Australia's defense review can't take the place of security strategy
Potential impact of ambitious arms programs undefined
Nick Bisley is dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne. Rebecca Strating is an associate professor of politics and international relations at La Trobe and director of La Trobe Asia.
The cancellation of the Quad leadership summit that was to be held this week in Sydney has called into question the reliability of the U.S. as a regional partner. This is particularly troubling news for Australia, a U.S. ally that has increasingly sought to anchor Washington in the Indo-Pacific region.
Last month, Australia released a public version of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), an independent assessment of the nation's readiness to defend its interests in an increasingly risky strategic environment.
The DSR provides a useful snapshot of Australia's outlook and its broader approach to international policy. Perhaps its most important contribution is the case it makes for adopting a new conceptual approach to defense planning and strategy.
At the heart of what it calls "national defense" is an ambitious call for Australia to take a "whole-of-nation" approach to security. It is especially interesting that a defense planning document would recommend that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade be appropriately resourced to lead "whole-of-government" statecraft efforts in the Indo-Pacific region.
This unusual move reflects both the lack of connectivity in Australian government departments and the way defense and military security concerns overshadow Australia's international policy. This is not just a question of resources, although the budget focused on defense is telling, but also the disproportionate way in which military threats, particularly the China challenge, dominate policy thinking.
Although Australia remains geographically isolated from Asia's flashpoints and is ultimately a peripheral player in larger regional contests, the elevated sense of anxiety animating defense planning is striking.
The bilateral relationship between Australia and China has thawed under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, but this is perhaps more to do with Beijing seeking a rapprochement than to a different approach by Canberra.
Australian policymakers remain fixated on the security risks of China's rise, in contrast to the more cautious approach adopted by other regional states, especially those that are geographically much closer to the front lines of Beijing's increasingly aggressive assertions of territorial and maritime claims.
Despite having territorial and maritime disputes with China, Japan has mostly managed to maintain reasonably normal diplomatic relations with Beijing. As is the case for Australia, China is Japan's biggest trading partner, and Japan's practice of separating economic and political issues was one that Canberra also previously adopted.
But Australia's foreign policy moved from a "pragmatic" position of not choosing sides to effectively going all-in with the American view that China is a threat as best exemplified by the ambitious AUKUS partnership.
While others may see room to move in "nudging" and not just containing China, as well as for cooperating on challenges that no nation can solve on its own, Australia seems to have made up its mind that this is unlikely to be worthwhile. Although the DSR rightly says Australia should cooperate with China where it can, it is unclear what those areas of potential cooperation are or could be.
Indeed, there has been no effort to create a comprehensive national security strategy since an effort under Prime Minister Julia Gillard sank without a trace in 2013.
Defense planning documents issued over the following decade shrank Australia's geographic and time horizons. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update identified the Pacific and Southeast Asia as Australia's strategic neighborhood, a point also emphasized in the DSR. The DSR has added that Australia may have almost no warning time before conflict erupts.
How Australia conceives of its role on the international stage has changed as well. Whereas previously it considered itself a middle power in a global context, it now views itself as an Indo-Pacific regional power.
Although the DSR tries to focus policy attention on the broader context, its commissioning reflects the dominance of defense matters. Yet even with regard to specific matters within the defense portfolio, it is unclear what strategic impact Australia's relatively ambitious defense plans will have. The biggest element, budgetarily and politically, is the plan to acquire nuclear powered submarines through the AUKUS pact with the U.S. and U.K.
But to what extent will those submarines shift the naval balance of power in the region? It is estimated that there will be at least 250 submarines operating in Asia by 2030, which suggests that the eight Australia is due to bring into service through AUKUS in the 2040s will be a drop in the ocean, so to speak.
On the other hand, Australia's investment in U.S. shipbuilding may bring submarines more quickly.
The U.S. needs to turn out two submarines annually but is only finishing 1.3. Under the pathway outlined in March, Australian taxpayers will somewhat surprisingly put 3 billion Australian dollars ($2 billion) into funding American shipbuilding infrastructure for four years to ensure delivery of at least three used Virginia-class submarines to fill the capability gap between Australia's existing Collins-class vessels and the new AUKUS submarines.
The Albanese government is putting its faith in Washington maintaining support for plans by the administration of President Joe Biden to send the Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s. It is unlikely that the U.S. would support such a plan -- given its own shipbuilding woes -- if it did not think that Australia would contribute to regional security in a way that supports U.S. interests.
While nuclear-powered submarines could potentially contribute to good order at sea by creating uncertainty in the mind of a potential adversary, there is a risk that they could detract from other capabilities and areas of statecraft required to support Australia's security interests across its own vast maritime jurisdiction.
Perhaps the greatest tale the DSR tells is the gap in overarching strategy. What Australia needs is a comprehensive national security strategy.
The U.K.'s 2021 Integrated Review and its 2023 refresh provide useful models in thinking about statecraft from a holistic perspective. Japan's 2022 National Security Strategy also attempts to grapple with the challenge for modern states of bringing together security, economy, defense, development and foreign policy tools in pursuit of a common purpose and interests. Canberra should take on the challenge of producing a similar document of its own.