The US-Japan-ROK summit: An impressive first step

With Hanah Park, PacNet, 21 August, 2023

The outputs from the US-Japan-ROK Trilateral meeting at Camp David last week were impressive. They ranged from the geostrategic to values and principles and to actual mechanisms to effect policies. Starting with the Camp David Principles of shared values, mutual respect, and concern for peace and stability in the region, working through the Commitment to Consult, and then delivering concrete actions in the Fact Sheet and Joint Statement (also called the “Spirit of Camp David”).

While the summit was the fourth between the three leaders, it is clearly the culmination of previous discussions and reveals a desire by the United States to institutionalize the relationship so that it outlasts any future Korean and Japanese tensions. After all, the US-Japan-ROK trilateral is actually the oldest minilateral—with a longevity that far exceeds the US-Japan-Australia trilateral or the recent newcomer AUKUS—but it has precious little to show for it. The Biden administration should be commended for seizing the opportunity that President Yoon Suk-yeol’s government offered in terms of his willingness to repair ties with Japan and engage with the United States on the Indo-Pacific. The only question now is whether the Camp David agreement has put too much on the table at once, making execution difficult.

The structure of the readouts is rather neat. It’s clear that the outcomes are to sit atop the Commitment to Consult and the Camp David Principles. While the latter readout sounds rather anodyne to American readers—respect for international law, shared norms, and common values—any reader of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy and National Security Strategy will instantly recognize in them the values bedrock of the US competition with the People’s Republic of China. What makes this statement particularly noteworthy is that traditionally Japan and South Korea rarely expressed their foreign policy in these terms, right up until the end of the Cold War. Seeing them join in this statement—and knowing of the personal support by both President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida for their inclusion—shows how far the three countries have come on common assumptions. The principles statement on Taiwan is also remarkably bold: “We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community.” This warning to China—for that is what it is—shows the spirit of the administration’s “integrated deterrence” framework.

Looking at the Fact Sheet and Joint Declaration, there are a few differences, though both sweep broadly over the same areas. Perhaps the most impressive part is the huge leap that the trilateral has taken as institutionalized security architecture. While previously institutionalized—famously in the Trilateral Coordinating Oversight Group (TCOG) in the late 1990s—this did not survive the early 2000s. The Camp David agreement has replaced the TCOG model with multiple ministerial tracks expected to take place annually, ranging from the already existing summits to the foreign and defense ministerials. Added to these, however, are two new annual ministerials, one for finance and one for commerce and industry. While commendable, this only adds to the number of ministerials that confront the bureaucracies of all three in other fora and one wonders how the ministers will actually be able to handle the added pressure. Certainly, groupings like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) will also compete with the trilateral for the time and energy of ministerial staff, and we may see even more outsourcing of the policy outlines to the private sector and think tank sector in all three countries, where policy discussions touch upon sectors like energy, critical and emerging technologies, and supply chains.

What stands out are the economic initiatives and the newly formed Indo-Pacific security frameworks. The three countries have agreed to an “early warning system” that will share information on “possible disruptions to global supply chains” to “confront and overcome economic coercion.” However, it sounds as though the three countries either have not decided exactly how they will bolster themselves against economic retaliation or, as plausibly demonstrated by the warning system, coordination on semiconductor and chip manufacturing capabilities will remain limited for now, either to bilateral levels or within the private sector. Although the growing closeness of the three countries may help insulate ROK and Japanese economies against retaliation by China, they have yet to outline specific countermeasures. Furthermore, internal issues such as the allocation of subsidies to address industrial chip capacity building in the ROK and Japan under the CHIPS Act remain unaddressed. Much like the US-ROK summit in April, the summit skirted a direct mention of semiconductor issues, instead showing an implicit focus on supply chain resilience and critical and emerging technologies through the Trilateral National Laboratories Cooperation and the Trilateral Economic Security Dialogue.

The commitment to build relations with ASEAN and Pacific Island nations is also a commendable step in developing a reliable trilateral relationship with nations across the Indo-Pacific and an attempt to avoid the ASEAN backlash occasioned by AUKUS and the Quad. The Trilateral Development Finance Cooperation will build inter-trilateral connections since the ROK lacks an infrastructure financing mechanism, as opposed to the US and Japan, which share financing responsibilities through the Quad. As the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) are both experienced in building freshwater and gas infrastructure, the US may turn to its skill in financing in order to develop public goods for the region in the form of infrastructure. They will also seek to coordinate disaster relief efforts as natural disasters increasingly impact Indo-Pacific countries. Then, there is the introduction of a Trilateral Maritime Security Cooperation Framework, which provides a broad forum for collaboration on potential maritime issues such as coast guard operations, maritime domain awareness, countering illegal unregulated fishing, and the development of maritime blue-water capabilities. The framework gives South Korea the flexibility to negotiate the ROK Navy’s role in the maritime domain given the recent maritime emphasis of the ROK Indo-Pacific Strategy.

The summit at Camp David has set an ambitious agenda for the future of the trilateral relationship. The numerous initiatives cover vulnerable regions of the Indo-Pacific and build on national strengths by focusing on critical areas such as cybersecurity and critical and emerging technologies. There is a clear indication that the trilateral relationship has moved from its focus on the Peninsula to being a regional body, emphasizing cooperation with ASEAN and Pacific Island nations, and taking a clear stance on Taiwan. It also creates several avenues for the three to work on economic security and maritime security. It will be interesting to see how successful those two tracks will be, relative to each other. The trilateral meeting at Camp David is historic and has made immense gains. However, it remains to be seen how many of these initiatives will make progress and whether the attempts to institutionalize the relationship will succeed. For the sake of peace in the region, let’s hope that they do.

Today’s crucial Camp David summit is Biden’s chance to prevent war with China

The Telegraph, 18 August, 2023

The news that President Biden is hosting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David for a trilateral summit is far more significant than might first appear. For the President, it’s massive accomplishment, as the two countries have long had a off-and-on again bilateral relationship, enflamed by the bitter memories of Japanese colonization on the Korean Peninsula last century.

While the White House and State Department are to be commended for this win, it’s a foundational win they have yet to still build upon. The Summit itself cannot be the accomplishment, but rather it’s what the three leaders decide on leafy walks in the Maryland cabin retreat, where Presidential hospitality can be put to best effect. One hopes that Biden will meet with Yoon first to thank him for making the meeting possible at all.

Coming to office without political office, the conservative South Korean President has made it his business to radically warm ties with the United States, its long-standing ally, while also repairing the bilateral with Tokyo. This included releasing an Indo-Pacific Strategy, which saw Seoul, join the US and a number of allies and partners who also have adopted an Indo-Pacific foreign policy, and sees it renewing its engagement with the US alliance system.

This new willingness to confront its past with Japan, while embracing a regional posture – at the expense of attention on the North, the “Yoon Doctrine” has made him incredibly popular in both countries, but damaged his standing at home, where Japanese offenses are never hard to find.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

As China menaces Taiwan, the Royal and US navies rightly stand by Australia

The Telegraph, 18 July, 2023

The news this week that the US Senate was putting in amendments to the State Department Authorization Act of 2023 that would help authorize the transfer of two Virginia Class submarines to Australia in line with the Australia-UK-US trilateral arrangement (Aukus) is to be welcomed. 

Should it go through, it will grant Australia and the UK priority status within the US foreign military sales (FMS) process, including advanced clearance for the transfer of Aukus-related technologies. Visiting the security think tank Pacific Forum this week, Australian Ambassador to the USA Kevin Rudd quoted Bismarck, saying “making legislation is like making sausage – messy and not to be observed too closely – but with any luck, you have sausage at the end of the process”. Behind Rudd’s words – and laced throughout his speech – was the central theme that seems to be dominating Washington DC these days – that of deterring China from invading Taiwan. 

Aukus is intended to do just that by creating a shared industrial and technological base between the three countries around the most sensitive technologies, by creating a rotational force of submarines forward-deployed in Australia – close to China’s key shipping lanes and the South China Sea – and by bolstering the submarine capabilities of all three countries. Euan Graham, a former British diplomat and expert on the region, has noted in the ASPI Strategist how the announcement this past March will put at least one Royal Navy Astute-class submarine permanently based in the region.

“Compared to the Royal Navy’s other experiment in forward deployment in the region, involving a pair of roving patrol vessels”, Graham notes that submarines are primarily “platforms for high-intensity conflict”. 

In his comments to the Pacific Forum, Ambassador Rudd – one-time Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia – noted that China’s language on Taiwan has changed over the length of his long career. While once reserving the right to use military force to reunify Taiwan if the “wayward province” declared independence, Beijing now states that it has this right if there is not enough progress in unification, an alarmingly vague metric. As a consequence of this and of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden Administration has created the concept of “integrated deterrence”. 

The subject of late nights at the Pentagon, the concept was first introduced by the administration in the December 2022 Defense Forum Washington as the “cornerstone” of the US approach, supposedly allowing the US and its allies to dissuade or defeat aggression in any form or domain. The concept was subsequently more fully fleshed out in the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the National Defense Science and Technology Strategy. The latter report shows the link to Aukus: “Defense science and technology cooperation with our allies and partners will help create more capabilities, increase shared production capacity, and reinforce our shared commitment to, and therefore the credibility of, integrated deterrence.”  

While all of this sounds impressive – and to some extent it should – there are real questions about how the US will manage all of this “integration”. After all, it has previously turned export controls on sensitive technologies into a bureaucratic science. And not in a good way. 

The victory that Ambassador Rudd and Senator Kaine, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee, were celebrating this week might be premature. The United States government has set itself a gargantuan task: it must expand defense industrial base capacity and integrate foreign companies into extremely sensitive parts of the military industrial economy and it must do this quickly – if we are to assume, as seems wise, that the timeline of a Taiwan invasion is in Xi Jinping’s lifetime. Furthermore, it must reform and reduce the bureaucracy involved in its foreign military sales, a single sale of which can often involve no fewer than 10 or 11 agencies and departments across the executive and legislative. 

While such change across a well-entrenched bureaucracy sounds like the administration might be asking too much of itself, the good news is that bureaucracy is one of the few things holding back change. For the most part, both parties – the Democrats and Republicans – agree that reforms and changes are needed if they are to build a sufficiently robust defense industrial base that will dissuade any aggression across all domains. In an era where China is most commonly perceived to be the largest manufacturing power, the imperative is all the stronger.

The good news for UK business – particularly across defense industry – is that this opening is occurring, presenting opportunities to tap into and integrate with the largest single defense market by spending. The question of course is how the UK will manage its own national interests in the establishment of a common defense technological base. The news that Aukus planners are already pushing for quantum submarines speaks to future opportunities, but there will of course be risks.

The real question is how the three powers will balance their own interests, while the largest of them attempts to strip out the mess of red tape that it has built to keep foreigners out and its technology in.

China is taking US citizens hostage

The Telegraph, July 5, 2023

As we Americans celebrate our Independence Day – sorry ol’ Blighty – it’s good to count our blessings and take stock. We remain (for now) the wealthiest country by GDP in the world, followed by China, Japan, and Germany and the dollar is still the world’s reserve currency. As an American there are few countries I cannot visit carrying my blue passport with any sense of risk or danger.

Sadly, China – the world’s second wealthiest country – is moving into that category and I’m afraid I will not risk going there. On June 30, citing Chinese detentions of US citizens under vague anti-espionage laws, the Department of State website advised American citizens to “reconsider travel to Mainland China”, “to the Hong Kong SAR”, and “to the Macau SAR” due to “the arbitrary enforcement of local laws”. As our nation celebrates the Fourth of July, 200 US citizens are imprisoned in China, detained for suspicious or vague reasons.

It is the increasing manifestation of what some have called China’s “hostage diplomacy”. Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington Law School indicates that “China views the holding of human hostages as an acceptable way to conduct diplomacy”. Famously, two prominent Canadians were detained for three years without charge by China – seemingly in response to Canada’s arrest of Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou. In 2020, a famous Australian anchor named Cheng Lei at CGTN (China Global TV Network) was detained under China’s state secrets laws – seemingly in response to a deterioration in relations between the two countries. 

Whatever else you think about China, it is a tragedy for all countries that relations have come to this. Because it signals – along with the Great Firewall of China, the National Intelligence Law, Document 9 and ever-stricter control over China’s media and internet – the increasing isolation of the Chinese people; the end of their all-to-brief exposure to the rich multiplicity of thought in the world. The Party is building a wall around the nation and there are risks to those who go over it.

It signals a resurgence of a Maoist “cult of personality” system under one leader, Xi Jinping, in which “good thought” is distinguished from “bad thought”, and in which the latter is ruthlessly suppressed, be that in China or elsewhere.

And lest we forget these detentions are the tip of a much darker iceberg. The world should not forget the ongoing mass detention and oppression of an entire people, the Uyghur, the ethnically Turkic people of Xinjiang. The Uyghurs’ western region of China was conquered by Beijing under the Qing in the 17th century. And under China’s current approach towards criticism, I would be at risk if I went to China for writing these words in a British newspaper.

As I’ve written before, we are in the foothills of a new type of Cold War, not merely between the US and China, but between the Chinese Communist Party and those who dare criticize it: between the free and the unfree. For those of us who remember the end of the old Cold War, it is a day of reckoning. 

Modi is Putin’s main backer – so why is Washington rolling out the red carpet?

The Telegraph, 22 June, 2023

The Biden Administration rolled out the red carpet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week as the two countries initiated a flurry of summit-level diplomacy and deals to mark the visit. Modi arrives as the US diplomatic team comes off the back of a dismal visit to China, where Beijing seemed determined to express its displeasure to visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The primary win of that meeting was that there was a meeting at all. In contrast to the uncertain shuttle diplomacy to Beijing, the Modi visit has been shrouded in high-flying rhetoric with high levels of White House attention.

Modi won’t be unhappy with what the US is offering. The White House is expected to propose cooperation in space, a jet engine manufacturing deal, an AI and technology agreement and further sales of its vaunted Predator drone, allowing Delhi to keep a wary eye on growing Chinese intrusions into its northern border region and the Indian Ocean. While valuable in and of itself, the largesse is part of a US wooing strategy to become closer to India in order to balance China. The visit, the White House webpage promised, would “strengthen our two countries’ shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific”, showing its most cherished strategic wish for the rising Asian nation. 

Last week, in preparation for the visit, US national security advisor Jake Sullivan went to Delhi with the specific purpose of laying the groundwork for concrete deliverables that would appeal to Prime Minister Modi. According to a readout of his trip, he sought discussions on a range of strategic, regional, and bilateral issues including steps to advance the “strategic technology and defense partnership” with India.

The real question is whether or not the relationship is really going anywhere meaningful? Would India, for example, get involved in any Taiwan crisis in the future involving China and the US? Will it – for want of a better term – take sides in what the US sees an era of strategic competition?

Delhi’s track record over Ukraine would suggest that no, India is not going to help the US support the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. Barka Dutt, an Indian journalist, dropped a piece in the Washington Post provocatively titled: “No America. India will never be your ally”. Citing colonialism and a hardnosed realism about the world, Dutt notes in the piece that Delhi has refused to cut ties with Moscow and has continued buying Russian oil for its own national hardheaded interests. India is one of the main reasons the Russian government is still in business.

Interestingly, there are growing signs that senior American thinkers agree with her. A recent Foreign Affairs article by Ashley Tellis, arguably the US architect of the strategic relationship, indicates that pessimism has reached Americans as well as he calls the US gamble on India a “bad bet”. Challenging this, Tanvi Maden – of the Brookings Institute – notes that Prime Minister Modi himself invokes democracy, diversity, and freedom when referring to the US relationship. 

For those on both sides who doubt the direction of the relationship, India does seem to be engaging Washington in a number of forums, many with an implicitly or explicitly strategic rationale. It is a member of the Quad, one of the US’ primary groupings for alignment in the Indo-Pacific, a grouping that has offered vaccines and now quality infrastructure. The fact that it does so to counter China’s own efforts is lost on no one. India is also a member of the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), an important factor in burgeoning bilateral trade. The US and India also meet at the 2+2 level (defense and foreign ministers) and have a number of military information sharing agreements, as well as defence industry dialogues that have seen defence trade blossom. 

Despite this, Indian commentators seem unhappy with the drift towards Washington, with some criticising its “transactional nature”. It’s hard not to respond that such behavior is a product of relations with a country that takes non-alignment to the level of a religion. To non-Indians, there is something of Lord Salisbury’s “Splendid Isolation” in the way that India asserts its independence from entangling alliances, and something of the deadly isolation of such a posture. Perhaps this is why Prime Minister Modi has gently brought India closer to Washington than any other living Indian leader. Despite Delhi’s strategic marrage to Russia, it would seem that it is gradually moving the dial.

It is an odd fact this week that President Biden is hosting a politician who was once banned from visiting the US for alleged human rights abuses: but then the relationship on both sides has been driven by strategic pragmatism over shared interests. For India, the visit seems to be based on gaining US military technology and close ties with the world’s current hegemon, a useful relationship to have. On the US part, it has been about using India’s bulk and trajectory to challenge the notion of a Chinese century.

In the short run, ugly though it is, Washington may decide to overlook India’s non-alignment over Russia. But one feels it will not – cannot – accept the same over China. But then, Washington probably doesn’t have to worry. China has been the best promoter of US-Indian ties. By encroaching upon India’s northern border, threatening its relationship with Bhutan and other regional states, by allying closely with Pakistan, Beijing has made itself the best advocate of closer US-Indian friendship there could ever be. 

Papua New Guinea base is a strong American move in the chess game against China

The Telegraph, June 16, 2023

Last month’s news that the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has signed an agreement with the United States, granting US forces access to PNG ports and military bases, seems yet another chess move on the strategic Pacific map of the Indo-Pacific region. One need only remember that in April last year, it was Beijing that had just announced a security deal, this one with the Solomon Islands.

Seen from the perspective of Honolulu, where I write, all of this seems an increasing sign of the China-driven strategic competition that has blown up over the past few years. So, what’s driving the contest and how risky is it for countries like PNG or the Solomons to be involved?

In the case of PNG, it is likely to be driven by a combination of things. One friend, a former government official, told me recently that the development effect of US funding and capacity-building is likely to be a driver. The promise of US spending – guaranteed by the agreements just signed – play a role. It was only a few years ago that another PNG friend – this one still in government – confided to me his concerns that China was taking over the region. He noted that many of the local businesses in his area had been taken over by Chinese shop keepers and that they seemed to know who was in government and who wasn’t. My friend, somewhat senior, was often offered goods on credit, something that bothered him. Our conversation at the time struck me as a warning of the full-throttle competition we are seeing today.

“You’re [the US is] going to lose the race if you’re not careful,” he warned me. 

To finish reading, please click here:

AUKUS: Enhancing Undersea Deterrence

PacNet, May 27, 2023

(This article was originally published by Council on Geostrategy in connection with the First Sea Lord’s Conference, London 2023)

Driven by the CCP’s imperative to oversee “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, US intelligence sources indicate that Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the PLA to become capable of countering American military power in the Indo-Pacific and ready for a takeover of Taiwan by 2027. This is an alarming prospect lent credence by recent Chinese military exercises around the island nation. According to Adm. John Aquilino, Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), in his March Congressional testimony, the PLA Navy (PLAN) is on track to deliver 440 battle force ships by 2030, including significant increases in aircraft carriers and major surface combatants. As it grows in strength, the PLAN is likely to use its large naval forces to further uphold, even enforce, illegitimate Chinese claims over areas of the East and South China seas, areas through which foreign vessels of all kinds have rights to move under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which the PRC ratified in 1996.

In this worsening geopolitical environment Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have created the AUKUS submarine and technology-sharing agreement, which has been called a “trilateral, security partnership based on defense capabilities that support [the three countries’] mutual national defense objectives.” According to Mara Karlin, US Assistant Secretary of Defence for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities, the agreement will “lift all three nations’ submarine industrial bases and undersea capabilities, enhancing deterrence and promoting stability in the Indo-Pacific.”

Deterring indirectly

Before explaining how AUKUS facilitates “direct deterrence” from the perspective of capabilities, capacity, and force posture, it is important to identify forms of “indirect deterrence,” namely by promoting deterrence through a constellation of security alignments and the strengthening of the defense industrial base (DIB). In the case of these latter two forms of “indirect deterrence,” AUKUS—as with the US-Japan-Australia Trilateral and the Quad—is a minilateral. These minilaterals are not strictly alliances, but provide their members with a shared pool of military capabilities or what has also been dubbed a “federated model of defense.” Within the United States, these alignments gel with the administration’s organizing principle of “integrated deterrence,” which was laid out in the 2022 National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Nuclear Posture Review. In addition to accelerating efforts to promote planning, coordination, and operations between various US government agencies and US allies, AUKUS also provides integrated deterrence at the level of the defense industrial base for all three cooperating nations. While it would be a stretch to call this “undersea deterrence,” it would also be remiss not to mention the bolstering effect AUKUS will have on naval shipyards, the nuclear enterprise, and undersea sensor and weapons systems industries, which all contribute to national strength.

Directly deterring from beneath the sea

Defining deterrence as the “building of combat credible forces across all domains and across the full spectrum of conflict to deter aggression,” Karlin also noted that AUKUS is about more than just pillars I and II, but also includes a focus on undersea deterrence throughout the Indo-Pacific across a range of areas. At the simplest level, the agreement adds to undersea deterrence by delivering new advanced warfighting capabilities to its members, particularly Australia: it provides two types of nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) platforms—the Virginia class and “AUKUS class”—to replace Australia’s aging Collins class of conventionally powered submarines. While it is a crude measure, more vessels with long-range capabilities, amplified by the advanced weapons capacity and kinetic effects that they can deliver at greater range, more effectively may deter an adversary in the event that it contemplates aggression.

Map: AUKUS

AUKUS thus provides all three countries with a wider distributed force posture closer to likely areas of operations, vis-à-vis the PLAN in the Western Pacific. As shown in Map 1, nuclear-propelled submarines greatly complicate the PRC’s calculus. They can be sent north of Australia to stalking grounds surrounding the South and East China seas, which are critical to Chinese maritime communication lines across the Pacific and to the Middle East and East Africa. By making these routes more vulnerable to interdiction, AUKUS forces the PLAN into a more defensive posture, which may direct resources away from large warships and logistics vessels designed for expeditionary operations.

It does this through the 2-part pathway framework agreed upon in March 2023. The first part of the pathway consists of increased port visits by US and UK SSNs from 2023, which adds to the ability of INDOPACOM and the Royal Navy to regularly  position forces east of the Strait of Malacca and west of the International Date Line (IDL)—a helpful softening of the tyranny of distance confronting US and UK naval forces. The second part of the framework includes a rotational element in Australia under the Submarine Rotational Force West intended to begin by 2027. According to the Australian Department of Defence, this will be composed of “a rotational presence…of one UK and up to four US, nuclear-powered submarines” at Fleet Base West. This is likely to draw In Astute- and Virginia-class submarines. Again, this adds to a joint and combined campaign, allowing the three allies to synchronize joint capabilities through increased exercises and further cementing persistent forces in between the Strait of Malacca and the IDL.

Forms of deterrence provided by AUKUS

AUKUS, therefore, provides deterrence at multiple levels. The first two are forms of “indirect deterrence,” or factors which strengthen general deterrence at the state level.

1. AUKUS provides a signal of intent—through that of political alignment—potentially muddying the calculations of a potential aggressor. This is AUKUS as a minilateral grouping, and as architecture rather than as a defense industrial deal.
2. AUKUS provides indirect deterrence by adding to national strength by adding to the DIB of each member by providing opportunities for industrial cooperation and production. It releases national resources towards shipping industries that may have previously been in decline.

AUKUS has several effects in terms of direct deterrence, too. It is helpful to use the four-point “Seize the Initiative” INDOPACOM approach to divide them:

1. In its simplest and most direct form, AUKUS contributes to undersea deterrence by providing its members, notably Australia, with new advanced warfighting platforms (the SSNs and their systems).
2. That these are superior systems, with longer ranges provided by their nuclear propulsion, adds to their impact on potential adversaries’ logistics and planning. As submarines can hide underwater, they are an asymmetrical weapons system, designed to threaten sea lanes and surface shipping, both commercial and military.
3. Then there are the agreements made in March of this year, such as the two-part pathway that allows for a second direct form of undersea deterrence: that of providing those platforms in a distributed posture across the region. Whether through port visits or a more sustained presence through Submarine Rotational Force West, AUKUS brings more allied forces into the Western Pacific.
4. Then, finally, there is the deterrent effect produced by Submarine Rotational Force West itself: that of an integrated allied operational force that ideally will operate under a combined command structure.

Conclusion

As American, Australian, and British submariners train, exercise, and deploy, so will their operational capability and efficacy increase. They will become an integrated force capable of great strategic effect—deterrence—in the Indo-Pacific, a valuable asset for any war planner. The question as to whether these six forms of deterrence will deter Xi from ordering PLAN forces to lunge across the Taiwan Strait or from undertaking coercive activity across the First Island Chain is unclear. While they might not sufficient—given the time it takes for these systems and structures to come on line—these nascent capabilities will complicate PLAN planning and logistics. In the future, in any actual kinetic contingency, they will also provide a potent instrument to contain Chinese regional ambitions and military coercion.

The UK Integrated Review and Integrated Deterrence

With Brig. Rory Copinger-Symes, (Ret.) PacNet, 29 March, 2023

The much-awaited release of Britain’s updated Integrated Review (IR2023)—a “refresh” since the 2021 iteration (IR2021)—has many in the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific now trying to assess UK intent and capability in the region. The paper does go some way to addressing concerns that UK domestic politics would pull the ground from underneath “the Tilt” before it had even begun. The region is described as “Inextricably linked” with the security of the Euro-Atlantic, though this strategic logic is compelling, the operational follow-through bears some scrutiny.

So, what is the United Kingdom security posture in the Indo-Pacific and how can it meet the theatre-resourcing demands made by current geopolitical realities and current capacity?

First, there is a superior strategic logic to the idea of linkage between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific as part of a broader construct the “global commons and rules-based international order.” This framework promotes the idea that the two regions—and Russian and Chinese efforts to destabilize and dominate those regions—are part of a broader geopolitical struggle. The common thread of Russian and Chinese authoritarian systems also reaffirms this conceptualization as does their growing political and military alignment and intention “to remake [the order] in their image” (IR2023). This framework is likewise found in the 2022 US National Security Strategy and the 2022 Japanese National Security Strategy.

At slight variance to this compelling logic, is the debate about resourcing and operational concerns in Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Europe. In both the United States and United Kingdom, there are those experts who believe that London’s focus should be Europe and that attention towards the Indo-Pacific is a “distraction.” Some of these voices are even official, as for example, that of US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin stated in July 2021: “If, for example, we focus a bit more here [in Asia], are there areas that the United Kingdom can be more helpful in other parts of the world.” This view has been a constant refrain by Labour Shadow Defense Secretary John Healey, who stated, “Alliances with like-minded nations in the Indo-Pacific are important. We can contribute strongly with technology, capability, diplomacy, to the Indo-Pacific, but there needs to be a realism about military commitments into the Indo-Pacific. Our armed forces are ill-served by leaders who pretend that Britain can do everything, everywhere.”

In all fairness, the IR2021 or IR2023 both make clear that the United Kingdom’s prioritization will be of the Euro-Atlantic—the “region of primary and overriding importance to UK interests – where the build of…efforts would be focused through NATO.” Furthermore, Secretary of Defence Austin’s view does not preclude the sort of diplomatic, economic, technological, and security cooperation that the United Kingdom is already doing in the Indo-Pacific. Of note: the Indo-Pacific Strategy of 2021, calls for an “engaged Europe” as one of its strategic means, and states that the United States will “bring our Indo-Pacific and European partners in novel ways, including through the AUKUS partnership.”

At its heart, this is a disconnect between two different theatres and two different types of threat, posing different operational challenges. In Europe, the threat is largely about annexation of national territory by a revanchist Russia and the possibility of a land war in Ukraine that could spill over into NATO-member territory. Few believe that it is about the future architecture of Europe. In contrast, it is more about the regional maritime system and its importance to the global system in the Indo-Pacific. Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command in October 2021 made this clear when he visited the United Kingdom and called the Indo-Pacific the “defining security landscape of the 21^st Century.” Noting the centrality of the region’s maritime trade flow “every day, half of the entire world’s container cargo and 70% of ship-borne energy supply flows through this area. The most important message I can send…is how vital the Indo-Pacific is to the future prosperity and security of Europe and global cooperation.”

Is the United Kingdom therefore set to play a role in an integrated deterrence vis a vis China? The jury is still out, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, though the Tilt appears to have been achieved and now the region is to become a “permanent pillar” of UK foreign policy. With the exception of AUKUS and GCAP, which are new since IR2021, much of the Tilt has been achieved through diplomatic and technical/economic agreements rather than through defense or security means. There have been modest increases in the United Kingdom military presence in the region, such as the two naval patrol vessels, and arguably the AUKUS/GCAP agreements are the headline deliverables that will see decades of engagement in the region. IR2023 emphasizes the United Kingdom approach in the region to be via deepening relationships with allies and partners or soft power. The United Kingdom has widened its security and defense network across the Indo-Pacific over the past decade and appears to be trying to deepen this network now. Not much can be drawn from IR2023 until the Defence Command Paper is out—reportedly not due for release until June 2023.

If deterring China is the goal what should the United Kingdom be doing to help achieve this? The United Kingdom is not about to deploy vast numbers of troops, ships, or aircraft to the region especially whilst the war in Ukraine persists. But the United Kingdom could use its footprint across the Indo-Pacific to better support a coordinated deterrence plan with other allies or partners in the region.

France and the United Kingdom have already agreed a plan to coordinate carrier group deployments, which could be a signpost for the integrating effect the United Kingdom brings. With the AUKUS announcement there are likely to be more submarine deployments to the region including the establishment of a trilateral submarine task force. What is lacking for the region is any form of security architecture in which allies and partners can discuss issues and coordinate responses or contribute forces. Evidently this would not include China and by developing an integrated security structure it builds a better integrated deterrence effect where allies and partners are stronger together.

The United Kingdom could expand its experience of establishing maritime Combined Task Forces (CTF) that have been successful in the Arabian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and Malacca Straits^[1]. All these CTFs have included a mix of international partners and proved to be successful in deterring illicit activity, strengthening maritime security and reassuring region or international communities. London could establish something similar for the Indo-Pacific, or even several across the region, where partner nations can come together to police the increasingly crowded volatile seas and airspaces of the region? While the United Kingdom can help to establish this/these HQs in the region they would likely not be led by the United Kingdom, and they shouldn’t be. The United Kingdom could provide the backbone, providing a “socket” for the United Kingdom to “plug” into when UK forces were deployed in the region, but more importantly bring like-minded partners together to improve security across the region. The byproduct being a more coherent deterrent strategy toward the region.

^[1] In the Arabian Gulf is Combined Maritime Forces including CTF 150, 151 & 152. EUNAVFOR which used to be based out of the UK countering piracy in Somalia and the Indian Ocean. Based out of Singapore was the International Fusion Centre to counter piracy in the Malacca Straits.

Digital China: The Strategy and its Geopolitical Implications

With Dr. David Dorman, Issues & Insights, 22 February, 2023

Over the past few years, there has been growing concern inside the United States, Europe, and in the Indo-Pacific on the strategic direction behind China’s technology policies. Beginning with the debate over 5G and Huawei, this debate has covered Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum technology, and semi-conductors – a foundational technology. And despite a large number of policies in place – Made in China: 2025, Cyber Super Power, and the New Generation AI Development Plan – few in the West have known China’s overall digital grand strategy.

In the first installment of a three-part research project, Dr. Dorman and Dr. Hemmings lay out the rise of China’s overall digital grand strategy, Xi’s role in it, and how it has been organized to fulfil Party objectives.

The report tracks the rise of the strategy over the past 10 years, the acceleration of that rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the current state of the strategy. In particular, it finds

• Digital China has been supported and designed by General Secretary Xi Jinping himself, and is a bid to make China more competitive vis a vis the West through the digital transformation of rules, institutions, and infrastructure at the national level.
• Over the past few years, the strategy has risen to become the “overall” strategy for digital development in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, bigger than the Digital Silk Road, deeper than the Belt and Road Initiative, more far reaching than 5G or AI, more important than Made in China: 2025, and wider than Cyber Great Power.
• A renewed Digital China seeks to challenge a hegemonic global system anchored to a previous age. A successful Digital China has profound implications for China’s developmental path, great power competition, and for the norms that will undergird the international system for decades to come.
• The Party leadership has re-written Marxist economic theory in its bid to incorporate “data” as the basis of its digital economy and in order to foster a Chinese “Digital Marxism”.
• Digital China seeks to whet the “sharp weapon” of innovation to facilitate its great power rise and challenge to the West. Beijing is testing whether innovative thinking can be created through the digital transformation of tools, talent, and learning.

The US and its allies have begun to effect strategic counter-effect to the myriad of PRC technology policies, there is almost zero understanding or public discussion of this digital grand strategy. Whether inattention, mistranslation, or obfuscation, Digital China has been mostly missed by the West over the past decade.

Read the report here.

How Might Japan Join the Five Eyes?

CSIS Commentary, 6 January, 2023

The release of a new Japanese National Security Strategy last month (the first since 2013) has been described by observers as “drastic,” likely to “shatter policy norms” in place since World War II. This, combined with discussions in Japan’s media on raising defense spending to 2 percent of GDP, reveal a bilateral consensus that the alliance needs to be improved in the area of command-and-control to provide deterrence in a rapidly declining security environment, vis à vis China. There are increasing calls from inside both governments—and outside government—for the United States and Japan to increase intelligence sharing since war planning requires a much higher level of information sharing between militaries. As a result of this, a separate but related question is being asked as to whether Japan should be included in the preeminent intelligence-sharing group, the Five Eyes.

While the intelligence network—composed of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—has its origins tracing back to World War II, the rise of an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific provides a growing rationale for Tokyo’s accession to the group. After all, the Five Eyes began due to an increasing need to share intelligence at a much higher level for more effective war planning. Prominent figures on both sides of the Pacific have advocated for Japan’s inclusion as security in the region has deteriorated. Former Japanese defense minister Taro Kono made the case in 2020, with a group of prominent U.S. experts adding their voice in a prominent 2020 CSIS study. Japan has deepened strong intelligence-sharing relationships with different members of the Five Eyes—most recently with Canada—there are still no signs that it will be invited into broader group arrangements. In many ways, there are complexities in the broader remit of the group beyond those of intelligence sharing that should be addressed prior to any accession.

First, Japanese policy elites should understand that the original Five Eyes framework has long since evolved beyond the original remit of signals intelligence sharing to encompass a range of formal and informal information sharing arrangements and policy alignment meetings. The range of activities that fall under the rubric of Five Eyes is so wide-ranging and decentralized, that as a practical matter, it is questionable as to whether Japan would want to join. For example, there are hundreds of existing agreements and working groups outside of the intelligence spheres, such as in the defense and diplomacy spheres, where equipment interoperability, military information sharing, and foreign ministry dialogues occur. Indeed, Japan has been added to some of these on an ad hoc basis.

There are many activities that take place in the domestic security sector, such as the Quintet group of Attorneys General and the Five Country Ministerial (FCM) that look at border security, law enforcement, cybersecurity, and immigration. A 2021 study found that security practitioners and experts from across the five are predicting even newer forms cooperation outside of the intelligence community due to the growing non-kinetic challenges posed by China and Russia. Much of this cooperation would address nontraditional security sectors, such as cyber, supply chain, and information operations. A number of experts interviewed for the study advocated that the five strengthen their technological research and development and industrial integration through the National Technology Industrial Base to counter China’s scale advantage. While the five nations are not the only grouping for such cooperation—the Quad, AUKUS, G7, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) also play a role—the grouping’s historic intimacy and comfort working in sensitive information-sharing spaces lends itself well to dual-use technological co-development. Thus, when thinking of joining the Five Eyes, Japan should consider to what extent it wishes to integrate with the other five across these non-intelligence community areas.

Secondly, when it comes to accessing the Five Eyes intelligence community, Japanese elites deserve a clear understanding of what is required of them before they can access this inner of inner rings. It is not simply a case of regular exchanges between intelligence agencies, but rather a level of institutionalized information sharing that occurs across multiple agencies and departments. As with those nations that wished to join NATO, there is a clear pathway to adopting “five eye standards” that would greatly facilitate the political decision of membership or at least an equivalent level of intelligence sharing and cooperation. Broadly speaking, these five eye standards exist in three broad “baskets.” The first of these is the clearance and vetting system that all five have developed to better enable who can access classified information, including the most sensitive information. If Japan wishes to join the Five Eyes intelligence community, it should understand the standards that all Five Eyes partners meet and develop a department that runs a universal process of vetting government personnel with access to information that is classified by common standards and procedures. Such vetting affords personnel different levels of clearance, which in turn affords the level of access to classified information. In addition to being applied to civil servants across the government, members of the military, and select members of industry, such vetting and clearance should be applied to those Diet members involved in parliamentary oversight of the intelligence apparatus.

The second basket is that of classification itself. Probably the bedrock for intelligence sharing, classification allows information to be put into a hierarchy according to secrecy. When paired with the clearance system, classification allows for safe information sharing across bureaucracies. Japan should adopt a classification ranking system that approximates the one used by the five nations. Again, this should be applied across all Japanese departments and agencies since different classification systems within different bureaucracies hinder information sharing. The third basket is that of information-sharing standard operating procedures, in which data is shared according to certain processes. In order to join the SECRET and TOP SECRET networks operated by the Five Eyes, Japan would have to put in place certain safeguards with regard to cybersecurity and user security. Again, this would require that users are vetted and adhere to the common cybersecurity practices applied by the other five.

In terms of joining the Five Eyes, Japanese elites should think of where they want to go and understand to what extent the Five Eyes will help them get there. If their intent is to develop closer intelligence with the United States so as to deter Chinese military adventurism in the Indo-Pacific region, joining the group need not necessarily be the end goal. Closer and deeper institutionalization between U.S. intelligence and Japanese intelligence actors can be done on a separate track from those relationships with UK, Australian, and Canadian intelligence agencies. On the other hand, if Japan wishes to align more deeply with the Five Eyes for a broader strategic relationship—one that will be measured in decades—then joining various parts of the group, including the intelligence community part, is desirable. The strongest reasons for Japan’s accession to the Five Eyes is not its alignment over China but its long-term alignment with the United States dating back seven decades and a desire to integrate more deeply with the broader strategic community to which the United States belongs. As mentioned, the five collaborate across many different fields at a level that is astonishing to outsides, but nearly taken for granted within the five. Japan would have to learn to be comfortable with that.

If Japanese policymakers decide that they wish to continue this integration at the intelligence-sharing level—and deepen it—then political will is required to make the necessary changes across Japan’s bureaucracy. These include creating the machinery for vetting and clearance, classification, and information-sharing procedures and then applying those across government, industry, and the Diet. Broadly speaking, Japan needs to initiate internal changes and adopt similar cyber hygiene standards to those applied across the Five Eyes nations. This doesn’t mean Japan needs to build exact replicas, but rather Japan-specific approximations. A historical parallel is the long process by which Eastern European states implemented structural reforms of their militaries and security sectors in their desire to accede to NATO. Given the rise of global instability and the diffusion of attack vectors into Western societies, Japan stands to gain by its accession to the Five Eyes—and the group would certainly gain by the inclusion of the world’s third-largest economy and third-largest military force in the Indo-Pacific region. It would also gain by Japan’s historic intelligence gathering on North Korea and China, while Japan would widen its understanding of other regions. What is required now is for the Five Eyes to quietly lay out that roadmap for accession so that Japanese officials understand what is required.