The White Paper carefully walks back from two specific flaws evident in the 2009 document—statements about Indonesia and the ANZUS alliance. In 2009, one message was that Australian security required our neighbours straddling our northern approaches to be militarily weak. The 2013 White Paper makes no such claim: indeed in paras 2.32 and 3.17, as well as in the international engagement chapter (Chapter 6), the broader theme is one of partnership and cooperation with a growing Indonesia in pursuit of shared interests.

The second flaw in the 2009 White Paper was the unnecessary qualification of the obligations of the ANZUS alliance, whereby Australia stated that it would only seek assistance from the United States if it were attacked by a major power. Para 3.36 in the latest document reasserts Australia’s expectation of assistance in the event of any attack, while still espousing the broad merits of defence self-reliance.

It reads to me like the ANZUS alliance has just become one more form of international engagement, covered in Chapter 6 alongside a slew of other relationships. But, whatever the intentions of the document’s authors, it’s impossible to avoid sending messages about the implicit priority of specific relationships in the hierarchical ordering in which that chapter unfolds: the US comes first, followed by Southeast Asia, North Asia (in the order of Japan, China and South Korea), New Zealand, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada and Latin America, and Europe and NATO. The UN comes last, a little oddly, since back in the ‘rules-based global order’ section of Chapter 3, the UN features much more prominently than most others do.

Personally, I give a big tick to a new Australian engagement effort in Asia, so I’m not opposed to the new priority being given to Southeast Asia—a point that comes through repeatedly in this document. I’m also a supporter of the idea that we should be using the ANZUS alliance as an enabler in our Asian engagement effort, a theme that comes across in para 6.11. But I have to say I thought the US position, both as ally and order-shaper, was slightly underdone in this document. The alliance is our single most important strategic relationship, and likely to be more substantial in the 21st century than it was in the 20th.

Other observations to follow, as I read more deeply…

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at ASPI.

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A second theory sees the recent events as externally rather than internally oriented—as a play for a rejuvenated North Korean strategic position in North Asia. To test that theory we need to look at North Korea’s key strategic assets. At the moment, weapons of mass destruction are not really the North’s strong suit. Even now the nuclear device mightn’t be in an easily transportable form. It might be something they could put on a ship, perhaps, and sail into a foreign port before detonating, but not something deliverable by missile. And while Kim Jong Un will be chuffed by the recent success of his long range missile test and his third nuclear test, he must know that two swallows don’t make a summer. Rather, the North’s strategic strength lies in three interwoven assets—its artillery poised just above the DMZ which can target Seoul, its status as a nascent nuclear state, and its reputation for high risk tolerance. Media reports that Kim Jong Un has ordered a boost in artillery production suggest that Pyongyang is devoting efforts and resources to all three areas, and that points to some kind of grand strategic play by the new young leader.

What would be the objective of that play? I don’t find plausible the argument that Kim Jong Un is doing all this just so North Korea can trade away its nuclear program for economic assistance. If it really wanted that sort of agreement, it’s had numerous opportunities to get it over the last twenty years. Nor do I accept that the North has wanted to come to an agreement capping and reducing its nuclear program and that others have been stopping it from doing so. Rather, Pyongyang wants an outcome that enhances its status and marginalises its rivals. To that end, Pyongyang clearly does want (amongst other things) direct bilateral negotiations with Washington—because that would show the US treats North Korea as its equal, thus legitimising the new leadership while marginalising US allies South Korea and Japan. Those who want Washington to send fewer B-2 and B-52 flights over South Korea and more diplomats to the North to talk directly to the regime are giving Kim a position that he can leverage in Pyongyang’s favour.

Unfortunately, we don’t know which (if either) of these theories is correct. And, worryingly, neither theory suggests that we’ve reached an end-point to tensions on the peninsula. If the new leadership is encountering difficulty in establishing its writ in Pyongyang, some bizarre twists might lie before us. And if Kim Jong Un really is engaged on a grand strategic gambit, he might well have further cards still to play.

What can Australia do to help? We can talk to Washington and Seoul, taking care to reassure South Korea that we are their friend and partner and that we will help where we can as the crisis unfolds. Our encouragement of China into the role of crisis manager is laudable, but it’s not clear that’s a role Beijing wants to play. The strongest motivation for Beijing to accept it isn’t exhortation from Canberra but concern about a much stronger US position in South Korea.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user Joseph A Ferris III.

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That has helped to keep its stockpile of moderately-enriched uranium significantly under the figure of 250kg—a threshold that seems to trigger Israeli anxieties. Indeed, at current production rates, it has probably bought itself six to nine months, and there’s scope to repeat this gambit if necessary in the future. It does mean that Iran is building some really expensive fuel plates, but Tehran might find that an acceptable path by which to preserve ambiguity about its long-term intentions.

Despite claims made by the Iranian media, the latest IAEA report does not proclaim the peaceful nature of the Iranian program. Anyone willing to read the summary of the report—which is not, I might add, helpfully placed at the front of the document, but rather at the back (paragraphs 62 to 68)—will find that the IAEA specifically states that it’s ‘unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and [can't therefore conclude] that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities’.

Meanwhile, Obama is trying to signal to Israel that Washington hasn’t taken its eye off the ball in the Middle East, despite the many competing issues clamouring for attention. Some are suggesting that Obama’s latest comments are an interesting wrinkle on the formal US intelligence position—that Tehran hasn’t yet taken the political decision to move to a nuclear weapon. But the more important message is the one aimed at the Israelis—a reaffirmation of Obama’s previous position that the US could not deter and contain a nuclear-armed Iran. That’s a point that really does highlight that Iran is a much more important test case of US counterproliferation policy than is North Korea.

Australia, because of its location, is currently fixated on the North Korean problem—and for perfectly valid reasons. Kim Jong-un looks intemperate on occasions and the latest successes with a long-range missile launch and nuclear test have lent weight to his recent threats. Moreover, South Korea and Japan are deeply concerned about North Korea, especially at a time when some believe that the US is wearied by a decade of conflict and not prepared for stand-offs in Asia. It’s possible to read the US’s latest interest in ballistic missile defence for its west coast as part of a new wave of US domestic prioritisation in defence matters. But it would still pay us to keep a wary eye on the Iranian nuclear issue—if containing and deterring Iran really isn’t an option, some difficult times lie ahead.

Rod Lyon is a fellow at the ASPI. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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Third, President Obama is now acutely aware that regional sensitivities about the future US role are high. A perception that the US was walking backwards in Asia would light a Bunsen-burner under a volatile mix of nationalism and anxiety amongst allies and partners. Especially in the wake of North Korea’s third nuclear test and Chinese assertiveness of territorial claims, a restatement of the notion that US allies should be primarily responsible for their own defence could be horribly destabilising. Asian countries look out upon 20 years of looming regional transformation. They are all prepared to weight up as needed the better to ensure their own security during that period. But another Guam doctrine moment in Asian security would be alarming to the region’s technologically-savvy US allies.

So, while the US economy is pulling its strategic policy in one direction, the tempo of strategic change in Asia is pulling it in another. I’m betting strategy trumps economics.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user cicatrix.

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Beyond our neighbourhood, the 2009 White Paper also argues that Australia has an ‘enduring strategic interest’ in the stability of the whole Asia Pacific—from North Asia to the Indian Ocean. Lastly, the 2009 White Paper identified a strategic interest in an international order that restrains aggression and manages threats. The chapter in the 2000 White Paper is similar, though not identical, in its concentric circle/ ‘layering’ of our strategic interests.

The problem with limiting strategic interests to instances where we might consider the use of force is that it makes us think that Australia’s strategic interests are its defence interests. You might think that we’ve always thought about strategic interests principally in defence terms: but that’s not the case. The 1968 Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy (PDF), for example, offers some crucial advice on considering the multiple elements of strategy (not just military)—advice that the authors of the 2013 White Paper would do well to heed. The 1976 Defence White Paper included a similar thought: ‘Insofar as we can directly influence developments shaping our strategic prospects, this will often be by the political rather than the military arm of policy.’ But if that’s true, what’s the point of defining our strategic interests merely in relation to the military arm of policy?

Worst of all, our current approach, in both the NSS and Defence White Papers, contains nothing that might be considered as proactive ambition. The overall effect is to portray Australia’s national strategic interests as narrow and reactive, when it would be better if they were broad and proactive. National strategic interests are not something that Australian policymakers should think about only in the narrow, defence-oriented manner that has been adopted in recent years.

We might avoid the trap that strategic interests and strategic objectives are all about the use of force in either of two ways. The first would be to broaden our understanding of the ‘use’ of force, so that it includes broad, shaping activity as well as direct conflict. Our defence capabilities are only one of our instruments for pursuing grand strategy, and in an era of regional transformation that is neither driven by force nor stoppable by force, we’re probably back in those scenarios where the political arm of policy will be carrying more weight than the military arm.

The second, and better, way of escaping the trap is simply to say upfront that strategy is about how we pursue the world we want, and not just about the use of force. That means thinking about strategic interests in a more proactive, aspirational way.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow and Hayley Channer is an analyst at ASPI. This article is excerpted from an ASPI Policy Analysis released today and available here. Image courtesy of Department of Defence.

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That decision—in favour of exclusivity—proved important. The defence relationship between US and Australia is now one of the closest in the world. And it is similar to the other US security relationships in Asia, which tend to be similarly bilateral and exclusive. But the text of the Article raises an interesting question: is it now time for ANZUS to grow a regional consultative arrangement alongside its bilateral defence cooperation one? If exclusivity was, as Casey said, the ‘first task’, when might we appropriately begin work on the second? Is it now time for us to revisit Article 8 and explore opportunities for consultations between the alliance members and others?

I ask those questions in a genuine spirit of academic enquiry. I don’t know the answer. I’m one of those people who have typically seen the US leg of our strategic policy as separate from the Asian engagement leg. But I’m starting to wonder whether we should be trying to get more out of ANZUS than a hedging strategy—and, in particular, whether we can use the alliance more in an order-building role in Asia. Notwithstanding the wording of the 1952 report, I find it hard to believe we’ve kept it under ‘continuous review’.

In 1952, the key Australian concern was that the treaty not undercut the country’s warm relationship with the United Kingdom and other members of the British Commonwealth. It was felt the US would want to keep its other Asian allies (Japan and the Philippines) closely appraised of ANZUS Council business. And all three ANZUS partners had an interest in working closely with countries like France, which was directly involved in regional issues. I think in 2013, we might want to use the alliance as a vehicle for greater Asian engagement, but the key question remains: should we be trying to use ANZUS more broadly as an instrument of regional engagement?

I’m not suggesting that we should attempt to transform ANZUS into an Asian NATO. And obviously we don’t want to throw away the close relationship with the US. If we choose to reach out more to Asian partners under the ANZUS framework, we’d have to decide to who and how. It might be an idea to start with just one, and Indonesia is a strong candidate. We could, for example, brief Indonesia more fully on the AUSMIN meetings, invite it to a discussion on key regional issues with the ANZUS members or invite it to be an observer at AUSMIN.

It wouldn’t be precedent-making for ANZUS to develop a set of partnership arrangements with regional states. That’s exactly what NATO has been doing in Europe—although NATO always was a broad, multilateral alliance. But why shouldn’t ANZUS open up a ‘partnership’ program at the regional level? It might be, of course, that we decide that there’s now no need—that the regional system of security consultations is already well-developed in a way that it wasn’t in 1952, and that anything ANZUS might do would hurt rather than help. I certainly don’t see ANZUS partnership arrangements as an attempt to replace the ASEAN-centred efforts at regional consultation. Still, Europe is one of the most densely institutionalised theatres on the face of the globe, and that hasn’t devalued NATO’s efforts.

It might be, of course, that Indonesia doesn’t want a partnership arrangement with ANZUS. But I don’t see that it hurts to ask, and not just Indonesia but others as well. We might debate who those ‘others’ will be, but that’s a separate question to the big one of whether we want the alliance to be a vehicle for regional order-building. Article 8 was marginalised at ANZUS’s birth; it’s time we thought about it having its time in the sun.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Image courtesy of Flickr user QnD2011.

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Here, there are relatively few major studies, and I'll discuss only two of them. An American academic, Alan Ned Sabrosky, back in the 1980s, put a sizeable dent in the reputation of alliances when he concluded that a study of allies’ behaviour over a 150-year period showed that they fought alongside each other in wars only 27% of the time. On 61% of occasions, allies sat by while their partner was fighting. Worse, on 12% of occasions they fought on the other side.

Those unsettling conclusions—enough to make any country doubt the value of its alliance—have, in more recent years, been revisited by other researchers. Brett Ashley Leeds and two of her colleagues at Florida State University revisited the Sabrosky data-set in 2000, and argued that his test for ‘alliance reliability’ left much to be desired. Sabrosky had tested only whether one ally fought alongside another in any conflict, not whether it did so in the circumstances in which it had a specific alliance commitment to do so. Moreover, Sabrosky had counted as ‘alliances’ agreements that might more properly be described as ‘ententes’ (agreements merely to consult) or non-aggression pacts. Leeds recoded the data to reflect the specific obligations laid down in alliance commitments.

The results were substantially different. Alliance ‘reliability’, redefined as the honouring of specific agreements, rose from 27% to 74.5%—or, near enough, from one quarter to three quarters of cases. Leeds’ research lies at the basis of an important truth in alliances: specifics matter. Alliance reliability increases when we take the specific commitments made by nations into account. Most alliances are not general purpose pledges to fight alongside another country in all circumstances, and shouldn't be judged as such.

Now, what does all that mean for ANZUS? Well, if we genuinely believe that ANZUS might well be a more substantive alliance in the 21st century than it was in the 20th, then we might want to go back and re-read the specifics of the agreement. Further we might want to discuss with Washington how we both interpret the specifics. We can read Sabrosky’s research as a sign of just how weak international commitments are if they are regarded as general-purpose undertakings. But we can take Leeds’s research as an affirmation of just how strong international commitments are in relation to specific undertakings. They certainly aren't absolute guarantees—but they seem to work three quarters of the time. I suppose there’s a caveat needed somewhere here similar to the sort used by fund managers selling their products: that past performance should not be taken as an assurance of future outcomes. Still, we should draw comfort from the broader pattern.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Image courtesy of Flickr user kohane.

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The notion that the joint facilities have deprived Australian governments of choices for decades, as Cam asserts, would probably come as a surprise to a whole range of Australian governments elected over the years. This notion of automaticity of decision-making, paralleled by the claims of hard-wiring in decisions about use of force, overstates the case. Cam argues, for example, that Australia would have no choice but to follow the US into a war over Taiwan—because of technical reasons more than alliance ones. That’s not true. ANZUS itself isn’t clear about what role we might have in a conflict over Taiwan. But there’s certainly nothing that technically ‘hardwires’ us into going to war just because the US chooses to do so.

The joint facilities are governed by a set of arrangements that both governments have devised over the years. As Defence Minister Smith observed in a speech in Fremantle last November, ‘All activities at Pine Gap are managed to ensure they are consistent with Australian interests. The activities take place with the full knowledge and concurrence of the Australian government.’ So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume those arrangements anticipate the facilities’ possible involvement in future conflict. Australia wouldn’t be attempting to play catch-up once a war had already broken out—or at least we wouldn’t be trying to catch up on the core understandings of when and how the facilities might be involved. Could Pine Gap be a target during any conflict involving the US? Perhaps. But it isn’t an easy target to hit. And it’s merely one of a string of important US facilities across the region. Moreover, some of its functions could be transferred to other US facilities around the world, so weakening an attacker’s incentive to target it anyway.

Finally, it’s wrong to devalue new steps within the alliance on the flawed belief that the joint facilities are already the be-all and end-all of the Australia–US strategic relationship. The new steps reposition the alliance for an Asia in which strategic weight is gradually but steadily shifting south-west from its traditional northeast Asian centre of gravity. Indeed, once we move away from the idea of technical automaticity at the heart of our strategic relationship with Washington, the more important the willingness of both parties to explore new forms of cooperation becomes. The bilateral relationship is one where choices matter very much. The reality is the exact opposite of the one Cam portrays.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

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Of course the world needs to be concerned by the struggle going on within Islam. And of course we should be encouraging the positive forces unleashed by the Arab Spring. Yes, we need to find a solution to Iran’s nuclear program. And yes, most assuredly yes, Australia has a direct interest in any plan that promises to regrow US global leadership. But Romney needs to get abreast of the transformational changes sweeping across Asia.

And, in any case, his speech is unconvincing on exactly how he’ll regrow US leadership. Obama believed—perhaps still does—that regrowing the US middle class was the key to restoring America’s position in the world. But he’s found out that regrowing a middle class is much easier said than done. There are other issues they agree on, and Romney might well share with Obama a belief that the US economy lies at the bottom of current US weakness. He certainly speaks of rebuilding the economy as an integral part of his approach to foreign policy, though his speech is skimpy on details.

On one specific point—his proposal to rebuild US naval capacity by committing to the construction of 15 ships and submarines per year—Romney is singing a song much loved by Australian strategists. Still, it’s not just naval capacity that the US needs in the Indo-Pacific; it needs a new strategy. Romney has a go at Obama in his speech saying that drones (hardware) have become the substitute for a national security strategy in the Middle East (software). Unless, he can come up with a new US strategy here in Asia—a strategy that repositions the US as the regional strategic centre of gravity moves a little further each year southwest—there’s a danger of repeating that failing in a much more important region.

Any president faces a learning curve on entering the Oval Office—Obama certainly did. Romney, who could still win this election despite what the polls are saying, needs quickly to get on top of his Asia brief. It’s a delicate time in Asia. A few mixed messages out of Washington could have unfortunate effects in the region.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Image courtesy of Flickr user davelawrence8.

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Still, the 2013 White Paper should state directly both our support for the doctrine of extended nuclear deterrence and assurance, and acknowledge the future challenges that the doctrine faces. It should also say something like, ‘As long as US extended nuclear assurance remains credible, Australia feels under no pressure to be self-reliant in nuclear capacities even allowing for the tempo of change across the broader Indo-Asian-Pacific region.’ That would be both a contribution to regional reassurance, and a statement about the focal point of Australian concern. The value of the doctrine rests heavily upon the credibility of the US nuclear assurance, a factor that the 2009 Defence White Paper ignores completely.

Since credibility is the critical factor, both Canberra and Washington have an interest in doing what they can to enhance the existing arrangements. If anything, the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella has waned since the end of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons have become more marginalised in US strategic policy. The US strategic mainstream has fractured badly on the whole issue of the strategic utility of nuclear weapons, with the op-eds of the ‘Four Horsemen’ (Kissinger, Schultz, Nunn and Perry) symbolic of that disarray. US political leaders show only flickering interest in the arsenal, except when they are talking of prospective nuclear reductions or disarmament. And the theatre- and tactical-range elements of the arsenal have contracted substantially since Cold War days. It’s no surprise then that US strategists talk increasingly about ‘extended deterrence’ rather than ‘extended nuclear deterrence’, a subtle rephrasing of both Washington’s own obligations and, they hope, allies’ expectations.

Moreover, the United States faces a re-ordering challenge in relation to its nuclear umbrella in Asia. The doctrine of extended nuclear deterrence and assurance was really built to support Western European allies against a coercive Soviet Union. Washington and its allies need, jointly and perhaps collectively, to think about the path forward for extended nuclear assurance in Asia—a region very different from Europe during the Cold War. Within Asia, the most pressing demands on US extended nuclear assurance come from Japan and South Korea. Historically, Australia’s own involvement with nuclear assurance has been both more remote and more abstract. But the strategic centre of gravity in Asia is moving south and west—away from its traditional Northeast Asian focus and into areas closer to our own continent.

Moreover, it would be specious to pretend that we are indifferent as to how the challenges to US extended nuclear assurance arrangements are solved in Northeast Asia. Japan and South Korea are, along with us, the closest US allies in Asia. Frankly, if the existing assurance arrangements break in relation to those countries, Australia’s own continued reliance upon the doctrine would probably be short-lived. Serious questions would then come onto Australia’s own strategic agenda. Those are deep matters: if they aren’t already part of on-going discussions between the United States and Australia, they deserve to be.

Rod Lyon is a non-residential Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Image courtesy of Flickr user ♥ Unlimited.

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One possibility could be that South Korea and Japan would push the United States to agree to a new set of extended deterrence arrangements in Northeast Asia. Those arrangements might call for new, highly capable conventional-force deployments in the region. But they might also call for small numbers of theatre or tactical US nuclear weapons in—or close to—South Korea and Japan. Worse, there’s a small but real chance that pressures would increase within South Korea and Japan for indigenous counterbalances to the North Korean nuclear program, and that would be especially concerning both for the regional order and for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

A third test during the next few months would come at a difficult time for key players. The United States and South Korea are set to hold presidential elections in November and December this year, respectively; China is in the process of a once in a decade political transition; and there is continuing political uncertainty in Japan. The United States is also struggling with the residual impacts of the Global Financial Crisis, scheduled cuts to its defence spending, and a substantial budget deficit. Furthermore, after long and costly military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus current worries about Iran and Syria, the United States might be hesitant about redesigning a new set of nuclear assurance arrangements for Asia.

Australia can do little to shape North Korean calculations about testing. But Australian policymakers should be discussing with their American, South Korean and Japanese counterparts what a successful third test might mean for regional security so that all parties are better prepared for the challenges that await us. Japan and South Korea and Australia are the top three US allies in Asia. We have a keen interest in being part of any discussions that might reshape US alliance commitments in the region.

Hayley Channer is an analyst and Rod Lyon is senior analyst for international strategy at ASPI.

A longer version of this argument that more fully explores the consequences for Northeast Asian security if North Korea conducted a successful third nuclear test is available here.

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