Tag Archive for: The Australia–US alliance

Hard truths about the US–Australia alliance

The US–Australia alliance focuses too much on its past and too little on its future. That may seem sacrilegious, particularly amid the ongoing celebrations of 100 years of mateship. We should certainly honour the service of our men and women over the last century. But sentimentality is no replacement for level-headed rationality. If the alliance is to endure and flourish, then it’s long past time that we dealt with some hard truths.

If all were well in the US–Australia alliance, there would be little need for difficult discussions. But under the surface, differences are emerging over two issues: Donald Trump and China.

Polling shows that Australians are worried about the Trump administration’s approach to trade and alliances. The US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a tough blow to Australia, which saw the trade deal as a way of ensuring continued US engagement and leadership in Asia. Also concerning are Trump’s transactional nature and his America First approach, which threaten to undermine longstanding US alliances in both Europe and Asia.

Americans, for their part, are worried that Australia and the US are diverging on China. Few in the US pay close attention to the discussion in Australia, so the comments of Bob Carr, Paul Keating, Geoff Raby, Hugh White, and others often grab Americans’ attention. There are numerous important voices in the Australian debate, but the open questioning of the US alliance leads to uncomfortable speculation about whether China’s economic weight is pulling Australia into its orbit.

So, both Americans and Australians are quietly asking tough questions about the alliance. To date, the discussions have occurred mainly behind closed doors, but it’s time to have them more directly and openly. As with any relationship, avoiding difficult discussions doesn’t make tough issues go away. Instead, problems tend to fester, creating bigger difficulties down the line.

Former US Secretary of State George Shultz famously said of the problems that arise among allies: ‘The way to keep weeds from overwhelming you is to deal with them constantly and in their early stages.’ Unfortunately, we are in need of some alliance gardening. The primary cause is a lack of attention to the alliance from leaders in the US.

Australia may be distant from the United States geographically, but that’s not why Canberra is often overlooked in Washington. Instead, superficial closeness is our problem; cultural familiarity and historical affinity have bred complacency.

One can throw a stone in Washington and find a specialist on American alliances. Experts on Japan, South Korea and NATO are abundant. But American experts on Australia are few and far between. Why? Funding limitations certainly play a part. But I suspect there’s a deeper reason: most Americans think there’s little need to study our alliance with Australia.

Unfortunately, the extended celebration of 100 years of mateship plays directly into this predisposition. We are right to honour and remember our shared struggles. But to many Americans, Australia’s enduring reliability suggests that nothing can separate us. With so many alliance challenges, some US leaders infer that the alliance with Australia is one that will endure without careful tending (or an ambassador).

How might we strengthen the US–Australia alliance and embrace a forward-looking agenda? One potential option is to establish a joint commission on the alliance. Staffed by respected experts and leaders of various political affiliations from both countries, such a commission could fortify the alliance’s foundations.

Some will say that the time isn’t right for such a commission. But one need look no further than the US–Japan alliance to understand why that’s incorrect. After the Cold War, political and economic tensions were mounting between the United States and Japan. The alliance was adrift. Yet steady leadership by respected experts (such as the Armitage–Nye reports) helped to hold the relationship together and provide the vision and agenda that ultimately renewed the alliance.

The US and Australia should embrace this lesson and establish a non-government commission on the alliance. Such an initiative would have three virtues.

First, a commission would allow for direct discussion of our differences. Track 1 or 1.5 talks make it hard to publicly address Australian concerns about the Trump administration’s approach. But ignoring the Trump factor won’t make it go away. We need Track 2 dialogues to fortify our shared long-term interests against short-term fluctuations.

Second, a commission could make the case for the alliance. Critics of the US make fair points, but it’s time to fight back against dangerous narratives on the alliance. America is not finished. And China is not faultless. The alliance’s critics have been vocal, so its supporters must unite to make a more compelling case for the enduring logic of the US–Australia alliance.

Third, a commission could identify specific next steps. We talk too much about the alliance and do too little. Deploying 2,500 marines to Darwin was to be a first step, not an unreachable goal. There’s no shortage of ideas for the alliance. So let’s set forth some difficult but important objectives and gather the focus and energy to accomplish an ambitious agenda.

We should use this commemoration to recommit ourselves to the US–Australia alliance. Not to remembering its past, but to creating its future. That is, after all, what the men and women who together served our countries would have wanted.

Alliances in the time of hybrid warfare

Alliances have long been formed as a response to traditional rivalries and modes of warfare. The US–Australia partnership had such origins 100 years ago, and has proved to be successful, reliable and durable. We now need to think about how to further develop the alliance at a time of increasing great-power competition, when the forms and complexities of tactics and warfare are expanding.

While US–Australia cooperation in conventional defence—including regular military and intelligence operations—is well developed, more attention needs to be paid to unconventional defence tools. That includes coordinated thinking about the use of the alliance and broader security partnerships in response to hybrid warfare, which combines political, economic, psychological and grey-zone tactics.

Sustaining a strong and prosperous alliance based on absolute trust is crucial. A diminishing reliance on cooperative efforts would mean that China’s ‘divide and rule’ strategy has succeeded. That would undercut one of America’s unique advantages—the power and influence that comes from its global alliance network. Perception plays into the psychological tactics of hybrid warfare, so uncertainty and doubt in relationships matter.

President Donald Trump has alienated some US allies with his confrontational narrative of ‘burden-sharing’, ‘free rides’ and trade deficits. This could have the damaging effect of assisting others’ efforts to break the alliance network that the US has built with its partners over decades. An alternative path is for the White House to focus on its allies who will share new burdens by joining US efforts in responding to the many areas integral to hybrid warfare and by actively contributing to the many new areas of cooperation.

A new focus for the US–Australia alliance should be to develop coordinated and organised research programs into hybrid warfare, both for the alliance and with partners across the broader US security network. The tactics, tools and patterns of hybrid warfare identified through research could be shared to facilitate the development of countermeasures. This would bring a new element to US security partnerships and involve investing new resources to create integrated approaches to non-conventional forms of cooperation.

Take political warfare as an example. The techniques applied by other states is an area that urgently requires deeper understanding. The range of tactics employed, the variety of actors involved, and the impact it has are vast. It is therefore far more effectively tackled collectively rather than individually. The current understanding of political warfare is still problematic because it doesn’t fully reflect the overall domains in which this type of warfare is waged. While there’s general consensus that political warfare requires a whole-of-a-government response, I think there needs to be a whole-of-allies integrated response as well.

For example, in both Australia and the US, and among other allies and partners, there are different levels of Chinese and Russian interference and political infiltration. Some of the identified techniques that the Chinese Communist Party has been applying include funding university chairs; funding think-tank research programs; creating lucrative employment for former political figures and senior officials who are ‘friends of China’; sponsoring trips for journalists, legislators and influencers; sponsoring media platforms; and mobilising and exploiting Chinese media in various countries and ethnic associations.

The US and Australia, along with other allies and partners, need to think about how to respond both defensively and offensively to these threats. Because we are reasonably similar in our political systems, and—relative to other allies—experience a similar impact from political warfare, we’re in the best position to work together on developing coordinated responses.

Defensive tools may include coordination in areas like domestic counterintelligence; domestic legislation that restricts foreign predatory investments; tightened restrictions on lobby groups that may be linked to foreign powers; and researching, tracking and publicising foreign sponsorship of universities, think-tanks and media. Australia’s new foreign interference legislation reflects such thinking.

There also needs to be facilitated information-sharing with governments that are struggling with similar concerns and assistance to independent research organisations that can contribute to the understanding of hybrid warfare. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative on China’s militarisation of South China Sea structures shows the power of independent research. A similar transparency approach applied to understanding the Russian and Chinese styles of hybrid warfare would enhance both government and public understanding.

More preventive measures require allies to communicate better with friends as well as with neutral partners about the disruptive intentions of foreign governments and agencies. Publicising US and Australian approaches to countering hybrid warfare with those who aren’t yet affected will aid them in devising their own defensive measures. Importantly, both countries, along with many others, suffer from challenges of self-censorship in a variety of ways—to avoid hurting feelings and harming bilateral relations, for example. Concerted efforts are needed to prevent self-censorship in any areas that jeopardise national interests.

The challenges to devising effective strategies to address political warfare using our existing defence alliances are many. They include striking a fragile balance between defending one’s integrity and avoiding alarmist or even paranoid Cold War attitudes of ‘us versus them’. But precisely because they are challenging, more effort is required to address them.

So, hopefully the US and Australia will take a bold new step towards cooperation to counter hybrid warfare, and, in doing so, provide a framework that enables other allies and partners to both contribute and learn.

Will the lucky ally become the ambitious ally?

What do President Donald Trump and ‘America First’ mean for AUSMIN—the upcoming annual meeting between Australian and US defence ministers Marise Payne and Jim Mattis, and foreign ministers Julie Bishop and Mike Pompeo? What should Australia’s agenda be for the meeting?

Trump’s 17 months in office have shown that he’s consistent in his long-held views about international relationships and alliances. We saw that most recently at the Singapore summit, when he unilaterally froze US–ROK military exercises to please his new friend Kim Jong-un.

The recent G7 meeting, complete with post-meeting tweets, was an even clearer demonstration that Trump sees and treats his allies and partners as supplicants and economic adversaries, not long-term friends who enhance America’s global power and influence.

The easy approach for ministers Payne and Bishop to take is Australia as the ‘lucky ally’. We’ve been blessed with not being a large enough economy to be in the G7. We run a trade deficit with the US, so, unlike those who run a trade surplus, we’re not ‘robbing’ our ally. And, apart from a moment early in the new administration when it looked like Trump would welsh on an Obama–Turnbull refugee deal, we’ve done nothing to cause the Donald to pay attention.

Staying the ‘lucky country’ in this view means behaving like one of our $200-billion future submarines—running silent and deep to avoid damage from incoming fire and avoiding sea mines. Let’s have photos with smiles and handshakes and let’s talk in nostalgic ways about our 100 years of mateship, forged on the battlefields of two world wars and grown since the formal start of our alliance in 1951. You can hear the speeches from here. Moving but a little empty.

That approach would leave the alliance on autopilot at a time of rapid change in Australia’s and the US’s strategic environments, driven by two things: the rise of the Chinese state as an aggressive and active user of coercive economic and military power, and rapid technological change. Either we take advantage of this technological change to build our future military capability edge, or, left unaddressed, we lose this strategic advantage, with fundamental negative implications for both countries’ security strategies, our region and the alliance itself.

So, it’s time to be ambitious in what Australia and the US do to build the alliance for the coming decades. An activist and ambitious agenda may even appeal to Trump, as it involves Australians coming forward not with things we’d rather he didn’t do—or at least not to us, or not now—but with ideas about how to strengthen our security and our economic partnership, to the advantage of the US and Australia. A positive agenda will also be useful in weathering Trumpian tweets, by increasing support for the alliance among stakeholders in the wider administration and Congress.

Besides, there’s plenty of room for an activist approach: both the US National Security Strategy and the US National Defense Strategy are strongly supportive of the broader alliance system. We should be forward-leaning on the future role of those alliances—not merely our own, but the suite of alliances that underpin the global order upon which Australia’s security ultimately rests.

An activist agenda for ministers Payne and Bishop to take forward with General Mattis and Secretary Pompeo must deal with the two big drivers in our strategic environment.

On China, we need clarity between us, in ways that then steer our respective policies and actions.

We need to say—privately and publicly—that particular authoritarian states, notably China and Russia, are using their military, intelligence, economic and cyber powers to coerce other nations and are attempting to interfere in the operation of our domestic debates and processes.

In Australia’s case, there’s a strong attachment to the policies of the past: the approach of focusing our relationship with the Chinese state on areas of mutual benefit and not on our differences.

That worked well for both the Chinese state and for Australia when China’s focus was on economic growth and its ‘peaceful rise’. Now that China has risen, it’s beginning to use its power in ways that matter directly to Australia. It’s also using state power internally in repressive ways against its own people, enabled by new technologies and mass data collection. Early experience shows that the Chinese state is willing to be a coercive power whose actions are quite different to its public diplomacy language of ‘win–win’ and non-intervention.

That coercive use of power will only grow if it’s not opposed, called out and frustrated. In the words of the US National Security Strategy, China is a ‘revisionist power’ that’s asserting itself through an all-of-nation long-term strategy.

So, while we can still pursue mutual benefit in many areas of economic cooperation with China, we can no longer ignore the differences between the Chinese state and ourselves—because the differences are becoming starker and the differences matter to our security, our stability and our sovereignty.

We might have two core principles we agree on with our US ally:

  • to engage the Chinese state positively economically and politically, welcoming positive contributions to global prosperity and security
  • to oppose the Chinese state’s development and use of coercive power.

The principles will include careful management of our communication about and with the Chinese state—but we need to recognise that the coercive actions we have begun to see and experience are the problem, not the fact that we have noticed them. This is about much more than adept public diplomacy.

On technology, we need a new approach in partnering with our tech sectors, and we need a new way of bringing high-tech systems into our militaries’ orders of battle. Running our capability development and procurement processes faster through streamlining is fine for big ships, aircraft and submarines, but not for fast-moving new technologies like drones, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, autonomy and hypersonics. Rapid investment and a short time from idea to fielded system are the defining variables here.

A bigger shift is required, though, in core relationships. Our governments’ relationships with the tech sectors—whether Australia’s smaller tech firms or US giants like Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon— are antagonistic. Wary tech companies seek to limit governments’ reach into them, while governments focus on regulation, privacy protection and compelling companies to cooperate on counterterrorism.

Our governments and our tech sectors need to realise that each depends on the other and this dependency will grow in coming years. Global tech competition—notably the tight, empowering relationship on data that the Chinese state has with its tech sector, and the increasingly close relationship between China’s civil tech sector, its defence sector and its military—is a strategic competition issue that affects the future viability of Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook as much as it does the strategic power of the US and Australia.

So, two big drivers of our strategic environment, with two big agenda items for ministers Payne and Bishop to pursue for the future viability of our alliance with the US. Deal or no deal?

Electoral fortunes will buffet US–Australia ties

Two coming elections will have massive implications for Australia’s external relations. The outcome of the US 2018 mid-term elections will determine the course of the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidential term. The result of the Australian federal election will determine how Australia responds.

The US mid-terms will take place on 6 November. At stake is Republican control of both chambers of Congress. The latest date for a simultaneous House and half-Senate election in Australia is 18 May 2019. In both instances, there’s a real chance of a shift in power.

The US elections appear to be the most open-ended. Recent generic polls give the Democrats an average national advantage of 4%, although survey results vary widely. Trump-era politics have proven to be volatile and deeply partisan, and the contests for individual House of Representatives and Senate seats are dependent on local issues, demographics, election funding and personalities. Still, potentially the Democrats could wrest back control of one or both chambers.

A status quo result would strengthen Trump’s political position. Another Republican Congress would be even more inclined to fall in behind the administration’s foreign policy agenda. Were the Republicans to suffer significant losses, then manoeuvring and positioning for the next Republican presidential nomination could undermine the party’s cohesion.

The status quo would also give the Pompeo–Bolton axis a relatively free hand and US policy could become more aggressive and abrasive in East Asia and the Middle East. Allies would be consulted less and their concerns dismissed more frequently, and the administration’s behaviour would become more hostile towards multilateral institutions. Regime change and confrontation with Iran would become key policy objectives, and tensions in East Asia would rise with a greater testing of US strength against China in the region.

Democrat control of either congressional chamber is less expected. If the Democrats did take control of both chambers, the administration is likely to be bogged down—if not by impeachment proceedings, then by intrusive congressional investigations and legislative resistance. A Democrat-controlled Senate would greatly complicate the administration’s domestic agenda. The fundamental policy differences on issues like health care, climate change, immigration and abortion would guarantee confrontation. Foreign policy would be a battleground.

How Australia positions itself for the second half of Trump’s term is critical. If the long run of polls going against the Coalition government were a reliable guide, then dealing with the fallout of the US mid-terms would be a problem for an incoming Labor government. But polls aren’t always reliable, as John Howard demonstrated in 2001.

At the next election, Australians might be voting for fundamentally different foreign and defence policies. The draft national platform paper for debate at the upcoming Labor Party national conference has a single passing reference to ANZUS, and the sections covering foreign and defence policy in general are light-on. Although it’s a very different type of document to the defence and foreign affairs white papers the Coalition recently produced, the contrast with the government’s strong alignment with the US in official policy documents is stark.

Foreign and defence policies don’t generally play a major role in Australian electoral politics. However, whichever party forms government next will confront a demanding set of challenges. Although unlikely, it would be valuable if the political parties themselves provoked a serious debate and consciously made external affairs an election issue.

A Republican victory in both chambers could free the US administration to incite a new war in the Middle East. Where would each Australian political party see the national interests being engaged? Similarly, if diplomacy is unable to bring about North Korean denuclearisation, do they propose to commit Australia to any US military solution?

These are not simple binary questions. China, the EU, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea and other nations with varying geopolitical weight, and differing economic significance for Australia, will also have substantial interests in these regions. Australia’s actions in response to crises in the Middle East and East Asia are certain to have short- and long-term consequences for the nation’s security and economy.

If, on the other hand, the Democrats gain some control of Congress, how do the alternative Australian governments propose to position Australia in an era in which what remains of US leadership might stutter as US politicians are distracted by internecine partisan struggles? A Trump administration hampered by a hostile House or Senate might strike out unpredictably internationally or find itself largely obstructed. Undoubtedly other powers like China, Russia and Iran would take advantage of any faltering of US leadership to strengthen their own positions, undermine the US alliances, and reshape the international environment.

The world faces a once-in-a-generation realignment of power and a fundamental transformation in international relations. Much of the shape of the future international environment is difficult to predict. More than any government since the mid-20th century, the next Australian government is likely to face momentous decisions in foreign and defence policy formulation. It will face uncertainty, discontinuity and novelty. It will need imagination, foresight, courage and flexibility.

The coming Australian election is an opportunity to elevate the public debate on the immanent stresses in foreign and defence policy. The uncontested givens behind past electoral contests—US global leadership, the value of ANZUS and the postwar international order—are now sources of uncertainty. Peace is no longer assured. The answers aren’t easy. The old shibboleths will no longer suffice. Strategic policy will need to be about more than funding and defence industry.

The alternative governing parties need to be pressured to show why voters should have the confidence to trust them to navigate these dangerous times.