The Future of the United States-Australia Alliance

Evolving Security Strategy in the Indo-Pacific

Scott D. McDonald, Andrew T. H. Tan, Scott D. McDonald, Andrew T. H. Tan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000326697
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The United States-Australia alliance has been an important component of the US-led system of alliances that has underpinned regional security in the Indo-Pacific since 1945. However, recent geostrategic developments, in particular the rise of the People's Republic of China, have posed significant challenges to this US-led regional order. In turn, the growing strategic competition between these two great powers has generated challenges to the longstanding US-Australia alliance. Both the US and Australia are confronting a changing strategic environment, and, as a result, the alliance needs to respond to the challenges that they face. The US needs to understand the challenges and risks to this vital relationship, which is growing in importance, and take steps to manage it. On its part, Australia must clearly identify its core common interests with the US and start exploring what more it needs to do to attain its stated policy preferences.

This book consists of chapters exploring US and Australian perspectives of the Indo-Pacific, the evolution of Australia-US strategic and defence cooperation, and the future of the relationship. Written by a joint US-Australia team, the volume is aimed at academics, analysts, students, and the security and business communities.

1 The United States—Australia alliance

Scott D. M^cDonald and Andrew T. H. Tan

The United States—Australia alliance is an important component in the security architecture of the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions. This close-knit relationship has been an important component of the US-led hubs and spokes system of alliances cobbled together in the early 1950s.¹ The resulting security architecture has underpinned regional security and stability, enabling Asia to develop and prosper following the aftermath of the Second World War. However, geo-strategic developments since the end of the Cold War, particularly the economic and military rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), accompanied by its growing confidence and assertiveness, have posed significant challenges to this US-led regional order. This challenge from China has been exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic of 2019–2020, which led to worsened relations between the United States and China. In turn, the growing strategic competition and intensifying tensions between these two great powers have generated challenges to the long-standing US—Australia alliance.

Given the combination of a changing strategic environment and increasing calls in Australia to re-evaluate its relationship with the US and the PRC, there is a need to clearly identify the common interests and challenges in the US—Australia strategic and military relationship. This relationship has been important both to Australian security planning and as a vital component in the US-led regional order, which is now coming under challenge (White 2010; White 2017).

Benefits of the US—Australia alliance

The United States has been the central plank in Australia’s defence and foreign policies since the signing of the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty (or ANZUS Treaty) in 1951. As Bisley observed, Australia sought the security pact with the United States because of perceived threats to Australian interests after 1945, emanating from the threat of communism and fears over a re-armed Japan (Bisley 2013: 405). Additionally, Britain could no longer provide the required security guarantees, and Australian decision-makers recognized that only the United States could uphold the post-1945 global and regional orders. Although the ANZUS Treaty began to unravel when the US suspended its treaty obligations towards New Zeal-and following the latter’s declaration of its territory as a nuclear-free zone, the US and Australia both reaffirmed that they would continue to honour their treaty obligations to one another (Office of the Historian n.d.).

Since then, the alliance has provided several major benefits to Australia: the prospect that the United States would come to Australia’s aid in the event of an external threat or attack; privileged access to US military hardware and training; access to US intelligence networks; and direct access to Washington, capital of the world’s largest economy and pre-eminent military power for much of the post-1945 era (Bisley 2013: 405–406). Australia also belongs to the Five Eyes intelligence network, which ‘in terms of breadth, depth and coherence ... easily surpasses all other intelligence networks’. All told, in terms of the number and strength of linkages, the ‘strength of the commitment arguably exceeds NATO as an alliance’ (O’Neil 2017: 540).

On the part of the United States, the Asia-Pacific has been acknowledged as the most important region for its future. In a seminal foreign policy speech to Australia’s parliament in November 2011, President Obama announced the ‘Pivot to Asia’ (later rebranded as ‘rebalancing’). The speech was significant in that it strongly reaffirmed the United States’ determination to stand its ground in Asia and maintain its dominant position. Obama declared that the US presence in the Asia-Pacific was its top priority and that reductions in US defence spending as a result of its budget and debt crises would not be at the expense of the region (Australian 2011). After his speech, the US sought to strengthen its presence in Asia through the rotation of US Marines through the Northern Territory and US Air Force assets through Australian bases (Stars and Stripes 2013).

Australia is clearly important to the United States as a key ally in the region most important for its future. Significantly, by delivering his Pivot speech before the Australian Parliament, Obama chose to highlight the importance that the United States has placed on the long-standing alliance relationship with Australia. Australia has been a reliable ally in most major conflicts that the United States has been involved in, such as the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and, more recently, the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As Obama noted in his Canberra speech, ‘from the trenches of the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan, Aussies and Americans have stood together, we have fought together, we have given lives together in every single major conflict of the past hundred years ... every single one’ (Australian 2011). Indeed, the Trilateral Security Dialogue involving the United States and its two closest allies in Asia, Japan and Australia, are committed ‘to working together to maintain and promote a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region’ (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2019).

A clear example of Australia and the US working together has been the defence relationship, the symbiotic nature of which has led to an increasing array of information sharing, personnel exchanges, combined exercises and shared engagement with partner nations across the Indo-Pacific (Church n.d.). At present, there are almost 600 Australian Defence personnel embedded in the US military, working side-by-side with their US counterparts (Australian Embassy, Washington). This integration extends to leading US forces in the Indo-Pacific, through an Australian officer serving as one of the Deputy Commanding Generals of US Army Pacific (Guardian 2012).

A common challenge: China’s rise

The problem is that since the end of the Cold War, there have been significant developments in the international system, leading to changes in the regional strategic environment. China’s dramatic economic rise has underpinned its growing challenge to the current US- and Western-dominated international order. China has also become an important economic player in every major continent in the world, due to its voracious appetite for energy and raw materials, as well as its proactive search for new markets.

At the same time, the 2008 global financial crisis revealed political, fiscal and economic issues in the United States, raising allies’ concerns regarding its capacity to meet its global military and security commitments. In addition, America’s controversial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks have to some extent damaged American soft power. Yet, the United States remains an unrivalled global military power and has managed its dominance in such a way that it has not sparked a balancing coalition against it by other great powers (Telegraph 2013). China also does not have the attributes necessary to replace the US as the new global hegemon (Tan 2014). Nonetheless, China has posed a serious challenge to US regional dominance in Asia, through military actions, assertive diplomacy and the use of economic instruments. Most visibly, PRC aggressiveness has manifested in establishment of control over the disputed South China Sea through construction of artificial islands and military bases (Yahuda 2013). Moreover, China’s behaviour in the South China Sea poses a threat to international sea lanes, which the US and Australia share an interest in protecting.

The challenge to Australia is complicated by the fact that China’s dramatic economic rise has resulted in it becoming Australia’s largest trading partner. Indeed, the economic relationship has been buoyant, with China’s continued purchase of Australia’s resources driving a 23 per cent increase in bilateral trade, reaching A$180 billion in 2017 (Sydney Morning Herald 2018). China is Australia’s largest trading partner and a key market for Australia’s mining resources, agricultural produce and education services. Some argue this gives China increasing leverage over Australia. Yet, at the same time, the US remains Australia’s principal security partner. Indeed, despite calls from some quarters for a more equidistant relationship between China and the US, Australia has chosen to deepen its security relationship with the United States (see, for example, White 2010). This ongoing conversation within Australia calls attention to the importance of alliance management.

To engage with the new challenges, Australia and the US have made recent progress in bilateral security cooperation, for instance, through the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty in 2013, which provides substantial benefits such as reducing red tape, minimizing procurement delays and improved data sharing. Significantly, only the United Kingdom has a similar arrangement with the US, which underlines the strategic importance of Australia to the US. For Australia, such a unique status provides special levels of access and engagement, particularly regarding advanced defence technologies (Church n.d.).

Australia has thus seemingly taken America’s side in the Sino-US strategic rivalry. This appears to stem from a cold calculation of its own interests. According to its latest Foreign Policy White Paper, ‘the Australian Government judges that the United States’ long-term interests will anchor its economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific’, and that ‘its major Pacific alliances with Japan, the Republic of Korea and Australia will remain strong’ (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2017: 26). In short, the US—Australia alliance is perceived to be pivotal for both countries in the Indo and Asia-Pacific strategic context. Moreover, because this is part of the wider regional alliance system led by the United States, the strength of this alliance has serious implications for other US alliance partners in Asia, as well as for other states in the region.

Challenges within the US—Australia alliance

Yet, the alliance is fundamentally unequal, with the United States shouldering a much heavier financial and operational burden due to its size. As the US revaluates the budgetary balance between defence and domestic spending – a discussion exacerbated by neo-isolationist tendencies – Australia will likely be asked to do even more as a US partner (Church n.d.). This however, raises conundrums for both the United States and Australia.

On Australia’s part, will it continue to free-ride on its bigger ally, or will it increase defence spending and procure capabilities that could make a better contribution to regional defence arrangements? As Richard Armitage observed in 2013: if there was any future neuralgia in the Indo-Pacific, then the US would start looking at Australia and ask, ‘What’s up with that – you’re spending 1.56 per cent of GDP? You expect America to be there for you on defence, but you have to be there for yourself as well’ (cited in Leah 2016: 532). Thus, the question for Australia is: what can it do to sustain this relationship and play an even greater role in the maintenance of the regional order that has existed since 1945 and which has served it so well? At the time of writing, the geostrategic impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic that swept the globe in early 2020 was unclear. However, China–Australia relations worsened in 2020 due to Australia’s championing of an international enquiry into the origins of the global pandemic, leading to unusually strong language from China directed at Australia as well as threats of economic retaliation (ABC 2020a). This manifested itself in the banning of beef imports, an 80 percent tariff on barley and official discouragement of tourism and students from travelling to Australia. As Townshend asserted, this was accompanied by a disinformation campaign, with China accusing Australia, for instance, of cooperating with the United States in its alleged propaganda war against China (Townshend 2020). In response, Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared that he would not ‘trade our values in response to coercion from wherever it comes’. This was followed by moves to reinvigorate the Five Eyes intelligence network comprising the US, the UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia and to coordinate efforts in building trusted supply chains for vital materials (ABC 2020b).

On the part of the United States, Australia is a vital partner for its continued engagement in Asia. In the context of an increasingly complex and dynamic security environment, mixed with growing appetite for partnership among regional states and contrasted with mounting budget challenges and increasing domestic support for isolationism, the US finds itself in need of a reliable partner, who shares its values and has the capability to share the tasks of regional leadership. The region has benefitted from the US-led ruled-based regional order, which has sustained stability and underwritten prosperity since 1945. However, to sustain that order in a time of rising requirements and little chance of budgetary increases the US needs regional allies, such as Australia, to play an increasingly important role in sustaining regional security. The US and its allies will need to increase the extent of their cooperation and integration in order to improve the regional security architecture and ensure this pivotal region continues to grow prosperous and free. The question then is: what are the risks that might lead to a de-emphasis on the bilateral relationship and how can these risks be managed? Just as significant is the question of the implications of the future of the Australia–US alliance for other alliance partners and the entire regional security architecture.

To provide insight into these challenges, this book seeks to identify the common interests and similar security perspectives that sustain the relationship, the key factors underpinning its evolution and potential futures, both for this alliance and the implications for regional order. Moreover, as the US explores a more interest-based and assertive strategy in Asia, albeit complicated by growing neo-isolationist sentiments, it is important that it understands Australia’s unique interests and contributions to enable better strategy, efficient division of responsibility and realistic alliance expectations. Mean-while, as with the past several US administrations, Australia may find itself navigating through US inconsistency in regional engagement, driven by domestic uncertainty and balancing global commitments. All these possibilities will have implications for alliance defence and strategic policies, including strategy, spending and procurement on both sides of the Pacific.

This research is timely, as there are no competing works on this topic and the alliance relationship is a vital component to both regional order and the US position in Asia. This work is also the first volume on the alliance to appear following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Both countries have to confront a changing strategic environment, and the alliance needs to respond to the challenges that they face. The United States cannot continue to take Australia for granted. It must understand the challenges and risks to this vital relationship, which is growing in importance, and take steps to manage it. On its part, Australia now needs to clearly identify its core common interests with the United States, and start exploring what more it really needs to do to match its stated policy preferences.

Structure of this work

Chapter 2, by Alexander Vuving of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Stu-dies, evaluates the strategic environment of the US—Australia alliance in the Indo-Pacific era. According to Vuving, the most powerful factors shaping the strategic environment are related to climate, demographic, technological and economic changes, great power relations, big catastrophes, and human dynamics. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have the largest impact on the strategic environment in the short to medium term. Although the directions of many changes brought about by the global plague are still unfathomable as the pandemic continues to unfold, four trends accelerated by the pandemic – the growth in importance of the cyber domain, t...