The 2021 Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security treaty seems to be shaping the global architecture in the post-People’s Republic of China (PRC) era.
More details of its shape and direction will be revealed at a Washington summit of the three leaders in the second half of March.
There are many aspects still to resolve among the three partner states, which already have an unprecedented amount of cooperation in defense, intelligence, and political arenas, to a far greater degree than even NATO. And, unlike NATO, AUKUS is a global alliance with presence and capabilities already in the North and South Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the North and South Pacific, and the two polar regions.
The first steps to give a new muscularity to AUKUS will be how it approaches cooperation on second-tier strategic weapons capabilities, particularly engaging nuclear-powered submarines and longer-range power projection capabilities using manned and unmanned aircraft with hypersonic and other missile systems.
AUKUS is, of necessity, equipping itself in defense terms for the longer path, which will take it beyond the probable life expectancy of China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is shaping itself for a world in which India, after the collapse of the PRC, could become a significant independent power asserting domination of Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the vital Suez and Cape of Good Hope sea routes, as well as Central Asia and the Middle East.
Australia needs to arbitrate the strategic balance over the vital trade straits through Southeast Asia, and play a key role, as it does now, in patrolling the Arabian and Red seas.
An AUKUS heads-of-state meeting in Washington, probably just after March 15, was expected to outline the shape of Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. Australia has made it clear it would commit the necessary funds—possibly up to A$100 billion (about $70 billion) to develop a domestic capability to build nuclear submarines. But that is a process that could take up to two decades, and Australia needs to upgrade its submarine capability before that, as its six existing Virginia-class submarines are decommissioned, even after a service life extension program (SLEP).
Public concerns at this time in the three member states reflect only the PRC threat to them, but AUKUS has built an alliance that goes beyond that. It took the core of the key “Five Eyes” accord—the UK-U.S. Accords on intelligence sharing between the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—to create AUKUS, particularly given the pro-PRC dispositions of the Canadian and New Zealand governments. Both the Canadian Liberal Party minority government of Justin Trudeau and the New Zealand Labour Party government of Jacinda Ardern (who has already announced her retirement ahead of the October 2023 elections) are seen as moving away to probable conservative administrations, so their future role in AUKUS cannot be discounted.
So the Washington summit was expected to be critical. As Bloomberg’s Kitty Donaldson reported, “Australia’s federal parliamentary schedule means [Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese could travel between March 10 and 19, while [UK Prime Minister Rishi] Sunak’s Government’s budget statement on March 15 [2023] means he is unlikely to leave the country immediately beforehand.” So just after March 16 seems a likely summit date.
The summit was to have taken place after a visit to China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but Beijing’s mishandling of the “balloon crisis”—the overflight of the United States of a Chinese surveillance balloon—of early February obviated that, and President Joe Biden’s attempts to dampen down the growing U.S.-China crisis have been undermined. This is more to the disadvantage of China than to the United States.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, in Washington in early February, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “I think what’s actually expected of us by both the U.S. and the UK is that we make a contribution to the net industrial base of the three countries, by developing the capacity in Australia to build a nuclear-powered submarine.” He was also there to push back against U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and former Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who had claimed that providing U.S. submarine technology and leasing U.S. Navy Virginia-class submarines to Australia would be highly detrimental to the U.S. strategic industrial capability.
How would they feel about the loss of alliance partners as an alternative to adding to the combined alliance industrial base in nuclear submarine construction?
The eventual Australian-built SSN was likely to be a new design, drawing from U.S. and UK experience, but the interim leased vessels could only be U.S. Virginia-class SSNs (nuclear-powered attacked submarines). The UK has too few Astute-class boats to lease any to Australia.
Australian submariners are already training on Astute-class and Virginia-class submarines.
Australia’s retiring ambassador to the United States, Arthur Sinodinos, recently noted, “I think we can look forward in the first three or four months … to have more detail on pillar one, which is the submarines both in terms of the final pathway, if you like, as well as the interim capabilities building up to that.” He also said that the next phase of the challenge would be faced by his replacement, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Meanwhile, Australia’s significant step toward moving from a capable middle power in the Indo-Pacific to a strategic global player has begun to take shape. Australia, in two world wars, and the Korean conflict, was able to project power globally as part of the UK and (later) U.S.-led coalitions. The UK was the major global power in 1880 when it had a population of only 34.6 million. Australia’s population today is 26,265,047 as of Feb. 4. Educational, structural, and technological factors have historically weighed more than sheer population numbers.
Source : The Epoch Times