Decoding AUKUS: Splits, Shifts and Strategic Concerns
Posted on : November 1, 2021Author : Ratnadeep Maitra
As the Afghan imbroglio fades out of popular imagination, one is reminded of a fitting aphorism – genuine political expediency can be located at a middle ground between state rationality and bureaucratic imperatives, albeit in a nebulous shape. In fact, the larger logic guiding a pattern of actions, offers insight on the nature of the acrimonious rivalry within the international order, best exemplified through the British stratagem towards Imperial Germany, in the run up to the Great War. It is in this light, one may ascertain the new trilateral security arrangement of AUKUS, reflective of the growing disquiet amongst the Western bloc to a Chinese resurgence, with concomitant threats to an unquestioned American hegemony in a liberal world order.
As a politico-militaristic retort to a hawkish approach adopted by Xi Jinping, the collaboration would entail the construction of nuclear-powered submarines by Canberra assisted by Washington and London, providing the Royal Australian Navy with great naval heft in South China Sea and the Indian Ocean Region, where China has been particularly belligerent. Beyond its immediate security-centric premise, the pact is indeed futuristic, with its focus on cyber capacities, components of artificial intelligence and quantum technology, amounting to a monumental shift in geopolitics, akin to the Ping Pong Diplomacy or the Fall of the Wall.
However, it is not all hunky-dory, with critical voices perceiving the pact with a sense of skepticism. While pundits from the strategic community have construed AUKUS to be “unwarrantedly exclusionary” at a time, when inclusivity is a collective pursuit in the Indo-Pacific, Indonesia – an important neighbour of Australia – has explicitly articulated its angst over a potential arms race emanating from such a partnership. Notwithstanding the underpinnings of AUKUS, the emaciated nature of Canberra’s nuclear capabilities, is seen as the logic behind an excessive dependence on Washington and London in the time to come, with no less than the former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating insinuating a gradual erosion of their state sovereignty, as final repurcussion. Needless to say, China has been vehemently censorious of the collaboration, with their spokesperson Zhao Lijian lambasting such an anachronistic zero-sum mentality, premised on ideological prejudices, inimical to the aspirations of the populace. Beijing believes that the American designs are not only directed at containing the former, but also at reversing their gains, reminiscent of the “roll-back policy” devised by Washington to outsmart the Soviets in the Cold War paradigm.
While the American diplomatic choice reeks of “Pactomania” – a tried and tested practice of signing numerous treaties as NATO, ANZUS, SEATO or the Baghdad Pact for greater maneuverability, it may prove to be an exemplary masterstroke, for Biden seems to have placated the White supremacists, anti-China warmongers and wannabe imperialists in London, all at once. More important, having lost significant credence among the American Military-Industrial Complex, in the wake of an embarrassing retreat from Kabul, this pact might reposition him as an adept decision-maker.
Needless to say, the Australian reasoning behind AUKUS is premised on the prospect for a strategically rigorous technology, compared to their French counterpart, but is instructive to posit the sloth-paced progress in the institutionalization of 12 attack-class submarines by Paris, aided by the Naval Group of France, as a burgeoning element in the development. As a logical outcome, the French feel largely alienated by the Anglophones in general, and Biden in particular. French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian has attributed the virtual scrapping of their billion-dollar deal with Canberra, as a “stab in the back” – an ugly manifestation of duplicity and mistrust.
While in an unprecedented move, Macron has promptly recalled his ambassadors from Canberra and Washington, the reasons guiding such an avowed disillusionment are hard to miss. From the stand point of Paris, the operationalization of the rejected submarine deal, would have mutually buttressed the might and reach of the defense capacities – a watershed moment in forging a stable and multi-polar Indo-Pacific. Over and above, it would have facilitated an effective penetration of the French interests in the Indo-Pacific market, building on the extant agreement with India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
At this critical juncture, the Americans are cognizant of the need for a brisk damage control mechanism, to offset the antagonisms accosted by their most trusted ally in Europe, and the arrangement of a high-profile meeting between the premiers of the two nations, may be construed as the first of many steps in that regard. But despite such outreaches, the fissures in their ties, continue unabated. AUKUS has conclusively scaled up the element of strategic autonomy, as an integral derivative of the European security calculus, especially following the contentious Brexit.
Thus, the fault lines around the Western strategic sensibilities are out in the open, with the Anglo-Saxon maritime sphere advocating assertive expeditions to check Beijing, while the Euro-Atlantic continental sphere invested in Moscow. The overt contradictions within the transatlantic domain, if not arrested, will surely work to the benefit of their adversaries.
Closer home, India has been visibly caught off guard, with the announcement, given its contemporary obsession with Quad and Indo-Pacific in its foreign policy discourse. Despite its self-projection as the US “pivot to Asia”, it has been incessantly striving to falsify the proposition of being a weakling in the Quad. In this light, AUKUS seems to have vindicated the age-old adage that “blood is thicker than water” for the imagery of New Delhi, as a poor and distant cousin of Washington will now be even more daunting to cast off. As a more nuanced ramification, the adoption of high-end nuclear arsenal by the Australian Navy may jolt New Delhi’s position as the top regional sea power, unless an elaborate naval modernization action-plan is laid out by the latter.
As for Quad, the grouping has ventured into non-military facets of semi-conductor technology and vaccine supply chains, perhaps to find a new lease of life and purpose, significantly losing its potential as a vibrant regional security mechanism. For India to actualize any gains from the development, it will need to shoot up its economy to an impressive trajectory, for a more technocratic vision coupled with military might. While addressing its own struggles, it must resort to external balancing, with a willingness to strike fresh partnerships, ignoring ossified maxims, if realpolitik so demands.
In closing, one must aver that while the AUKUS with its emphasis on futuristic components, may revolutionize the conventional modes of warfare, it might equally fracture the West and incapacitate the Quad in the process. Although its raison d’etre is to isolate a bellicose Beijing, a rigid fixation on maritime dominance will be inadequate to countervail the implications of the alternative trade routes devised by China, linking Asia and Africa with Europe through land bridges. Hence, as rubber hits the road, a seamless solution to such a two-front challenge needs to be conceptualized, in a bid to tame the dragon.
Ratnadeep Maitra
Intern, Asia in Global Affairs
References
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(https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/aukus-agreement-to-equip-australia-with-nuclear-submarines-7513013/)
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(https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/aukus-alliance-new-partnerships-realpolitik-7523384/)
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(https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/574216-aukus-security-pact-time-is-not-on-our-side)
- Moreschi, Andrea (2021). “AUKUS, strategic autonomy, and the future of the Indo-Pacific: A French perspective.” In Observer Research Foundation. 4th October, 2021.
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- “The strategic reverberations of the AUKUS deal will be big and lasting.” (2021). In Economist. 16th September, 2021.
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- Keating, Paul (2021). “This pact ties Australia to any US military engagement against China”. In The Sydney Morning Herald. 16th September, 2021.
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