The value of AUKUS depends critically on how far it increases the chances of Australia being dragged into an unnecessary and potentially catastrophic war at the behest of the US.
What should Australia be seeking to achieve?
Unfortunately, the rivalry between the two major countries in our region – China and America – has escalated dangerously since around 2017. China has become more assertive under Xi Jinping, while the US has embraced a policy of containment of China under Trump and continued by Biden.
For many years, Australia sought to avoid having to make a choice between these two rivals, which represent our largest trading partner and our long-time defence ally respectively. But in response to the build-up in regional tensions, Australia appears to have chosen to side with the US by signing up to AUKUS.
We need to think more, however, about how compatible our obligations under AUKUS are with the outcomes Australia should be seeking to achieve in the region, especially given the reality of how China’s economic power and military capability have evolved in recent decades.
Back in 2019, when she was Shadow Foreign Minister, Penny Wong specifically recognised that: “Over the next decades, neither the United States nor China will be able to exert undisputed primacy. They must be prepared to live with each other as major powers.”
Wong then went on to say that “We recognise that China has a right to develop and a right to a role in the region alongside other regional powers. We do not and should not preemptively frame China only as a threat.”
Instead, Wong said that Australia should seek “a multipolar region in which the United States remains deeply involved and constructively engaged; in which China is a positive contributor; and in which the perspectives and contributions of smaller powers are respected and valued.”
Last December Wong, as Foreign Minister, told the Americans that “We need to do more than establish military deterrents to conflict. We need to work together to create the incentive for dialogue.”
And this week in a major speech, Wong stressed the need for countries “with an existential interest in regional peace and stability to press for the responsible management of great power competition. To that end she said “We deploy our own statecraft toward shaping a region that is open and prosperous. A predictable region, operating by agreed rules, standards and laws. Where no country dominates, and no country is dominated. A region where sovereignty is respected, and all countries benefit from a strategic equilibrium.”
The implications of AUKUS for a multipolar region
But if our key objective is to build a multipolar region where power is shared as a basis for future cooperation, does AUKUS damage the realisation of this objective?
All countries in the Asia Pacific region maintain a military defence capability, and some have a very substantial defence capability. Even if, as we hope, the region is successful in maintaining peaceful and good relations among all its member countries, a defence capability is a form of insurance and possible deterrence against the breakdown of these relations.
In principle, therefore, Australia’s decision to maintain or even modestly augment its military capability should not jeopardise good relations with other countries in the region. But Australia needs to engage with our neighbours, particularly Indonesia, and reassure them that we have similar objectives and interests.
On this basis, I have supported AUKUS in the past because it is widely agreed that Australia’s defence will be primarily a maritime defence, and that this requires new and better/more submarines to replace the ageing Collins Class submarines which are nearing the end of their service lives.
I also note that many of the critics of buying the nuclear submarines object to what they perceive will be their tasks, but they didn’t object to conventional diesel-electric submarines carrying out the same tasks.
Two critical issues for AUKUS
Two critical issues have, however, emerged from the debate about AUKUS:
- Whether the nuclear submarines represent value for money compared to conventional diesel-electric submarines, which really comes down to a judgement between the respective merits of quality versus quantity for much the same budget outlay.
- Whether AUKUS will seriously inhibit Australia’s sovereign independence to determine whether or not to go to war and how.
As regards the first of these two issues, the choice between more diesel-electric versus higher quality (and expensive) nuclear submarines is debated by the experts. The overwhelming majority of expert opinion, however, is that nuclear submarines are faster, more stealthy, can stay on station much longer, and are better equipped with advanced missiles, cyber and artificial intelligence.
Nevertheless, the choice of which submarine – nuclear or diesel-electric – is not the critically important issue. Rather the critical issue is the implications for Australia’s future sovereignty by tying ourselves to the US through AUKUS.
It is now being seriously questioned whether the purchase of nuclear submarines and their continued operation and maintenance under AUKUS really allows Australia to retain total sovereignty over the use of these submarines.
Of course, Australia has relied upon different countries to supply and support our military capabilities for a long time, and that gives their governments options to limit our use of those capabilities. But that is a risk we have been prepared to take because we think it unlikely that our suppliers would want to veto our use of these capabilities.
But the risks of foreign dictation seem much higher this time with nuclear submarines. This is the first time in 65 years that the US will share its nuclear technology at the heart of its nuclear submarines, and they may well only be doing it because we are seen as such a totally loyal ally that we will readily sign up to their “wars”.
In this context, probably the key potential test of our sovereignty is the possibility of a war over Taiwan. The Defence Minister, Richard Marles, has insisted that Australia ”absolutely” did not promise to support the US in any military conflict over Taiwan as part of the AUKUS deal to acquire nuclear submarines. Indeed, in response to an enquiry from the ABC about whether Australia had given the US any commitment to help during a conflict over Taiwan in return for access to the submarines, Marles said: “Of course not, and nor was one sought.”
Again, on the ABC Insiders, Marles said “I couldn’t be more unequivocal than that …. in all we do, we maintain complete sovereignty for Australia. The moment there is a flag on the first of those Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s is the moment that submarine will be under the complete control of the Australian government of the day.”
Furthermore, this week Kim Beazley, former Defence Minister, and later Australia’s Ambassador to the US wrote that: “once we acquire the US-made Virginia SSNs the Americans have made clear that all facets of their deployment will be under our control.” And critically, Beazley then went on to say that “Any decision to go to war, or not to, will be solely a matter for Australia’s government.”
Beazley also makes the point (in private correspondence) that it is ANZUS, not AUKUS, that obliges Australia and the US to consult in the event that war is considered. That is correct if the US itself is attacked, but this may not occur in a localised war over Taiwan.
Furthermore, AUKUS represents a quantum leap in our dependence on the US compared to other purchases and facilities and that inevitably increases the pressure the US can apply to get Australia to join them in a war. And Australia has a long history of giving way to US demands and joining them in past wars.
It is the possibility of this further increase in US influence under AUKUS that has led others, including former Foreign Affairs Minister, Gareth Evans, and Hugh White, former Deputy Defence Secretary for Strategy and principal author of the Howard Government’s 2000 Defence White Paper, to question whether in reality Australia would retain its sovereign independence under the AUKUS alliance in the event of hostilities breaking out between the US and China.
Evans questions “whether by so comprehensively further yoking ourselves to such extraordinarily sophisticated and sensitive US military technology, Australia has for all practical purposes abandoned our capacity for independent sovereign judgement. Not only as to how we use this new capability, but in how we respond to future US calls for military support” (emphasis in the original). Evans then backs up this judgement with examples of American domination from his time as Foreign Minister.
While White writes (in private correspondence) that the Government is probably right “that it will have what it calls “sovereign control” over any boats that are eventually commissioned into the RAN, in the very narrow sense that they could not be committed to action without Australia making a decision for them to do so. But that means very little, for two reasons.”
First, America will have an effective veto over the use of any nuclear submarines of which it disapproves for as long as we depend upon a lot of US support day-to-day to operate the submarines, and that probably means forever. Thus, the operation of the submarines would in reality be under joint control, with each exercising a veto.
Second, AUKUS increases the likelihood that Australia will make a sovereign decision to support the US in escalating confrontation and war with China, irrespective of our key interests, because America’s commitment to AUKUS is conditional on Australia’s unquestioning support for whatever Washington decides to do against China. As White puts it: “Our problem is not that we will not have the sovereign power to make a decision, but that AUKUS increases the likelihood that the decision we will make will be the wrong one.”
In short, White considers that Australia risks losing what he calls “strategic autonomy” “because it is crystal clear that the viability of the AUKUS plan depends upon US confidence that Australia would go to war with China if and when America does.”
Conclusion
The conclusion would seem to be that whether Australia retains its sovereign autonomy under AUKUS is uncertain – at least publicly.
If there is no war, then this issue of sovereignty does not matter much, but the US policy of containment is provocative and inconsistent with the multipolar region that Australian is seeking. While China has said that it will take over Taiwan by force if necessary.
Given these risks of war involving Australia, right now the acid test of Australia’s future sovereign autonomy would be how the US expects Australia to respond if it demanded that Australia join America in a war over Taiwan.
Australia’s response to this admittedly hypothetical question needs to be mindful that for the last fifty years Australia (and the US) have recognised that there is only one China, and that Taiwan is part of it. Although Australia has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity as to how it would respond to a forceful Chinese attempt to take over Taiwan, many Australians, including me, have argued that Australia should not join any war over Taiwan in future. Taiwan is not a strategic interest for Australia.
Furthermore, as Garry Woodward, a former Australian ambassador to China has argued: ‘The long-term implications for Australia of fighting alongside the US in a war between the US and China over Taiwan would be horrendous and impossible to overstate.’’ ‘‘If, as is likely, the US had to resort to nuclear weapons to avoid defeat, Australia, which would not have been consulted, would be condemned as a white country participating in the second nuclear conflict, both against Asian countries.”
One way therefore to clarify the implications of AUKUS for Australia’s future sovereignty would be for the Albanese Government to warn the US now that they cannot count on Australia to join them in the defence of Taiwan’s independence. We might also seek to have the UK join us in this opposition to war over Taiwan. The UK didn’t join the Vietnam war and I doubt that the UK would want to join a war over Taiwan either.
If the Americans response was to then tear up AUKUS, at least as far as Australia is concerned, we would at least know at this early stage that we needed to consider alternatives when building our future defence capability. While, if on the other hand, America accepts the independence of Australian decision making and agrees to continue its support for building Australian military capability under AUKUS, so much the better.
However, Kim Beazley thinks that “To advise the Americans thus in advance of the circumstances being clear would cancel ANZUS”. Beazley is of course much better informed about American thinking than me, but nevertheless I am not sure that Australia refusing well in advance to fight for Taiwanese independence would lead to the end of ANZUS. After all, the Americans gain a lot of benefits from ANZUS, particularly in intelligence, whereas AUKUS is more of a one-way street in favour of Australia.
But unfortunately, perhaps for these reasons, I am not expecting the Albanese Government to take this step and advise the Americans now that Australia will not participate in a war over Taiwan. The fear of abandonment runs so deep, that no Australian government will run the risk of getting the wrong answer from the US, however damaging the future potential consequences. Thus, it is likely that the Albanese Government would instead prefer to take the risk of being involved in an unnecessary and likely disastrous war, and possibly before we get the first nuclear submarines.
In sum, improving our defence capability in order to make war less likely is, in principle, a worthy goal, but not if it comes at the cost of making war more likely. And I fear that AUKUS does just that by making it very difficult for Australia not to be dragged into an unnecessary and potentially catastrophic war at the behest of the US.
Michael Keating is a former Secretary of the Departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Finance and Employment, and Industrial Relations. He is presently a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.