Australia comes of age as an Indo-Pacific power

Submarine at sea

This article, by Professor Rory Medcalf AM, appeared in The Australian Financial Review on 14 March 2023.

There was nothing virtual about the three leaders’ statement in San Diego yesterday. At last, Australia is matching defence capability to the challenges of its Indo-Pacific geography.

With their incomparable range, stealth, intelligence-gathering edge and conventional firepower, nuclear-powered submarines operating from Australia – and within a decade by Australians – will suit the scale and gravity of the strategic risk the nation faces.

That stems from the military power, ambition, reach and recklessness of a hard authoritarian China.

Another factor is the instability of a region where many other nations, understandably, are toughening their own defences or hedging their diplomacy, or both.

Nervousness about American commitment to regional order will not dissipate with one announcement, however credible, but the intergenerational promise of AUKUS should help allay it.

Indeed, the signal from San Diego was of steadfastness from our American ally and a renewed level of commitment to the Indo-Pacific from the United Kingdom, to be made tangible within a few years as both these nuclear navies begin operating out of Western Australia.

But above all, AUKUS is about Australia itself, and our coming-of-age as a power to match our unique place in the world.

Australia is an island continent, acutely dependent on maritime lifelines such as trade, energy and undersea cables, situated at the intersection of three oceans. The wider Indo-Pacific is this century’s centre of gravity in economics, population and security contestation.

To forgo the opportunity of a capable and cutting-edge navy would be to abdicate our credibility as nation. Even the best diesel-electric submarines were always sub-optimal given the extraordinary distances between our southern ports and where they need to be on station: vast maritime approaches and tropical sea lanes. It’s a bit like a highway patrol car burning most of its fuel just getting out of town.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rightly emphasised that the primary purpose of the AUKUS agreement is simple: strengthening Australia’s national security and, therefore, stability in the region.

Regional stability, prosperity and peace benefit from a balance of power where one country cannot dominate.

While the Labor government’s leadership has been scrupulous in minimising the naming of China in that regard, their confidential strategic assessments are doubtless consistent with those received by previous conservative governments – or by a growing and diverse range of governments across the world.

Indeed, concern about the China challenge need hardly be secret. Xi Jinping’s public promise this week of ‘a great wall of steel’ is hardly new.

It simply illustrates what has been hiding in plain sight for three decades: one of the most relentless military build-ups in history. Beijing’s armaments spending has often outpaced economic growth. Its security technology advances – fusing espionage with the innovations of a research sector suborned to the communist party-state – has often outstripped even the warnings of foreign intelligence agencies.

When it comes to AUKUS, the brazen lie of Chinese disinformation is that Australian submarines will somehow stoke an arms race in an otherwise placid Asia.

In reality, the nuclear-powered and sometimes nuclear-armed submarine force already expanding across Indo-Pacific waters is China’s. And regional governments privately know it, even if some struggle to be able to do much about it.

My consultations across the region in recent weeks – discussions with officials and researchers across Indonesia, India, Japan and Fiji – suggest that a sophisticated awareness of Australia’s implicit Indo-Pacific strategy is starting to emerge.

India and Japan get it outright. The two most powerful Asian democracies want a stable region where China’s coercion is quietly constrained, not just by Washington but by a web of partners, and where each partner supports the other’s self-strengthening. In this light, both are fine with AUKUS, and Australia likewise welcomes Japan’s overdue defence modernisation and India’s rising strategic heft.

Indeed, AUKUS aside, the rapid confluence of the Quad and Australia-India relations – underscored by the Prime Minister’s visit to India last week – are each a watershed in favour of strategic balance.

Indonesia, meanwhile, is pivotal to the future of Southeast Asia, that geographic core of the Indo-Pacific where Chinese wealth, intimidation and influence are on the march.

But Indonesian policy elites have mixed views about all of this. Of course their diplomats focus on non-alignment, respect for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the rules of the global nuclear non-proliferation system – which AUKUS will not breach.

As for the Indonesian defence establishment, my sense is that privately they well understand why Australia would look to its defences.

Moreover, they see why a stronger Australia can be good for Indonesia, provided we are genuine in transparency and reassurance about our intentions, and redouble our efforts at a wider security partnership with their country.

Australia should, for instance, be the partner of choice to help Indonesia forces know what is happening in their archipelagic waters and international sea lanes, the regional crossroads. We should reiterate at every turn why we think a stronger Indonesia is good for Australia too.

It is proper that Mr Albanese return from San Diego via Fiji. He owes the government of that key Pacific nation – and the wider audience of the Pacific Islands Forum, headquartered in Suva – an unvarnished explanation of why our Indo-Pacific naval power will not diminish our commitment to our shared vision of developed and stable Blue Pacific.

The tide is turning in the Pacific, with multiple nations having second thoughts about Chinese security partnership, and the recently elected Rabuka government in Fiji setting an example in its openness to democratic alternatives.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has prepared the regional ground with ten months of tireless consultation and reassurance.

Her message has been ‘strategic equilibrium’. But this means more than military balance.

A stronger Australia is good for our regional neighbours, but it will take sustained investment in diplomacy to ensure that message sinks home.

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Australia comes of age as an Indo-Pacific power

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