In this episode, ASPI’s Michael Shoebridge and Robert Glasser discuss the global Covid-19 situation, the successful and failing responses, and the challenges ahead.

Next, senior analyst Kelsey Munro talks with researcher Nathan Ruser about his use of satellite imagery analysis in his research on areas such as Xinjiang and the China–India border and how he became interested in this type of research tool.

Finally, senior analyst Huong Le Thu is joined by Colonel Raymond Powell, who recently concluded his post as US defence attaché in Canberra. Colonel Powell offers some reflections on the highs and lows of his Australian posting and thoughts on the US–Australia alliance.

It’s great that the Australia–US relationship, particularly its foreign, defence and security aspects, is getting attention with Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynold’s trip to Washington even in the midst of the pandemic. It’s also right to understand that the central agenda item at this year’s Australia–United States Ministerial (AUSMIN) talks will be the Chinese government’s actions and directions and what we might each do to protect and advance our interests.

US–Australia cooperation is central to how we meet the myriad challenges from China as a strategic, technological, economic and political power. It would be deeply wrong, though, to think of Australia’s, or indeed any nation’s, approach to China simply as part of a bilateral US–China relationship, or to resurrect the tired notion of a US–China choice.

That demeans our own interests and actions, limits the range of our partnerships and plays into the hands of Beijing’s propagandists who wish to diminish Australia by portraying us as an attack dog of America or as acting only out of loyalty to the US. It also wholly misunderstands the challenges that the Chinese regime and strategy pose to every government and people on the planet who wish to retain independent, sovereign decision-making, free of coercion and co-option by China’s powerful but flawed authoritarian rulers in the Chinese Communist Party.

It’s not just Australia’s government, or the US administration, that has seen the risks from the Chinese government’s reach into its political systems and economies, or been disturbed by China’s aggressive use of its militia and military. A short list can give some essential context.

The seemingly far away European Union has labelled Beijing a ‘systemic rival’ because of its drive to push authoritarian norms and practices into the way global institutions and groupings operate. India’s government and population are pushing back against military and economic pressure from Beijing because of their contested border, and have not only moved to reinforce their military infrastructure on the India–China border, but also banned Chinese apps and technologies because of security and privacy concerns.

The Canadian government is trying to free two of its citizens whom Beijing has arrested and is holding seemingly in retribution and as hostages because of Canada’s arrest of a senior Huawei leader. Japan has sent ships to work with the Australian and US navies in patrols and exercises in the South China Sea. The UK has called out Beijing’s fundamental breach of the 1984 Joint Declaration on Hong Kong and offered some three million Hongkongers a path to citizenship as a result of Beijing’s removal of the freedoms it had guaranteed. The UK government has decided that technologies from Chinese ‘high-risk vendors’ should be phased out of the nation’s 5G digital backbone, which parallels Australia’s 2018 decision. The French and Germans are working to re-establish ‘industrial sovereignty’ because they no longer want to be vulnerable to Chinese supply chains for critical items, not just medical supplies. And the French are reportedly working to exclude Huawei 5G technology from their own national communications infrastructure.

In the past three years, the Australian government, with strong support in the federal parliament, has tightened foreign investment laws to properly assess national security risks—mainly from Chinese entities wishing to buy and operate chunks of Australia’s economy and infrastructure. Foreign interference laws have been introduced on the back of scandals about the influence of Chinese money and interests within our political system; high-risk vendors—notably from China—have been prevented from building our 5G communications backbone; and Australia has moved to strengthen its deterrent military power in light of growing and increasingly aggressive Chinese military expansion and influence, including in our near region. Just last week, Australian ministers called out Beijing’s illegal claims in the South China Sea while Australian warships worked with US and Japanese partners to assert freedom of navigation in that contested space.

None of these actions, from Brussels to London, Paris, New Delhi, Ottawa, Tokyo and Canberra, is about the US–China bilateral relationship. All of it is about the directions and impacts of China under Xi Jinping. That’s the correct diagnosis of the problem. And getting the diagnosis right is essential to any prescription. Prime Minister Scott Morrison understands this. When talking about China, he’s crystal clear that Australia takes its own actions and initiatives.

When it comes to the prescription—what to do about the China challenge we and others face—how we work with Washington is central, because of America’s broad power strategically, technologically and economically, and because, as former prime minister John Howard reminded us last week, the overlap of Australian and American values and interests is strong.

That’s where Payne and Reynolds’s meeting with their American counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, comes in.   This year, as much as any other, is a time when Australia’s leaders have clear positions and strategies and the US is just as or more interested in learning about these as in outlining its own.

The meeting is an opportunity for a deep exchange of ideas, assessments and directions by two sovereign and independent nations. And the defining topic on the agenda is how to handle Beijing and the combination of economic, technological, political and strategic challenges it brings.

It’s important to Beijing’s government propagandists to discount Australian decisions by pretending they are not the sovereign decisions of a respected government and democratic people—because what Australia does is watched carefully by others and is an influential factor in other governments’ decision-making. The 5G issue, foreign interference and the international inquiry into the pandemic are three examples, as is Australia’s repeated clarity on the illegality of China’s claims in the South China Sea. The plan to build Australia’s deterrent military power and use it to underpin prosperity and security in our near region is a further example.

The problem for Beijing is that these Australian decisions have all been made because it is in our national interests to do so, and the decisions are helpful inputs to similar considerations by many other nations. We need to be wary of analysis, whether inside Australia or from Beijing, that works to diminish either the fact of our independent decision-making or its impact globally.

What we do in Australia to ensure our security, prosperity, independence and safety matters to 25 million Australians, but it also matters for our role in the community of nations as we face multiple collective challenges—not just China or the health and economic destruction of the pandemic, but climate change, population movement and natural disasters.

The United States is our most important partner on almost every one these challenges, but the opportunities for partnership are much broader than this. Understanding our interests and how they converge with those of multiple others internationally, including but not only our US alliance partner, won’t just frustrate and disappoint Beijing’s propagandists, but will ensure that we understand our own power and maximise the leverage of our partnerships.

The US is in its worst crisis since World War II. With more than 582,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, it is the current global epicentre of the pandemic.

More than 23,000 Americans have died from the novel coronavirus so far. Yesterday alone, over 1,500 people died across the US, nearly half of them in New York State. On 4 April, the death toll in New York City eclipsed the 2,753 killed in the terrorist attack that brought down the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001; by yesterday, the city had lost more than 7,000 to Covid-19.

Australia, too, is in crisis from the pandemic. Some 6,359 Australians have been confirmed as infected, and 61 Australians have lost their lives so far.

Covid-19 is affecting the security and safety of the Australian people and the American people, and measures to contain it are changing our daily lives and threatening our economies.

It is also threatening our militaries’ readiness and ability to operate. A US aircraft carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt is tied up in Guam unable to put to sea because of the virus.

American and Australian military capability, along with that of other partners, is a powerful factor in keeping the peace in these dangerous times, notably in North Asia. So, Covid-19 is posing a direct threat to global security.

It’s exactly such times and circumstances that call for our prime minister to do what John Howard did in the days after 9/11, for the first time in our history, and again invoke the ANZUS Treaty.

Scott Morrison’s doing so will be a hugely symbolic act of solidarity and support to the American people from our own people, which will be to both countries’ benefit.

We know the value of close partners during difficult times—the US was one of the nations that sent firefighters to help us during our bushfire disaster last summer. Three US firefighters lost their lives when their water-bomber crashed while battling our fires.

Invoking ANZUS will be more than symbolism. It will result in the entire Australian system working jointly with that of our American counterparts to defeat the pandemic in both of our countries—with all the means of our governments and our medical professionals, scientists and engineers, in government agencies, universities, hospitals, health institutes and private companies.

ANZUS can be the vehicle that maximises our nations’ cooperation for our mutual benefit.

The US has enormous means in this battle against the virus that will come to bear over coming days, weeks and months.

But Australia too has key capabilities—our vaccine researchers are already cooperating closely with US and other global partners, as are our health professionals and medical companies.

Our military has skills that can help keep ships, planes and land systems operational in light of the infection risk from Covid-19. The Australian Defence Force also has highly trained personnel who operate our own platforms and could even augment the US’s defence personnel in key roles–on carriers, for example—if required.

Our federal and state governments have put in place a very effective range of measures that are, so far, helping ensure the virus doesn’t overwhelm our health system. There’s also our approach to underpin economic health during and after the pandemic that we can bring to our cooperation.

Morrison’s first step after invoking ANZUS should be to convene the national cabinet for a virtual meeting with President Donald Trump and his National Security Council. That will give all parties a clear understanding of the critical needs that the US and Australia have and begin to identify areas where each can help the other, through cooperation, exchange of expertise and even augmentation.

Then there are the sub-national connections and partnerships that can benefit both of us. Our premiers and chief ministers have working connections with governors of US states, both through a 2018 memorandum of understanding signed between them and through individual sister city and state relations.

The MOU is a formal platform that includes cooperation on public health, which is required now. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian can also call on Sydney’s sister city relationship with New York to establish a working partnership with the state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo. Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews might do the same with Governor Gavin Newsom of California.

At the public sector level, there is the PM’s National COVID-19 Coordination Commission, which can be one of the means for engaging Australian and American corporate power to cope with the economic strains from the pandemic.

Article III of ANZUS says, ‘The Parties will consult together whenever in the opinion of any of them the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened in the Pacific.’ Covid-19 is clearly threatening the security of the American and Australian people through its direct impact on health and life. It’s also affecting our economies’ ability to sustain national power and our militaries’ ability to do their jobs, act in our defence and contribute to regional security in places like the South China Sea and North Asia.

Scott Morrison last year called the ANZUS Treaty ‘the single most important achievement’ of the Liberal Party in any term of government.

He can now use that achievement to the benefit of both our nations.

Australia’s review of defence strategy and the capabilities that flow from it is almost complete. From the outside, the strategic assessment has to be that China’s power and military reach have grown faster than expected, including its ability to reach into and operate in Australia’s near region.

In addition, the slow growth in Australian military capability through the 2016 defence white paper’s major programs—frigates, submarines and armoured vehicles—is out of step with our need, along with our US ally, to have a stronger military to deter China’s assertiveness and presence in our region.

This time gap needs to be closed, as does an emerging capability gap.

Once the big new platforms like frigates and submarines turn up, the US and Australia will need harder hitting weapons to launch from them, in greater numbers and with longer ranges, than currently planned.

The 2021 US defence budget proposal shows how Australia can shift its own plans to deal with the new strategic and operational reality.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s US$704.5 billion bid for military spending isn’t the average Pentagon budget. It’s the first marking the decisive shift in US strategy from the counterterrorism era to the US–China peer competitor era, a competition happening primarily in the Indo-Pacific.

The Pentagon is changing the US military’s fundamental design. That’s because many of the weapons and systems it has—or was in the midst of developing and buying—are great for fighting insurgents and terrorists, but are less useful or just plain vulnerable when it comes to fighting or deterring a peer-state military like the People’s Liberation Army.

Previously important plans are being cut. Unmanned aerial systems the US has begun to field are being retired (like the RQ-4 Global Hawk), ‘paused’ in early production (like the MQ-4C Triton) or left in service without further production (like the MQ-9 Reaper).

These systems are hugely capable, but they’re vulnerable to an adversary that can strike relatively slow aerial targets. Iran shot down a Global Hawk last year. And these drones are so expensive they can only be bought in small numbers—each Triton costs about A$265 million. Even the cashed-up US military was planning to buy just 65 of them.

Armed drones like the Reaper were used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq for counterterrorism operations but are too vulnerable to be used against a state with layered air defences like China.

The US decisions sound bad for Australia, because the planned acquisition of the Triton and a variant of the Reaper are the Australian Defence Force’s first big ventures into unmanned systems. So, in one way it’s a nasty shock to find that just as Australia is finally stepping into these systems, the US is stepping out.

In fact, though, the timing of this message is perfect. Australia needs to make a similar strategic shift. Left to itself, a conservative defence organisation might stay on the fence a bit longer.

The US isn’t just getting off the Global Hawk, Reaper and Triton buses, it’s also proposing to retire some big weapons platforms like B-1 bombers as well A-10 attack planes, older C-130 Hercules aircraft and even some F-15 and F-16 fighters. If Congress lets it, the Pentagon will also retire four navy ships.

So, what about the new weapons the US is developing and fielding with the money the cuts free up? There’s a pattern here and, with the exception of the B-21 bomber, it’s not about developing the next generation of the usual submarines, aircraft or ships.

The tagline for the new investments is ‘offensive, intelligent and autonomous’. That means things like hypersonic weapons, unmanned surface vessels, long-range and smart munitions, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, microelectronics and 5G, satellites, and cyber and cloud-computing infrastructure.

The Pentagon has already accelerated the fielding of the Orca, Boeing’s large unmanned submarine. Australia should buy in now and get this undersea capability years before the first Attack-class submarine turns up. The US has also put its long-range anti-ship missile into production and announced that its new ‘global strike hypersonic weapon’ will be deployed in submarines from 2028.

These new capabilities will provide a decisive step up in offensive power to deter the PLA. Some will deliver real capabilities to servicemen and -women much faster than traditional development programs.

If the US military has decided it lacks combat punch against Chinese capabilities, what does that mean for Australia? Our much smaller force operates predominantly US platforms and has mainly US weapons. The force envisaged in the 2016 white paper mirrors US gaps in offensive power, which the Pentagon is now in a big hurry to close.

Waiting for the US to release these new capabilities through its foreign military sales or contractual purchase programs would mean staying behind the curve during this decade of change and risk. The US acceleration means the smart path for Australia is to buy into smaller and faster development programs. These programs must include co-production of the resulting systems and weapons in the US and in Australia.

That involves risk, because not all programs will succeed. But getting involved now removes the much greater and growing risk that the ADF will be outmatched in conflict.

Australia is perhaps the only ally that could develop and co-produce systems with the US, because of the tight integration in high-end systems that have been created over decades.

Cooperative development isn’t new, although co-production like this will be, and it makes economic and strategic sense.

Deterring Chinese power involves more than just increased combat punch; it also involves dispersing forces more widely to complement the longstanding concentration of US forces in South Korea and Japan. And distributed forces are best supported by dispersed supply chains. Co-production of weapons systems used by the US and Australia will be an enormous advantage for both our militaries. It will give flexibility to our forces and complicate any adversary’s planning.

So, a test for the defence review is how successful it is in proposing more than marginal shuffling in the $200 billion integrated investment program. The Defence Department needs to move decisively to rapidly develop and field the offensive, the intelligent and the autonomous, as we see the US doing.

A bigger test is about Defence’s ability to link strategy, politics and economics. Can it convince the defence minister and prime minister that now is the time to invest in fast co-development and co-production programs with the US and other close partners?

Such investments can be part of a targeted economic stimulus program and will leave a lasting benefit beyond a short-term cash injection.

They would involve new production facilities in Australia and partnerships between big defence companies and local small and medium enterprises. Producing Rafael’s Spike missile here in Australia with its partner Varley is an example.

If this is done well, the government money will bring more funds from Australia’s growing private equity investors, some of whom are already in the defence sector.

Private equity is looking for just this kind of government signal as a way to generate stable returns in an uncertain world. Such investment will magnify the stimulus effect of the government’s money and turn some of our small defence companies into medium-sized firms.

The bigger benefit, of course, will be a more secure Australia.

In part 1 of this series, I argued that though on the surface ANZUS seems in good health, there are at least four diverging strategic interests: American primacy in Asia, the institutional status quo, Taiwan, and ADF troops beyond Asia. The political compact needs revising to ensure the expectations of both parties can be met. In this post, I explore two different ways to achieve that.

The Menzies model

The current model of ANZUS, developed when Robert Menzies was prime minister, is based on a functional allocation of tasks. If those tasks are no longer appropriate, a partnership based on new, clearly defined roles may still make sense. This is partly how NATO reformed after the end of the Cold War. It fit the defence planners’ emphasis on the uncertainty and diversity of threats that would spread across borders.

A model for ANZUS based on specific roles would be a relatively easy transition. It would align with Australia’s expeditionary military culture. It would also reflect the fundamental asymmetry of our alliance. New tasks could be chosen, and, in exchange, tasks unwanted by one party (such as joining a Taiwan contingency) could be laid to rest.

The list of things Australia might do that are of benefit to the US is long. Those that make the most sense would rely on skills and ideas rather than material capacity. Australia’s roles could include providing global expertise in election security and building military capability. They could extend to areas in which states are under threat from the new authoritarians, and be valuably deployed to willing countries across the globe.

If we are to renew the Menzies model, it would make sense to attempt to codify the new expectations and build out the institutional structure of ANZUS, which is surprisingly weak. This would give Australia the certainty and access to US war planning it has craved for decades, while offering Washington much clearer criteria for assessing its ally’s contribution.

This model would therefore be easy and quite viable for us to move into. Yet, the example of NATO should give us pause. Functional roles have proven a weak bond to ensure sufficient spending and a sense of duty and responsibility. Indeed, NATO seems to be moving back towards a more geographic approach, and Australia is increasingly focused on its immediate region.

Ultimately, a functional model may seem appealing, but the risk would be that we continue the ad hoc pattern, where the presence and quantity of cooperation are presumed to count for far more than the purpose of our cooperation.

The MacArthur model

Another approach would be to revisit a model we’ve already practised before. This would involve the US returning to its 1942 position of using the Australian continent as a base for projecting power into Asia. Australia would focus on defending and supporting US military efforts. For shorthand, let’s call this the Douglas MacArthur model.

While I can’t speculate too far, my sense is that serious thought is being given to this approach by planners in both the US and Australia. In 2015 the US assistant defence secretary told Congress that B-1 bombers and other surveillance aircraft would be based in Australia. In 2016 the US commander of Pacific air forces revealed that discussions for temporary basing of the B-1 were still underway. In 2019 and 2020 US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has speculated about allies hosting intermediate-range missiles in Asia. And, of course, Prime Minister Scott Morrison just announced a $1.6 billion investment in RAAF Base Tindal.

Australia’s territory is the most strategically significant contribution it can make to the US in its great-power competition with China (especially in the eyes of the Donald Trump administration). Long-range bombers and missiles make the most sense given the geography of Australia, although there are other services such as battle repair, maintenance, logistics and communication support which could be of value to a United States looking to establish a military presence in Asia outside the scope of China’s missile range.

The MacArthur model may not work for a variety of reasons. Australians dislike the idea of hosting foreign bases—hence the rush by three separate conservative prime ministers (first Tony Abbott, then Malcolm Turnbull, then Morrison) to deny that was the goal. Public caution about foreign forces may shift as strategic circumstances worsen, but leadership will be needed to change public attitudes. The conversation will need to begin soon.

Second, Australia is a long way from the likely sites of any conflict in Northeast Asia. A lot would have to go wrong for the US to give up its position in Japan, South Korea and Guam to decide Australia was the best foundation for its presence in Asia.

Finally, it’s a military model at heart. Moving directly to a war-planning foundation may be right if we are certain war is coming, but it limits our efforts here and now, across political, economic and social fields to try to prevent such a war.

So, while it makes sense for the planners to keep on planning, the MacArthur model seems unlikely, and hopefully will be unnecessary.

In the final part of this series, I’ll discuss another model that may help us if we don’t want to go all the way with D.J.T., based on the approach of one of Menzies’ and MacArthur’s contemporaries, Ben Chifley.