pine Gap, in particular, went ‘real time’. Hitherto, the information it collected was largely historical. Now it was able to produce information on battlefield situations as they happened. Ministers couldn’t discuss that, but could negotiate a situation in which assertions of full knowledge and concurrence continued to be real.

In exchange for certainty and continuation, the renewal agreements for Pine Gap and Nurrungar included the incorporation of Australian personnel on every one of the four shifts and in charge of two of them. The Australian deputy in both facilities was placed in a position of command in the absence of the American commander. Furthermore, as some of the functions of the facilities served US nuclear war planning, we sought and obtained regular briefings on those functions from the Pentagon. As the Defence Minister, I sought from the Defence Department regular written reports on the facilities’ activities. I had noticed that that type of reporting was pretty thin in the department’s records. The facilities now were genuinely joint. In a real-time situation, we had to be on the spot.

How vital they were could be seen in two developments at the time. One was the acceptance by the US of Bob Hawke’s request that Australia withdraw from participating in the testing of America’s MX missile. His argument was that our participation would let loose a domestic political debate on the unrelated joint facilities. Likewise, Australia sought an assurance that the facilities wouldn’t be actively used in experimentation on President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative. The Americans responded positively.

More importantly for Australia, the vital role that the facilities played in Australia’s own defence and intelligence posture became obvious to the government. It became critical for Australia that they should be sustained. Technological changes might well see their removal. For example, such changes made North West Cape no longer crucial for US submarine-launched ballistic missiles, but it was vital for Australian submarines. Hence, Australia sought control of the base. Similarly, Nurrungar became irrelevant for the Americans. It was closed, but its function shifted to Pine Gap as part of a redundant capability.

In 2010, partly to insure against the removal of an Australian bargaining chip, Australia and the US signed the Space Situational Awareness Partnership. That was followed by agreements to relocate a US space surveillance radar to Western Australia in 2014 and for the location of the US space surveillance telescope in 2015.

Occasionally, concern has arisen over alleged joint facilities’ participation in drone strike operations. The point now is that the facilities are deeply embedded in Australia’s order of battle. In large measure, we would be regionally blind and deaf without them. Their replacement would be not only unaffordable but technologically impossible. That this would arise was becoming obvious in the 1980s, as the joint character of the facilities was cemented. In a tight financial situation and a more complex regional security environment, they are invaluable.