The enormous military power of America will continue to make alliances with it attractive. But the Europeans and East Asians will strive to balance their alliances with their economic entanglement with China. America might find diplomatic support against China, but will in all likelihood find itself alone in a war with China in East Asia.
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It is reported that North Korea’s claim that it had launched a new type of tactical short-range ballistic missile has highlighted military advances by the nuclear-armed state and propelled it to the top of new U.S. President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed NATO members in Brussels on Wednesday 24 March 2021 calling on them to work with the US to counter China. However in a shift of tone from that of recent weeks, he also said that the US “won’t force allies into an ‘us-or-them’ choice with China,” and acknowledged that the US knows “that our allies have complex relationships with China that won’t always align perfectly”.
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US President Joe Biden will join with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia on Friday this week [12 March 2021] at a virtual gathering of the “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue”.
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Has an enduring predisposition to authoritarianism been activated in the US that will continue to destabilise its domestic politics? If so, the US could become an unreliable ally. Should Australia be imagining a post-alliance future?
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A special edition of the annual Munich Security Conference took place on 19 February 2021, with presentations from US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and other speakers.
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China already has significant geopolitical and economic clout in Asia and beyond – especially through the Belt and Road Initiative, its massive investment program in global infrastructure, and commercial development. Economic decoupling is not in the offing; China is far too integrated into the global economy. So is there a “China strategy” that would reunite the US and its democratic partners?
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Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye, long time pillars of the Washington national security policy elite, are the lead authors of a new report from CSIS on the US-Japan alliance, with a suggested “new agenda for the challenges and opportunities on the horizon”. It is deeply refreshing to see them acknowledge, albeit somewhat wistfully, that there is no going back to US hegemony. To exercise influence the US will have to partner with other states.
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Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye have led a team to produce a new “bipartisan Armitage-Nye” report on the state of the US-Japan alliance, seen as critical to addressing both regional and global challenges. On the question of China and US strategy in Asia, the report is both entirely predictable and refreshingly surprising.
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Japan and Australia reached a new agreement on defence cooperation on Tuesday [17 November 2020]. The agreement, agreed in-principle by Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, allows Japanese and Australian troops to visit each other’s countries and conduct training and joint operations.
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Michael Swaine suggests that “a Biden presidency will likely correct many of Trump’s most egregious mistakes in handling Beijing while still supporting the bipartisan shift that has occurred toward intensified competition with China”. The article sets out some of the policy shifts that might result, but asks will Biden go far enough?
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President Trump has pursued a different vision of the US’s role in the world – one which has had an undeniable impact on relations with allies and competitors alike, and has reshaped perceptions of the US as a global actor. A robust debate over its future global role has ensued. US allies like Australia should be paying close attention, because whether or not Trump wins re-election, the US will not be able to resume some quasi-mythical past role, and the world will need to adjust to a new normal.
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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called for an “a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies”. By bringing together its European and Asian allies under American leadership, the US hopes to bring them into line with its own China strategy. But an “alliance of democracies” would not really be an alliance with the US – it would be an alliance for the US, to further the American interest, to which the interests of its allies would inevitably end up being subordinated.
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ACRI’s Elena Collinson and James Laurenceson present a useful summary and analysis of major developments in July 2020. The authors’ observations about Australia-China and Australia-US trade issues are a welcome contribution to an area often long on rhetoric and short on analysis. Professor James Curran sees reason for optimism in an assessment of the state of the Australia-China relationship in light of the comments of Australian ministers Payne and Reynolds at the AUSMIN 2020 talks in Washington. But has Australia done enough to distance itself from the US’s confrontational stance with China? Or will Australia-China high-level channels of communication “continue to stagnate”?
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There is a mismatch between the urgent need to respond to the supposed recent deterioration in Australia’s strategic circumstances, and the timeframe for investments proposed in Australia’s recently-released 2020 Force Structure Plan. Bringing capabilities into the ADF inventory within the next 20 years doesn’t seem to be the priority for government, despite the apparent deterioration in the strategic environment.
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In this interesting article Heisbourg frames his speculation about the transformation taking place the international environment in terms of a shift from a structured system founded on US-sponsored liberal values to a more dog-eat-dog anarchic situation: in this new “post alliance” arrangement dominated by sovereignism, transactionalism, and authoritarianism, the US, China and Russia will be the top predators.
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The much-used phrase ‘shared values’ is regularly used as the basis for international relationships and alliances. It can be used to selectively point to values found in political, social or economic ideologies, or in religious or ethical systems – and to divert attention away from substantive issues or conjure up imaginary communities of interest. In the context of the Australia-India Strategic Partnership, does the use of the phrase mask the real strategic purpose of the agreement?
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Grand strategies are the territory of great powers, while other states see their strategic independence incorporated into another state’s grand strategy. The comfort that Australia embraced while enclosed in an American grand strategy can’t last, and hard choices lie ahead. In the shifting power balance, Australia will need to recover its autonomy.
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ASPI’s Peter Jennings and Michael Shoebridge have recently foreshadowed a potential military crisis in North Asia, possibly as soon as late 2020 or early 2021. Amongst other extraordinary measures, Shoebridge calls for the ANZUS Treaty to be invoked. Jennings calls for the Australian Defence Force to be placed on the highest levels of readiness and for defence expenditure to be boosted to around 3.2% of GDP. Are their conclusions supported by the evidence they proffer?
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Australia’s strategic quandary emerges from its status as an ally to a great power. If it abrogates its responsibility to set national policy aims by joining in a coalition in which one great power antagonist determines the goals of the war it cannot claim to have a strategy. It cannot claim to be linking Australia’s national priorities to the military actions. Its fate would be in the hands of its great power ally.
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