Tag Archive for: Indo-Pacific

Talking to the chiefs: Mike Noonan

The regional security situation is evolving faster than anyone expected and that’s driving the Royal Australian Navy’s rebalance from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific, says RAN chief Mike Noonan.

‘Our government’s focus on the role that Australia plays in the Southwest Pacific has deepened significantly in recent times’, says Noonan, who assumed command of the navy in July last year. The navy’s never left the region but now has a more dedicated focus on it, he tells The Strategist.

As a key Australian ally, the United States is making very deliberate strategic decisions on what the Indo-Pacific means to it and that process is still evolving, he says. ‘The very deliberate change in the name of US Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command and its changed posture is evidence of that.’

There’s a realisation within that thinking that Australia has the lead in the Southwest Pacific, Noonan says. ‘It’s great to know that we have the support of the US but, ultimately, the government will decide what we do in the region.

‘I think we all have a very clear view of the changing nature of military capabilities in the region. The military capability China is now building in all three domains is very significant. It changes the level of competition.’

Noonan says it remains unclear why China is building a navy at an unprecedented rate, with an unprecedented level of capability, and routinely operating around the Spratly Islands and elsewhere in the South China Sea. ‘That’s a changed dynamic’, he says.

The navy chief says China’s long-term intentions are not clear and the international community continues to call upon Beijing to be transparent about its activity in the region and to operate in accordance with the international rules-based order. ‘That’s not happening’, he says.

‘We as a country and I as the chief of the navy are very concerned about the change in dynamic that we see in our region in terms of the observance of international law around maritime boundaries.

‘We’ve seen over the last 10 years the creation of artificial structures, artificial islands, artificial bases that have by nature of their geography seen China then generate a maritime boundary, which is inconsistent with international law. They are claiming to now have new territory. That was tested and found to be inconsistent with international law, but what has China done about it? Nothing.

‘They continue to take this action, so that means that freedoms of navigation that once existed for this country and the rest of the international community have now been altered in a way that is not consistent with international law’, he says.

‘We need to be prepared to deter aggression if it does threaten our national interests and, if necessary, take defensive action’, Noonan says. ‘That’s very, very clear.’

A number of countries have observed China’s change in posture and are taking active measures to ensure that they have the capability to deter aggression and defend themselves if necessary. And as navies in Southeast and Northeast Asia are growing, Russia, too, is revitalising its military.

The US Navy has routinely carried out freedom-of-navigation operations for many years, and in many areas, most recently sailing within 12 nautical miles of China’s artificial islands. But Noonan says there are advantages in allies having different positions on such issues. ‘That provides us with options.’

When the US and United Kingdom carried out FONOPs within 12 nautical miles of claimed Chinese territory last year, both countries were issued with strong diplomatic notes by Beijing, which also stopped military cooperation with them for the rest of 2018. It’s not clear yet what the situation will be in 2019.

‘We do not conduct FONOPs in the ADF’, says Noonan. ‘It doesn’t mean that we won’t in the future. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. Ultimately, they’re decisions for government to make.’

Noonan says the RAN operated significantly through the South China Sea during 2018 but did not go within 12 nautical miles of any claimed territory. ‘We enjoy a level of contact with the Chinese people and the People’s Liberation Army Navy that allows us to continue to have open dialogue about the international rules-based order’, he says.

Noonan met PLA Navy chief Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong in September. ‘I very clearly said I disagree, my government disagrees, with your activities and he very clearly recognised that our governments will disagree on things. But it’s important that we talk so that if we get to a point where we have disagreements and it could lead to an escalation of tensions in the region or at sea, I have a pathway to have a dialogue with my counterpart.

‘We had HMAS Melbourne in Zhanjiang in October. Our fleet commander visited there. We’ve conducted a Taiwan Straits transit. We’ve been through the Spratly Islands on three or four occasions this year in a very harmonious way. I’ve invited my Chinese counterpart to Australia next year. He’s invited me to China next year. Being able to have that dialogue, where we don’t necessarily always agree with things, is very important.’

Noonan speaks to allied commanders at least once each week about the changing dynamic in the region, especially in the South China Sea.

‘There’s a lot of coordination around what we can do, what we should do, what we might do, in the future. Being able to provide options to our government in terms of how we can best defend and contribute to the national interest is important. Every action has a reaction to it. And I know that the government has thought long and hard about whether or not we should conduct freedom-of-navigation operations and it is an option that remains on the table.’

While it’s often argued that for a nation’s warships to remain outside 12 nautical miles of an illegally claimed maritime boundary means giving tacit support to the claim, Noonan says he doesn’t necessarily agree with that. ‘I think that we are observing that there’s a disputed claim and if something occurs that makes the government feel the situation has changed then the fact that we’re in the region means we can change what we’re doing at very short notice. We’re there, we know the area and our teams are used to navigating in the region.

‘If you’re not routinely in the region, if you’re not used to operating in a task group, if you’re not routinely navigating in those waters, if you’re not routinely observing the traffic—be that civilian or military operating in the region—you’re not ready to react as flexibly as we are’, Noonan says.

‘The one thing that I’m really driving in our navy is that we’ve got to be very agile, we’ve got to be able to make decisions and ultimately my role is to produce a lethal fighting force, so that if the government needs to use it, we can use it.’

Editors’ picks for 2018: ‘A concise dictionary of the FOIP language—1st edition’

Originally published 11 July 2018.

The free and open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) isn’t just a new name; it signals an important shift in framing a geostrategic understanding of the consequences of China’s rise. Apart from the ongoing process of clarifying the scope, meaning, objectives and roles of the actors involved, a new narrative is being built with incremental use of a special vocabulary—the FOIP language—which I’ll attempt to decode.

The Shangri-La Dialogue is the premier Asian security summit because it engages the largest number of defence ministers in one room. The SLD is also one of the best forums for listening to the most prevalent complaints, observing the mood and voicing concerns. As such, it’s a barometer of regional security tensions. As a dialogue platform, it’s all about defence diplomacy—which means that language matters.

While the SLD isn’t the only forum in which the FOIP language is spoken, it’s a venue for popularising the FOIP lexicon. FOIP was referenced in most speeches at the 2018 SLD, the two most important of which were delivered by the keynote speaker, Indian PM Narenda Modi, and by US Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Both Modi and Mattis, along with most of the other defence ministers in attendance, used a common set of terms. For example, some countries were blamed for unilateral actions that undermine the rules-based order. Other commonly used phrases included freedom from external coercion, equality despite the size, and quality infrastructure. Many of the terms are used antonymically: they highlight the absence of something rather than the presence of it.

Unpacking each term leaves room for creative interpretation. Still, ‘like-minded’ nations can crack the code, at least to some degree. ‘Indo-Pacific’ suggests that the like-minded might have reached an inflection point in their concerns—mainly about China—and are willing to come up with a common strategy or stance to address those worries. An indication of their alignment is how willing they are—beyond bilateral discussions and with witnesses—to openly voice their concerns.

According to communication theory, a message has three elements: the intended message (what the sender meant to say), the conveyed message (what the message actually says) and the received message (what the recipient thinks the message says). At the SLD, there were multiple senders with varying degrees of coherence in their intended messages. Let’s dwell on some of those.

Starting with communicating actors: Who are the like-minded countries? Judging from the SLD performances, they’re the US, Australia, Japan, France, India and perhaps the UK (although there were variations among them). What do they agree on? The unanimous answer is: China—in particular, the aggressive China that violates international law in asserting its territorial claims and expands its influence around the world through a range of economic and political means.

Rule of law—apparent in all of the speeches mentioned above—usually refers to a lack of adherence to international law by China and its flouting of the arbitral tribunal’s 2016 ruling. Maritime security refers more to the South China Sea disputes than to any other maritime issues. And freedom from coercion—while having more than one application—often refers to China’s intimidation of other claimant states, particularly through militarisation of artificial islands and conducting military exercises in and around disputed waters.

Respect for sovereignty appears to underline the lack of it, also in the context of China’s aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea. Stressing the need for countries to respect equality despite the size also alludes to power asymmetry in the region, where China looms over its neighbours, most visibly in Southeast Asia.

Words need to match actions and a need for transparency are phrases used to chastise China for denying that it was militarising the artificial islands while continuing to do so.

Some countries, for most, but not all, is another way of calling China out; although China has used that phrase before, too, presumably referring to the US.

It’s risky to assume that ‘like-minded’ states have a shared understanding, let alone aligned strategies. So far, what seems to be uncontested is that the ‘Indo-Pacific’ would be a region in which predatory economics (a code reference to China’s debt-trap lending patterns) are countered by quality infrastructure. That point is hammered home by noting the many public infrastructure projects sprinkled around China’s Belt and Road Initiative maps.

Yet as both Modi and Mattis talked about the FOIP, there were a number of discrepancies signalling differences in how they envision a free, open, equal, prosperous and quality-based region. The main divergence among the FOIP language speakers also centres on … China.

While China’s aggressive rise presents a challenge for all, approaches to addressing that challenge differ even among those who embrace the FOIP. Again, when juxtaposing Modi’s and Mattis’s speeches, India appears to prefer growth together, whereas the US wants cooperation where possible. Regional actors seem more comfortable with the Indian approach, as was apparent in Singaporean defence minister Ng Eng Hen’s speech where he referred to ‘some countries’ with an emphasis on the plural—stressing that big countries, both China and the US, need to refrain from using coercion against smaller ones.

These messages are being received in a variety of ways. Southeast Asian states are hesitant, and warning others not to push them into choosing sides (at least not openly). An emphasis on values (as opposed to what China offers) might unsettle an Asian audience. It would seem insincere and hence unconvincing, given the colonial legacy of those who push hardest for the rule of law, including the US and its Western allies. More importantly, it’s insensitive for the US to press for Indo-Pacific nations to promote a balance of power, when the perception of the US’s fluctuating reliability is only strengthening. China’s presence, by contrast, be it good or bad, is a given. Both Modi and Ng pushed back against such insensitivity in their speeches.

The emergence of a code language is a fascinating phenomenon and indicates the effect that China is having on the region. Invention of a new lexicon isn’t only a diplomatic exercise to allow flexibility and creativity, but also reflects the need to self-censor, among both small and big countries. The FOIP vocabulary will continue to have different meanings for individual actors, but for the code to work there needs to be a shared understanding of the core messages. For now, it seems that the only common word is China.

A concert of Indo-Pacific democracies

On his week-long tour of Asia, US vice president Mike Pence has been promoting a vision of a ‘free and open’ Indo-Pacific region, characterised by unimpeded trade flows, freedom of navigation, and respect for the rule of law, national sovereignty and existing frontiers. The question is whether this vision of an Indo-Pacific free of ‘authoritarianism and aggression’ is achievable.

One country that seems willing to contribute to realising this vision is Japan. In fact, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is the originator of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ concept that lies at the heart of US president Donald Trump’s new strategy, the successor to Barack Obama’s unhinged ‘pivot’ to Asia.

Having historically punched above its weight internationally, Japan is responding to China’s muscular rise by strengthening its own position in the region. Taking advantage of its considerable assets—the world’s third-largest economy, substantial high-tech skills and a military that has recently been freed of some legal and constitutional constraints—Japan is boosting its geopolitical clout.

Japan’s world-class navy has already begun operating far beyond the country’s waters in order to establish its position in the region. For example, in order to challenge China’s claims in the South China Sea, a Japanese submarine and three destroyers carried out naval drills there in September. ‘Japan’s willingness to participate in Asian security’, former US defence secretary Ash Carter recently said, ‘makes it an increasingly important player in the region’.

But creating a free and open Indo-Pacific is not the job of one country alone. Establishing the stable balance of power needed to realise Pence’s vision will require all of the region’s major democracies—from Japan and India to Indonesia and Australia—to come together.

The good news is that Abe seems to recognise the importance of cooperation among Asia’s democratic powers. In discussing the natural alliance between the region’s richest democracy and its largest one, he declared: ‘A strong India benefits Japan, and a strong Japan benefits India.’

With that in mind, Abe and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, recently held a summit that opened the way for a military logistics pact that would give each country’s armed forces access to the other’s bases. Beyond instituting a joint two-plus-two dialogue among the countries’ foreign and defence ministers, Abe and Modi agreed to deepen naval and maritime security cooperation and collaborate on projects in third countries, including Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to enhance strategic connectivity in the Indo-Pacific.

At the summit, Japan and India devised a new motto for the bilateral relationship: ‘Shared security, shared prosperity and shared destiny’. The comfort and camaraderie shown by Abe and Modi during their meeting, held at Abe’s private vacation home near Mount Fuji, stood in stark contrast to the stony expressions and sombre handshakes on display when, just two days earlier, Abe had met Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Cooperation between India and Japan builds on, among other things, the trilateral India–Japan–US Malabar naval exercises. Malabar has become an important component of the effort to defend freedom of navigation and overflight in the Indo-Pacific region, through which two-thirds of global trade travels. If India signed a military logistics agreement with Japan, as it has with the US, the Indian navy would be better able to expand its footprint to the western Pacific, while enabling Japan to project its naval power in the Indian Ocean.

Fortunately, relations among the Indo-Pacific’s four key maritime democracies—Australia, India, Japan and the US—are stronger than ever, characterised by high-level linkages and intelligence-sharing. These countries should institutionalise their ‘Quad’ initiative, with the India–Japan dyad forming the cornerstone of efforts to pursue wider collaboration in the region.

But such collaboration will face considerable obstacles. For starters, the relationship between Japan and America’s other closest East Asian ally, South Korea, continues to be held hostage by history.

The issue of ‘comfort women’—Korean women who were coerced into providing sexual services to Japanese troops during World War II—has long been particularly contentious. A 2015 agreement, endorsed by Abe and former South Korean president Park Geun-hye, claimed to resolve the issue ‘irreversibly’: Japan offered its apology and ¥1 billion (US$8.8 million) for a fund created to help the victims.

But, earlier this year, Park’s successor, Moon Jae-in, rejected the deal, arguing that it did not adequately serve the victims or the public. More recently, South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered a major Japanese steelmaker to compensate the ‘victims of forced labour’ during Japan’s colonial rule of Korea, even though a 1965 bilateral agreement was supposed to have settled ‘completely and finally’ all such claims.

The rancorous relationship between Japan and South Korea plays directly into China’s hands. While South Korea obviously should not disregard its history, it should find a way to move past its colonial subjugation and form new, mutually beneficial relationships with Japan, much as India, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia have done with their former colonisers.

Another potential impediment to a concert of Indo-Pacific democracies is domestic instability in key countries. In strategically located Sri Lanka, for example, President Maithripala Sirisena has ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (despite the latter’s parliamentary majority) and called a snap election, even though the constitution does not give him the power to do either. A weakening of the country’s democracy could have strategic ramifications for an economically integrated but politically divided Indo-Pacific.

Nonetheless, the deepening relationship between Japan and India serves the goal of forestalling the emergence of a China-centric Asia. If Japan and India—after China, the region’s most influential countries—can leverage their relationship to generate progress towards a broader concert of democracies in the region, the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific may be achievable after all.

India has the most to lose if it doesn’t embrace the Quad

The revival of the Australia–India–Japan–US security quadrilateral (informally known as the Quad) is anticipated to be a key plank of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ strategy. In theory, deeper cooperation among four powerful democracies with similar anxieties about China’s rise should strengthen a balance of power that favours the preservation of the rules-based order across the Indo-Pacific. The sceptical viewpoint is that India remains the weakest link: New Delhi is unreliable and will protect its strategic autonomy at any cost.

A case can be made for scepticism. Despite apparently warming to the idea, India again refused Australia’s request to join the Malabar naval exercises with the US and Japan held in June. It’s likely Sino-Indian relations had something to do with it, given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to ‘reset’ relations with China after the resolution of the Doklam border crisis in August last year. More substantively, Modi might have feared that further upsetting China could have provoked Beijing to hit India where it hurts most: by helping Pakistan stir up additional trouble in Kashmir and along the disputed borders between India and China.

Even so, enduring strategic concerns will eventually force India to adopt a more strident policy against China, and the Quad will become an increasingly important grouping to that end. New Delhi’s fear of encirclement has been heightened by Beijing’s disregard for India’s claims to a sphere of influence over its neighbours and direct moves to undermine this influence. The role of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ in securing access to potentially dual-use ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka is well known, with India fearing that they could be converted to military uses in the future. Beijing’s gunboat diplomacy in the Maldives in February, ostensibly to prevent potential Indian intervention in that country’s constitutional crisis, brought home the growing Chinese intrusion into India’s sphere of influence. This is a competitor who spends around four times more than India on its military according to 2017 figures.

There are reasons why the Quad will become more compelling for New Delhi despite its historical and rhetorical commitment to strategic non-alignment.

First, the other three Quad members are the most formidable naval powers operating in the Indo-Pacific, other than China. Both the US and Japan represent sources of cutting-edge military technologies and are likely to share some of that with like-minded countries as part of a free and open Indo-Pacific strategy. Australia may not be a direct source of such technology, but its own naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean—particularly in the areas of maritime domain awareness and submarine warfare—should not be underestimated. Australia too has the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, which could be developed into important strategic territories.

Second, cooperation with Quad countries will help India to fill gaps in maritime domain awareness over the vast Indian Ocean. This may be in the form of access to military technology designed for this purpose (for example, India’s introduction of US P-8 surveillance and strike aircraft), development of jointly used military infrastructure (bases, ports, airstrips) and information- and intelligence-sharing. On the latter, India’s signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement with the US in September  allows it to obtain secure and encrypted defence communications and data equipment from Washington, as well as access to real-time data-sharing with the US and other friendly forces.

Third, India knows that its greatest long-term challenge and threat is Chinese ambitions in the Indian Ocean and not land-based disputes with Pakistan. Deepening maritime cooperation within the structure of the Quad will help institutionalise ‘strategic discipline’ in this context. Indian pre-eminence in the Bay of Bengal is apparently a priority for the Modi government. If that’s so, deeper commitment to the Quad—an essentially maritime grouping—will help New Delhi keep its eye on the ball and prevent attention and resources from being diverted back to the army to be absorbed by permanent spats with Pakistan.

Indeed, the maritime division of labour among the four countries allocating resources and capability to areas and zones where they have an advantage makes sense. If India can persuade the US, Japan and Australia to support New Delhi’s desire to emerge as the preeminent security provider in the Bay of Bengal within a Quad structure, then that’s something every Indian government would support in a post-Modi era.

China’s emergence as an Indian Ocean power is narrowing India’s choices, which New Delhi only intermittently recognises. It remains the weakest link among the Quad countries. However, the Quad is becoming a more important grouping for India than for the US, Japan or Australia.

Will India soon emerge as champion of the Quad rather than reluctant participant? Yes, if New Delhi chooses self-help over self-harm.

Can Indonesia rescue the idea of the ‘Indo-Pacific’, and should it?

Australian government policy, in former foreign minister Julie Bishop’s words, has been to support the ASEAN-led East Asia Summit ‘as the region’s key forum for discussing security challenges’. However, in recent months we’ve seen Australian leaders place an increasingly strong emphasis on the ‘Indo-Pacific’. Is Australia moving away from the ASEAN-centred architecture?

One problem with the term Indo-Pacific is that it has increasingly become code for pushback against China—a country of gigantic importance to Australia economically. The assumed connection between the Indo-Pacific and the Quad (the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal platform for cooperation between the United States, Japan, India and Australia) sharpens the difficulty—not only because the democracy-invoking Quad is so obviously antagonistic to China, but also because recent developments raise doubts about the commitment of at least three of the participating countries.

In recent months, the Indonesian leadership (which first advocated the Indo-Pacific over a decade ago) has been trying to regain control of the initiative, insisting that it can be inclusive—read: not hostile to China—and that it could benefit ASEAN. The Indonesians speak of an ‘Indo-Pacific treaty’, an ‘Indo-Pacific regional architecture’ and an ‘Indo-Pacific cooperation umbrella’. Former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa says he seeks a ‘dynamic equilibrium’ involving the different regional powers, and he and other Indonesians believe ASEAN—positioned at the core of the Indo-Pacific—will maintain that equilibrium. The Indonesian formulations are in some ways attractive, but are they realistic? Perhaps, but there are a number of challenges.

First, the Indo-Pacific idea may already be too deeply entangled with US-led strategic manoeuvring. The 2017 US national security strategy gives prominence to the notion, which was reflected in the renaming of the US Pacific Command to Indo-Pacific Command.

Indonesia is wise to try to reassert the more inclusive Indo-Pacific concept. ASEAN has always been inclusive, uncomfortable with security alliances and opposed to ideology-based associations. At this point, however, it will take much effort by Indonesia to resist the push towards a counter-China, liberal Indo-Pacific.

A second challenge is that many in ASEAN oppose the idea of the Indo-Pacific—and Indonesian policymakers are as aware as anyone of the need to maintain unity. One reason for ASEAN hesitation is the China issue. True, the disputes in the South China Sea have caused concern, but ASEAN has pointed out that that’s only one issue among many in its relations with China, almost all of which are beneficial.

Assuming ASEAN agreed to some form of Indo-Pacific architecture, the next problem would be maintaining ASEAN leadership or centrality. Natalegawa has suggested that an Indo-Pacific treaty could be based on ASEAN principles. But even if the major powers were agree to that, the new Indo-Pacific body, in most formulations, would still probably be independent of the ASEAN ‘hub and spokes’ structure—which has been the foundation of such regional institutions as the East Asia Summit, ASEAN+3 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

In a more open Indo-Pacific gathering—one likely to replace the East Asia Summit—ASEAN countries would be hard-pressed to compete with the mega-states of Northeast Asia, India and the United States. Since 1967, ASEAN—despite international criticism of its careful, consultative, consensus-seeking processes—has been remarkable in maintaining a degree of leadership in the wider region, despite being a gathering of relatively small states.

In old writings of Southeast Asia, such diplomatic ingenuity is invoked in the image of the wily mouse deer (pelandok jenaka), the small animal that employs all types of tactic to survive among the big animals of the forest. It is mouse deer diplomacy that Southeast Asians have pursued for centuries with respect to China and other great states—and it is still used today on behalf of what Bilahari Kausikan has described as Southeast Asia’s long-term quest for ‘autonomy’ and ‘maximal room to manoeuvre’.

ASEAN’s leadership in regional institutions has been almost a sleight of hand, but it has one enormous benefit (including for Australia). The question of which major power should preside in the region has been able to be set aside. Assuming the Indo-Pacific architecture moves beyond the ASEAN hub-and-spokes system, the question is likely to be starkly present. The whole thing could unravel—both the Indo-Pacific and the East Asia Summit—if competition for dominance in the Indo-Pacific were to lead nowhere.

A further challenge for the Indo-Pacific idea is its lack of emotive or identity substance. This issue tends to confuse Western analysts, who focus on the functional advantages of regional architecture. The importance of practical transborder cooperation is of course acknowledged in Asian societies, but a more organic understanding of regional architecture is also influential.

For over a century, beginning in India and Japan, the idea of Asian unity has been promoted; advocating a convincing ‘Asia–Pacific’ vision has seemed even more difficult. As Indonesian analyst Jusuf Wanandi notes, ‘Indo-Pacific’ excludes the word ‘Asia’, which covers ‘the most important part of the region’. Indo-Pacific, in fact, seems to have no emotive substance whatsoever for the people of the countries concerned. This may be unimportant if it’s understood as no more than a strategic framework, but when there’s talk of ‘Indo-Pacific regional architecture’ the deficiency matters.

A final consideration is the deeper transition underway in our region—not just a power shift, but a structural change in rules, values and aspirations, influenced in part by a reassertion of perspectives from the past. The promise of a homogenising globalisation now competes, for instance, with a renewed stress on ‘patriotism’ (especially from America); certain older Asian traditions of hierarchical relations seem to be shadowing interstate politics; and Salafi Islam (including in Indonesia) looks backward as well as forward in promoting radical concepts of community and obligation. In some ways, the ASEAN-based institutions might possess a special talent for handling the complexity of the post-globalisation era.

Indonesia itself has been a leader in ASEAN’s patient diplomacy and in the region’s quest for ‘maximum room to manoeuvre’. Australian commentators have given too little attention to ASEAN’s successes. In thinking about Indo-Pacific projects, we should perhaps all be careful what we wish for.

Natalegawa has been arguing for greater ‘transformative leadership’ from ASEAN—but a transformation away from ‘ASEAN+’ to ‘Indo-Pacific’ architecture is sharply challenging, and may be transformative in dangerous ways.

The real significance of the Quad

In India, Australia and other Indo-Pacific countries, we have been regularly inundated with commentary about the ‘Quad’, the informal name for a grouping of countries comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia. There are two popular refrains. One is alarmist: the Quad is a military alliance to contain China and its very idea is provocative, divisive and unnecessary. This is the view of not just some critics in the four countries, but also many in China and Southeast Asia. The second and more common reaction is scorn. For sceptics, the Quad has never amounted to much and is unlikely to, given various countries’ hesitations. The accusatory finger is usually pointed at India, sometimes at Australia, and occasionally at the United States after Donald Trump’s election as president.

Both views fundamentally mischaracterise the Quad and its objectives. For now, it is merely a bureaucratic-level foreign-ministry-led dialogue that meets occasionally after a 10-year hiatus. While the four countries have conducted some military activities together—humanitarian assistance and disaster relief following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, naval exercises in 2007, and public appearances by senior military leaders—the Quad isn’t a defence dialogue, much less an alliance. It serves the limited purpose of political signalling and improves coordination among a set of like-minded and capable maritime powers in the Indo-Pacific.

However, it’s not the Quad’s relatively modest activities to date that are the real story. Over the past two years, military engagements involving the US, Japan, India and Australia have broken new ground. Today, the four enjoy unprecedented levels of information and intelligence exchanges, personnel interactions, interoperable equipment and habits of cooperation. But by ignoring the rapidly growing military engagement among the four countries that comprise the Quad, many analysts are in danger of missing the forest for the trees.

It’s helpful to examine the Quad less as a bloc of four countries and more as a matrix of trilateral and bilateral relationships. The four already enjoy three trilateral and six bilateral strategic dialogues, not counting a host of other military engagements and working groups.

Trilaterally, US–Japan–Australia engagement is the most advanced, given the legacy of US alliances and the recently unveiled trilateral infrastructure agreement. Meanwhile, the US–India–Japan trilateral dialogue is now held at the ministerial level, Japan has been permanently included in India–US naval exercises, and a trilateral infrastructure working group has been established. A Japan–India–Australia trilateral dialogue was recently initiated.

Other developments point to growing ‘minilateralism’. This year, India’s air force participated in Australia’s Pitch Black exercise, representing a growing degree of comfort with defence cooperation in a regional context. The commonality of equipment—notably maritime patrol aircraft—is significant for improving collective maritime domain awareness and anti-submarine contingencies, and adds another element of interoperability. Nor are emerging regional trilateral relations exclusive: India and Australia have initiated a trilateral dialogue with Indonesia, the US and Japan meet regularly with South Korea, and all four countries have deepened their ties with France, which boasts a remarkable presence in the Indo-Pacific.

In addition, every constituent bilateral relationship among the Quad countries has strengthened in recent years. All six bilaterals now feature 2+2 dialogues involving the foreign and defence ministries. America’s relations with Japan and Australia are naturally much more developed. Overcoming past squabbling over basing arrangements, the US and Japan have recommitted themselves to their alliance. The US–Australia relationship has also been reinforced with US Marines in Darwin and continued high-level political relations.

Two other bilateral relationships have grown in importance. For India, the US now rivals Russia as its most significant defence partner. Beyond a host of diplomatic, defence, staff and technical dialogues—including the first 2+2 dialogue in September—India–US military exercises have become more regular, with army special forces and air exercises reinitiated after a hiatus. After more than a decade of negotiations, a logistics supply agreement and communications agreement have been signed. India has also acquired several major defence platforms from the US, and preliminary efforts at joint defence production and research and development are underway. Similarly, the Japan–Australia relationship has undergone some significant changes. In addition to their 2+2 dialogue and naval exercises, the two countries are planning their first bilateral air exercises and are negotiating a visiting forces agreement.

The weakest military links among the Quad countries were traditionally India’s relations with Japan and with Australia. In addition to the Malabar naval exercises, India and Japan may conduct their first air and ground force exercises over the next year. India–Japan staff talks have expanded to three services, and strategic dialogues have been elevated to the ministerial level. Japan has made offers to India about the sale and co-production of defence equipment, and agreements on defence technology and the security of classified communications have been concluded. Even India–Australia security ties have improved significantly over the past two years. The initiation of a 2+2 and new trilaterals have bolstered the strategic content of engagement. Military-to-military contact has also increased with the Ausindex naval and Australia Hind army exercises, Australian participation in India’s Milan exercise, regular port visits, and staff talks.

Thinking of the Quad in narrow terms—cooperation solely and exclusively involving the US, Japan, India and Australia—misses a far more important trend in regional security dynamics. Strategic partnerships between all four countries are steadily deepening, and this process has only accelerated. The growing number of military exercises, strategic dialogues, technical agreements and coordinated activities are manifestations of increasingly shared strategic worldviews, greater comfort levels and growing habits of cooperation. These are the trends that will matter much more for the balance of power and the prospects of a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific than any amount of loaded commentary about the official quadrilateral dialogue.

The ‘2+2’ India–US dialogue and the maritime tango in the Indo-Pacific

After two deferments and much scepticism, the maiden 2+2 meeting between India and the US was finally held in New Delhi last month. Elevating the erstwhile ‘strategic dialogue’, which involved the Indian foreign minister and the US secretary of state, the revised format included the Indian defence minister and the US secretary of defence as well, giving it the ‘2+2’ moniker. The dialogue yielded significant and tangible outcomes that could potentially have a major impact on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region.

Arguably the most important event was the signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA). This is expected to ‘facilitate access to advanced defence systems and enable India to optimally utilise its existing US-origin platforms’.

The signing was received with the usual polarised reactions in India. While some heralded it as the next natural step in India–US relations, others excoriated the Indian government for forsaking the country’s ‘strategic autonomy’, claiming it made India a virtual vassal state of the US. However, since the text of the agreement hasn’t been made available to the public, subscribing to either opinion would be premature, and possibly misguided, at this stage.

Together with the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement signed exactly two years ago, COMCASA promises to change the way the Indian and US navies exercise with each other and with other navies, such as those of Japan and Australia. Indian naval ships, aircraft and submarines could now be part of a common, secure communication grid, instead of makeshift ad hoc arrangements that have thus far been the norm, especially before scheduled exercises. This could potentially augment maritime domain awareness, which is always a challenge for naval forces.

However, it’s at best an operational enhancement and convenience and by itself has no effect, strategic or otherwise, on security in the Indian Ocean or Indo-Pacific region. A lot more needs to be done to achieve favourable effects in the maritime domain, the least of which is to view this and other arrangements as a means and not an end.

The future trajectory of cooperative maritime security engagement in the Indo-Pacific depends to a large extent on the choices India makes, faced as it is today with some tough options. India’s economy needs energy supplies from Iran, its armed forces need the supply of strategic defence systems from Russia, and the world’s largest unresolved land border, which it shares with China, needs peace.

All these could be at stake as India increases security cooperation with the US, especially in the maritime Indo-Pacific. While so far India’s been able to adroitly balance these conflicting imperatives, it’s possible that it may have to make a ‘zero-sum’ choice in the near future—something that it may be ill-prepared for.

As India has deepened its strategic engagement with the US, there’s been a somewhat specious lament on the loss of its ‘strategic autonomy’. That line conflates ‘strategic autonomy’ with ‘non-alignment’, which was the cornerstone of India’s foreign policy during the Cold War. It can be argued that real autonomy would lie in the ability of the country to make choices without duress. Therefore, India should be able to choose to ally or align with other countries if its interests are best served by those choices. Threats to maritime good order in the Indian Ocean and the larger Indo-Pacific region may be pushing India towards a decisive point in this context.

India’s unwillingness to upscale the level of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with the US, Japan and Australia indicates that it either doesn’t see much value in the ‘Quad’ or is reluctant to be part of a perceived anti-China grouping, or possibly a combination of the two. Such reservations mightn’t be entirely unfounded, because it will be hard for four significant yet geographically peripheral powers in the Indo-Pacific to legitimise their actions in response to China’s coercive South China Sea activities or its ‘debt-trap’ diplomacy. The centrality of ASEAN in such a counter would not only be desirable, but indeed essential.

Naval exercises have a great deal of value, but the ‘Malabar’ series of exercises between the Indian and US navies could possibly be approaching the point of diminishing returns, or may have even rounded it. What India will need to establish is the tipping point at which it would be willing to operate with the US, say in an operation to prosecute a Chinese naval unit that poses a threat to Indian interests in the South China Sea. The first step would be to establish whether this is even a possibility. If it isn’t, then the value of such agreements would be limited only to exercises, and they might not offer any significant strategic benefits.

Another important outcome of the 2+2 dialogue is the possibility, albeit somewhat remote, that India may escape US sanctions for continuing to deal with Iran and Russia. The number of exceptions that the US has made for India in the past decade or so, ostensibly to advance this strategic partnership, is significant. Obviously, the US would want something in return.

The question is whether India would be willing, when the time comes, to shed its traditional inhibitions and make the tough calls.

Ham and eggs: who’s really committed in the Indo-Pacific?

When you order ham and eggs, you can be sure the pig is committed. The chook, well, it’s interested, but not like that pig. The same could be said about the Pacific region. Some nations are committed. Others have an interest, but only in those areas that deliver outcomes to their specific national objectives.

The United States is interested in the Pacific—so much so, that it recently changed the name of its Pacific Command, one of its six geographic combatant commands, to Indo-Pacific Command.

India was already part of US Pacific Command’s area of responsibility, so no personnel, kit or facilities will move with the new designation. The rebranding is more about recognising India’s committed role in regional security and acknowledging the sphere of influence that exists between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It’s all part of secretary Jim Mattis’s 2018 national defence strategy that calls for the US national security apparatus to ‘sustain American influence’ and the ‘balances of power that safeguard the free and open international order’.

By specifically calling out the Indo-Pacific geographic seam, Mattis is keen to show US allies, and potential peer competitors, that despite the White House’s ‘America First’ rhetoric, the Defense Department will maintain its relationships and presence in the region.

Australia straddles that Indo-Pacific seam. Our strategic position—economically, diplomatically and militarily—is profoundly important. The interests of the US, like Great Britain’s, have ebbed and flowed when it comes to recognising the strategic implications of the Indo-Pacific, especially as they pertain to the Strait of Malacca and the Java, East China and South China seas.

As a nation, since our inception, we have always taken our lead for strategic direction based on the interests, or, at times, even the commitment, of one of the global powers—be it the UK or the US. Unfortunately, as many well-known Australian national security strategists—such as ASPI’s Peter Jennings and former ambassador John McCarthy, plus select current and former members of parliament—have pointed out in the past few weeks, there’s a real question about superpower influence and commitment in the region.

Well, there is a committed influence: its name is China. And its view of the region is Sino-Pacific.

For certain, we will always be able to count on the US to be interested in Australia. And, if our sovereignty were ever jeopardised, like it was in 1942, we can expect the US to commit itself to assisting in our defence. Australia’s relationship with the US is strong. Donald Trump is quick to dismiss security and economic alliances such as NATO, the European Union, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Bilateral relationships are what he prefers.

The Five Eyes alliance we’re in with the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand will continue to ensure that our intelligence and security structures are solid and formidable. However, there can be no denying that three members of that alliance are not only fully committed, but consumed with events in Europe and the Middle East. To them, the Indo-Pacific is a secondary interest.

So, what might Australia do to bolster stability in the Indo-Pacific? Much like the US has acknowledged the importance of India as part of its strategic capabilities plan, Australia should, as proposed by the former chief of the Australian Army Peter Leahy, advocate and develop a structured economic and security alliance with Japan, Indonesia and India—all nations that are committed to the Indo-Pacific. Our four nations form the dominant gateways that span the Indo-Pacific confluences. Such an alliance wouldn’t compete with each nation’s existing bilateral arrangements, or alliances like ASEAN, but complement them. A ‘two oceans, one sea-lane’ coalition would serve as a geopolitical stabiliser.

Such a prescribed alliance is a bold idea. It is fraught with diplomatic difficulties simply because lingering problems exist, either bilaterally or collectively. Yet it is an alliance whose time has come. Its foundation should be built on economics, political values and geography, which are variants of the traditional descriptor of soft power. History has proven throughout the centuries that if economies of scale are sound, and political systems are stable, these principles are hard to defeat.

Shadow foreign minister Penny Wong, while speaking at the University of Sydney recently, observed that ‘the management of global affairs is generating something of a global rethink’. A rethink indeed!

As Australia goes through its rethinking processes—whether in the party rooms or the board rooms—we need to identify, like Leahy has done, the countries that are committed to our region and those that see it merely as an area of interest. For it really is just ham and eggs.

Quad goals: wooing ASEAN

The revival of the so-called Quad or, more formally, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, has hogged regional newspaper headlines in the past year—at a time when China’s rise and concurrent assertiveness have sparked much concern across the region.

One would have thought that the concept, as originally agreed upon by Australia, India, Japan and the United States, would have been brought up by Quad ministers during the Shangri-La Dialogue last month.

Sometimes, however, the salience of regional security issues lies not in what’s said, but in what isn’t said.

Delivering the keynote at the dialogue, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about evolving a ‘common rules-based order’ based on sovereignty, territorial integrity and dialogue. He didn’t mention the Quad specifically.

Similarly, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis spoke about a ‘common rules-based order’ that would apply to all states and the global commons. He didn’t mention the Quad either.

The same applied to the defence ministers from Japan and Australia. Itsunori Onodera spoke about a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ that can bring wealth and prosperity to all regional countries. Marise Payne talked about a ‘rules-based global order’ centred on a shared consensus about the rules. But neither mentioned the Quad.

When asked what he thought about the Indo-Pacific strategy, Mattis stressed that the four democracies had a ‘common character’ that led to serious discussions about stability, open navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes. As for the Quad, Mattis said that he had left the term on the cutting-room floor to reduce the length of his speech.

The principles that underpin the Quad are straightforward, and pretty palatable to most countries in the Indo-Pacific: a rules-based order, freedom of navigation and overflight, and respect for international law and maritime security.

But it’s understandable why no ministers hoisted the flag of the Quad during the dialogue. For the Quad to be viable, it needs ASEAN’s support; and for such support to be forthcoming, the grouping mustn’t be seen as a form of soft containment of China.

But ASEAN harbours concerns that any new multilateral grouping such as the Quad could undermine the organisation’s centrality and unity, and could be used to contain China. Tacit coordination among the four Quad ministers at the dialogue could have been possible; if such coordination didn’t actually occur, it’s still a significant coincidence that there was no specific mention of the Quad.

The Quad has several things going for it. It was left for dead in 2008, after the government of Kevin Rudd withdrew Australia’s support in the face of Chinese opposition. In November 2017, senior officials from the Quad countries met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit to discuss common Quad goals. In May, US Pacific Command was re-named Indo-Pacific Command to reflect its broader remit.

In the medium term, the Quad needs to focus on two major challenges—offering a credible alternative to countries burdened with debt resulting from their participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and deterring further Chinese militarisation of the South China Sea.

The most daunting challenge, however, is securing buy-in from ASEAN. The fact is that ASEAN, whether it formally signs up to the Quad or not, is central to the Indo-Pacific strategies of the US and its key allies.

In his keynote, Modi underscored ASEAN’s leading role in regional integration. Australia’s 2017 foreign policy white paper stressed that ASEAN, straddling Australia’s northern approaches, is of ‘profound significance’ and the nexus of the Indo-Pacific architecture. Likewise, Japan deems ASEAN, which sits at the confluence of the Indian and Pacific oceans, as central to its Indo-Pacific strategy.

Writing in The Strategist, Evan Laksmana observed that Indonesia’s conception of the Indo-Pacific doesn’t challenge the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ concept preferred by Japan and the US; Jakarta also does not oppose ‘minilateral’ arrangements such as the Quad. In addition, Jakarta doesn’t want any Indo-Pacific arrangement to undermine ASEAN’s centrality or exclude certain countries, such as China.

These tenets can be accommodated by the Quad. Modi, Mattis, Onodera and Payne have all stressed that ASEAN’s centrality is vital. As for the inclusionary principle, Quad members could well say that nothing bars a new entrant from joining a Quad-plus arrangement—provided the entrant adheres to shared rules and principles.

This was the case with the ill-fated Trans-Pacific Partnership. Before Trump torpedoed the TPP in January 2017, the deal was seen by the Obama administration as a platform for the US and its partners to accelerate protection of labour and environmental standards, intellectual property protection, and a free and open internet (rules that China would have had difficulty adhering to). The door wasn’t shut to China explicitly; rather, China would have had to commit to such principles and reform its economy if it had wanted to join the TPP.

In short, ASEAN could still be convinced to sign up to the Quad, if Quad members explicitly state that the grouping isn’t exclusive and wouldn’t undermine ASEAN.

In May, Singapore’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said that Singapore wouldn’t sign up to the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy or the Quad—at least for the time being. He added that the Quad concept did not adequately address the question of ASEAN centrality. In June, Balakrishnan said that he was encouraged that both Modi and Mattis had affirmed ASEAN centrality and unity at the Shangri-La Dialogue, and that both India and the US had reaffirmed inclusiveness.

While it might be early days, Balakrishnan acknowledged that such concepts were ideas that Singapore could subscribe to. The details, he added, would need to be worked out and negotiated in the future. ‘Watch this space’, he concluded.

The Quad could well have some legs left. Quad-plus or Qua-sean, anyone?

‘Indo-Pacific’: (re-)revise and resubmit

At the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) last weekend, the ‘Indo-Pacific’ was the leitmotif. From Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi and US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to the defence ministers of Japan, Australia and France, all referred to, if not elaborated on, their vision of the ‘Indo-Pacific’.

While the SLD marked an important articulation of the Indo-Pacific, the scope, objectives and nature of this brewing concept / construct / strategy / initiative /geographic term / all of above remain open questions for many. There’s no one ‘Indo-Pacific’. Instead, there are many.

Modi sketched India’s geographically wide and historically deep relationships with many of the key actors and institutions he believes have critical roles in the Indo-Pacific. In Modi’s view the Indo-Pacific is a place that embraces us all, big or small, with no one dominating centre of power. At its core, India’s conception is of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’. More importantly, Modi’s statement that the Indo-Pacific shouldn’t exclude any power suggests India’s preference for multipolarity.

General Mattis’ powerful speech served a dual purpose: sending warning signals to some, while reassuring others, that the US is staying in the region. The maritime domain—in particular China’s violation of international law in militarising reefs and islets in the South China Sea—exemplified what isn’t welcome in the American vision of the Indo-Pacific. Disinviting China to this year’s RIMPAC exercises was a small consequence for Beijing’s misalignment with principles the US holds dear, and with what Mattis also termed the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’. More and bigger consequences would follow if China’s threatening behaviour in the South China Sea continued.

‘The maritime domain is back’, observed one of the SLD panel chairs in his opening remarks. Not because maritime disputes had ever gone away, but because of Mattis bringing the issue back to international attention by addressing head-on China’s military activities in the South China Sea. Mattis had plenty of company, with a number of other countries joining in and emphasising that free and open navigation, as well as a regard for international rules and norms, is required if the region is to prosper and remain secure.

Mattis had more to say about consequences for those who don’t stick to the rules-based order. While his blunt message was welcomed by virtually everyone, addressing the South China Sea alone isn’t enough. Missing from the defence secretary’s presentation was any indication of plans for the vast landmass within the Indo-Pacific region.

Another area yet to be clarified is how the differing visions of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ relate to each other. While dwelling on definitions might not be policymakers’ favourite thing, it’s necessary to reach a common understanding of interests and objectives.

Modi hoped for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific devoid of great power rivalries. Mattis presented a similar concept, adding that the US has offered a compelling alternative to those engaging in ‘predatory economics’: ‘[W]e will never ask our partners to surrender their sovereignty or intellectual property. We don’t dream of domination.’

Notwithstanding the allergic reaction of Asian powers—including India and Southeast Asian states—to publicly ‘taking sides’, a number of uncertainties, if not addressed, will limit the larger region’s embrace of America’s vision of the Indo-Pacific.

My main concern, however, isn’t definitions or the inter-relatedness of the many conceptions of the Indo-Pacific, but rather the very core of current US strategy. Mattis placed the Indo-Pacific as a subset of the larger American ‘Look West’ strategy based on three key pillars: deepening alliances, ASEAN centrality and cooperation with China where possible. The problem is that all three of these pillars are shaky.

Under President Donald Trump, US alliance relationships are deteriorating. His view that allies are burdens has been reiterated multiple times and has sent ripples of discomfort among many of Washington’s long-term allies. Trump’s ‘trade war’ agenda has affected more US allies than has China itself. If Trump’s attitude towards America’s allies doesn’t change, the US risks losing its largest strategic asset.

ASEAN centrality is aspirational—still imagined rather than realistic. The construct is now an important component in the success of the Indo-Pacific even as it’s diminishing among Southeast Asians themselves. To focus the Indo-Pacific around ASEAN centrality risks the whole idea suffering the same fate—existing as an elusive and aspirational ideal, rather than becoming a reality.

Cooperation with China is another area in which the prospects for success appear to be receding more and more rapidly. Under Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping, the relationship has been turbulent and difficult. Trump has vowed to confront China’s exclusionary trade and intellectual property behaviour, as well as China’s creeping military build-up and coercive behaviour towards Taiwan. Washington’s new National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy label China a strategic competitor.

In sum, the ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept is a timely and much needed initiative that has already gained support among America’s like-minded friends. But for it to really succeed, it needs greater strategic clarity and coherence. More importantly, US leadership and commitment towards the region and its allies and partners needs stronger development.

While many in the audience in Singapore wouldn’t have a problem with Mattis’ leadership style, leadership à la Trump is considerably less appealing. Moreover, there’s a concern that the Indo-Pacific, if not carefully tended, might share the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s fate—an idea already being floated in the region picked up and promoted under American auspices, only later to be abandoned because it didn’t enjoy domestic support.

To avoid that happening, the relationship between the commitment to the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region and ‘America First’ must be carefully explained by President Trump and his cabinet team to both domestic and international audiences.