How should Australia secure itself against serious military powers? For decades, the question was peripheral in public life. Sure, the security problem haunted debates about borders or terrorism. But beyond a small group of specialists and eccentrics, the literal defence of the island continent or its wider interests against larger threats was for after dinner chat over coffee and mints. Communism was finished, while Chinese communism had embraced the market and the Indo-Pacific was tranquil as an American lake. Australia was a self-styled “middle power” and, in its modest defence budgets, also enjoyed life at small power rates. A lucky country, all right.
It’s a different story today. Asia got richer and very quickly there was a wealth shift that triggered a power shift. China with its naval and nuclear buildup, land grabs and coercion bids to displace the incumbent America and seize dominance in Asia, a choice it made decades ago during the Global Financial Crisis. Read Rush Doshi’s close, forensic account if you find that statement oversimplified. This is not subtle. The People’s Republic recently conducted naval drills in the Tasman sea. Though delayed and reluctant, rich Asian states are rearming. And Australia’s main security provider, the United States, now makes clear that its assurances are conditional, even in the Asian theatre it now prioritises, and that it is prepared to distance itself from those who don’t pull their weight. The post Cold War interregnum party is extremely over. If we are not careful or not lucky, Australia could wake up one day under-armed, coerced and alone.
That being so, a vigorous debate has blown open about Canberra’s most significant defence commitment in a generation, namely AUKUS, a trilateral security pact declared in 2021 between it and its main historic partners of the Anglosphere, the UK and the U.S.. The pact rests on two “pillars”, covering everything from scientific-industrial collaboration, the joint production of cutting-edge, nuclear-powered submarines along with shared innovation across artificial intelligence, hypersonic capability, and beyond. For Australia it is more than a defence deal. It is a technologized nation-building project. But even hi-tech nation-building requires defence. Is AUKUS prudent?
I’ve resisted the conclusion for a while, since it’s hard to separate forecasting from wishcasting. Let’s get this on the table: AUKUS for all its ambition and sophistication may be burning Australia’s boats.
Alliances and allied collaboration can be valuable things. Some dependency on others may pay off better than pure self-reliance. Yet alliances are means, not ends. Despite the tendency towards alliance-worship by national security minds in their reaction to the era of Trump, historically alliances have a mixed record, especially when making good on commitments becomes inconvenient. They don’t reliably prevent wars. Allies don’t reliably turn up. Alliances ultimately rest not on signed documents or rhetorical reaffirmations, but on political will. And that is situational, not dispositional.
Even those one regards as international “friends” turn out, at times, to be fair-weathered, or to prioritise their interests as we would ours. Remember Singapore’s fall in 1942, an event that should be burned into Australians’ consciousness, and Winston Churchill’s insistence that Australia keep its intact troops in North Africa, and the argument that followed as Britain and Australia’s national interests diverged. Even culturally kindred mother countries or “great and powerful” friends may put themselves first.
Contrary to those who sentimentalise foreign policy as a drama about ideological friends, it’s a treacherous world
No Australian ought to be offended by this observation. Franco-Australian friendship was also, for a long time, a celebrated thing, give or take a nuclear test in the Pacific. Yet when it suited Canberra in 2021, Australia betrayed them by walking away from the submarine contract with Naval Group. Perhaps Paris ought to have seen it coming. Let’s be blunt, though: Australia knowingly deceived them, to switch to AUKUS while covering its bets. That kind of thing might also happen to Australia one day. Contrary to those who sentimentalise foreign policy as a drama about ideological friends, it’s a treacherous world. No country is exempt.
At the core of AUKUS is an optimistic bet, that three countries will keep the faith in a difficult, protracted effort at collective action, despite the up-front costs and risks. AUKUS looks to a long time horizon. It relies upon large-scale and capital intensive effort and sustained cooperation between three countries, two of whom at least are undergoing domestic political turbulence. If all goes perfectly, the next generation submarines will upload in the early 2040s. Their expense and material demands (both in terms of crew size and supporting workforce) will demand a large chunk of budgets, as well as representing significant opportunity costs. Trade-offs run through everything, and capital and manpower invested in one thing reduces what can be invested elsewhere.
The most potentially fatal aspect of AUKUS lies in the interim period. Australia’s security within AUKUS depends upon an arrangement with Washington, that it will sell three Virginia class submarines to cover the upcoming gap between Australia’s aged and retiring Collins class submarines and the AUKUS submarines. To expect our ally to deliver on this would be optimistic, given the growing strain on America’s shipyards through bottlenecks and shortages. This crisis is especially concerning for America as China, its “pacing challenge”, makes impressive strides in ship-building, in both tonnage and firepower. If Great Power Competition is here with a vengeance, air-maritime capability is a vital currency. The U.S. Defence Department is now reviewing AUKUS under the eye of Under Secretary for Defence Elbridge Colby, a clear-eyed realist who rightly believes that U.S. defence efforts are not a charity.
Even if Washington were to transfer some of that scarce resource to allies, it would likely demand much in return. Such demands may be reasonable for a stretched superpower, but may exceed what Australia can responsibly pay. Instead of the usual diet of theological catechisms about the “rules-based order” and historic friendship, Colby has told envoys from Japan and Australia that in return for America’s protection, it expects significant and accelerated increases in their defence spending, to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Washington also wants early clarity on what those countries would do in the event of war over Taiwan.
So we are on notice. We ought to have been on notice since the moment in June 1942 when General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of the South-West Pacific Area, told Australian Prime Minister John Curtin that the wartime U.S. “had no sovereign interest in the integrity of Australia.” Its interest in Australia lay in its “utility”: “Though the American people were animated by a war friendship for Australia, their purpose in building up forces in the Commonwealth was not so much from an interest in Australia but rather from its utility as a base from which to hit Japan.”
Suck on that: a great power tells a smaller power that it is making common cause out of a coincidence of material interests, not cultural fidelities or friendship. There is nothing wrong with America being so instrumental, seeking greater reciprocal commitment from allies, as it received during the Cold War. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with those allies also making judgments about their own interests in cold blood.
Increased defence spending is warranted, but there are limits. Whether or not Australia should dramatically increase its defence spending by an order of magnitude, doing so would likely not carry opinion. Australians in principle, in opinion surveys, support increased defence spending in the abstract. But will they in the long term support such increases, if it means higher taxes and reduced spending on hospitals, roads, schools, aged care or clean energy transition? The fiscal relationship between governments and people is not like the 1950s, when states could hike defence spending north of 5% and carry opinion. Modern populations expect their governments to provide far more now, so there is less spending capacity. And if a policy can’t carry opinion, it can’t succeed.
Sure, an Australian prime minister keen to meet U.S. defence spending demands could play William Gladstone, and appeal to the masses to shift their opinion. But that would require starkly emphasising the China threat. Given Australia’s fraught relationship and economic ties with Beijing, governments won’t be willing to do so. Better to spell out more modest but real increases, and stick to them. In dealing with America in the long run, rather than promising the moon, say what you will do, and do it.
Likewise, Australia cannot responsibly guarantee, prematurely, that it would take part in a war over Taiwan. Part of the point of having a foreign policy, and alliances, is to preserve discretion over the ultimate questions, like whether to participate in wars. The ANZUS treaty omits Taiwan from the Pacific Area for that very reason. To lock Australians into such a first-order crisis now would be to sacrifice sovereignty. And it would heighten the fallout if we promised to commit, and then didn’t. And no, NATO Article V does not lock its members into collective military action in the North Atlantic area. Read it: it demands almost no concrete action. The U.S. reserves the right to maintain ambiguity over Taiwan, to keep its free hand and avoid precipitating a war. Australia can do likewise. This is not an argument against the alliance, but an argument for jealously pursuing our interests within it.
With these difficulties in mind — overdependency, America’s implicit threat of abandonment, reduced sovereign independence, volatile domestic opinion — AUKUS critics call for a more sustainable “Plan B”, with some mix of smaller, cheaper and easier-to-crew conventional submarines, better suited for shallow waters in Australia’s north, supported by other capabilities like ground-based long-range missiles, as well as a closer defence partnership with Japan. AUKUS defenders retort that Plan B capabilities will mean Australia loses some of its fighting range, and it will loosen alliance ties, and sacrifice the economic benefits of a larger on-shore build programme.
Internationally, if you want a friend, get a dog
AUKUS defenders are right that a Plan B would in its own ways be expensive. But more basic capabilities that support a smaller set of missions (and preserve greater capacity for decision within an alliance) and which yield fewer economic side-benefits are better than exquisite and wealth-creating capabilities that arrive too late, or not at all. It would better position Australia in the event of allies not turning up, or distancing themselves. At the same time, by demanding less of allies, it might make the alliances more sustainable. If you want security and sovereignty, think again about what you are willing to expect, and what it costs. And internationally, if you want a friend, get a dog.
