A report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (United Kingdom), released on 26 December 2020, has forecast that China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated, due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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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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New data from SIPRI’s Arms Industry Database shows that arms sales by the world’s 25 largest arms companies totalled US$361 billion in 2019, an 8.5 per cent increase over 2018. The top five arms companies were all based in the United States: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics. Outside of North America and Western Europe, the largest number of foreign arms company entities are hosted by Australia (38).
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The Biden administration will be unable to avoid continuing America’s fierce competition with China. It also will find that, like-minded and democratic or not, most states will have distinct national interests and will seek to act autonomously, dancing between the feet of the battling giants, trying to extract or leverage the best price for their allegiance and alignment in the Chinese-US competition. With a deep past investment in the US hegemony, Australia is awkwardly placed as this new age of strategic capitalism unfolds.
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The Pentagon has announced that by early 2021 it will withdraw about 700 troops from Somalia, where the US has been involved for an extended period in fighting a low-intensity battle against the local al Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab.
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The United States has officially withdrawn from the Open Skies treaty, with effect 22 November 2020, blaming the withdrawal on Russia’s transgression of the Treaty.
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The recent Belfer Center report by RAAF Group Captain Jason Begley, Winning Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific, offers important insights into the strategic thinking of the Australian military. The author’s analysis of the strategic competition with China in which the US and Australia have engaged far surpasses the level of the policy arguments offered in the Australian government’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update.
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Although not unexpected, the timing of the decision to withdraw all but 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq by mid January 2021 has been criticised by NATO allies and senior Republican lawmakers.
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In Paris on Monday,16 November 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the US administration and Europe need to work jointly on addressing recent “aggressive” actions led by Turkey – before continuing his 7-country tour, landing in Istanbul on Monday night. In Washington, a US official confirmed that last week US President Trump considered a strike on Iran’s main nuclear facility.
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On Monday [16 November 2020], US President-elect Joe Biden said that the United States needed to negotiate with allies to set global trading rules to counter China’s growing influence – but declined to say whether the US would join the 15-country Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, the new trade pact that includes China, which was signed in Hanoi on Sunday [15 November 2020].
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The influence of the US in Eurasia will continue to falter, and as its economic, diplomatic, and moral potency dwindles, America’s military will become its primary asset. In America’s strategic logic, loss of leadership demands a military response – and the nature of the military preparations for war on a recognised emerging Asia hegemon are now well known. While the trajectory to war is not irreversible, and the step to launching a war is huge, the consequences would be calamitous. Is Australia complicit in the preparations?
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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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The US State Department is reported to have approved a potential sale to Taiwan of four MQ-9 SeaGuardian drones in a deal valued US $600 million, another sale of weapons to Taiwan that will be seen as provocative by China.
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Reuters reports that on 2 November “India, the United States, Japan and Australia began their largest joint naval exercises in over a decade”, “seen as part of efforts to balance China’s vast military and economic power in the region”.
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Something refreshing in the plethora of articles exploring the different dimensions of the current US-China tensions, Harvard Business School’s Andy Zelleke asks, “What ‘yesable proposition,’ fundamentally, is the United States offering China?” What might be the terms of a plausible U.S.-China equilibrium state?
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An invaluable introduction to the complex and critical struggle for technological superiority which will the characterise the geopolitical environment for decades to come. This report sets out all the key issues and addresses the question of how the EU could maintain strategic autonomy in the face of this competition between China and the US.
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It is reported that officials from China and the US held a video conference meeting about crisis communication on 28-29 October, amid amid heightened tensions in the South China Sea. According to Chinese defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian, US Defence Secretary Mark Esper denied a media report suggesting the US was “studying” a plan to attack Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea using an MQ-9 drone.
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Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement on Geospatial Cooperation As anticipated, the United States and India have today [27 October 2020] signed an agreement for the sharing of sensitive satellite data during a biannual “2+2” security dialogue in New Delhi. According to Indian defence sources, the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) on Geospatial Cooperation will provide India with access to a range of topographical, nautical and aeronautical data necessary for more accurate use of missiles
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The US State Department is reported to have approved the potential sale of 100 Boeing-made Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems to Taiwan, at a cost of up to US $2.37 billion. The move comes days after the State Department approved the potential sale of three other weapons systems to Taiwan, as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on China in the runup to the November presidential election.
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