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New Australia-U.S. push deals India in to Pacific
THIS week's 60th anniversary Ausmin meeting in San Francisco deserves the overworked adjective historic. It marks a pivot point in which the US and Australia begin to redefine their region not as the Asia-Pacific, but as the Indo-Pacific.
The annual meeting of foreign and defence ministers from Australia and the US - respectively Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith, Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta - took the US-Australia alliance into new territory; into cyberspace and into the Indian Ocean.
The meeting, like the contemporary alliance, was dominated by three technologies and three outside nations. The technologies are cyber warfare, missiles and nuclear weapons. The external nations are China, India and North Korea.
The addition of cyber war was the most important change in the scope of the alliance since New Zealand left in the mid-1980s. In a communique on cyber security, Australia and the US declared: "In the event of a cyber attack that threatens the territorial integrity, political independence or security of either of our nations, Australia and the US would consult together and determine appropriate options to address the threat."
That language might seem bland. It is not. It is close to the formulation of words in the ANZUS Treaty. You might argue that cyber attacks, like any attacks, are already covered by the treaty, so why make an extra declaration they can trigger the alliance?
There are two reasons. One is to draw attention to, and provide a framework for, the deep US-Australia co-operation on cyber security.
But much more important is the desire to send the strongest possible message, especially to Beijing. The author of the overwhelming majority of cyber intrusions the US and Australia experience is China, with Russia a distant second.
Everyone knows this, and you can see occasional references to it in US and Australian defence documents. The Ausmin communique makes the allied response crystal-clear. It may very well provoke a political reaction from Beijing.
The cyber attacks, at this stage predominantly to steal information, are mainly directed at US and Australian defence facilities, but also at government institutions, and at companies of strategic interest to China, especially Australian mining companies.
This year's cyber declaration follows the establishment of a joint cyber working group at last year's Ausmin meeting in Melbourne. Australia set up a similar level of co-operation with Britain at the Ausmin meeting in Sydney. The lead agencies are the Defence Signals Directorate in Canberra, the National Security Agency in the US and the Government Communications Headquarters in Britain.
The US and Australia already conduct many intense cyber security exercises. This kind of co-operation requires the greatest operational intimacy and trust. The US/Britain/Australia intelligence relationship is the core Western intelligence club.
It is the case that the US, and to a lesser extent Australia, are developing offensive cyber capabilities in the event of a cyber conflict, or a general conflict with cyber dimensions. Cyber security generally has experienced huge expansion in recent years in the US, Britain and Australia.
The missile and nuclear technology concerns at Ausmin were centred on North Korea. With everything that is going on in the world, North Korea is slipping under the radar at present. But Western assessments of Pyongyang are intensely pessimistic.
This emerges from two deadly judgments. The first is that China is not really helping on North Korea, and looking back, has not really helped in the past. Beijing enjoys too much strategic benefit out of the status quo with North Korea. Its difficult neighbour is a costly irritant to the US, a source of leverage for Beijing, which can offer or withhold help on Korean issues, and provides a territorial buffer between China and the US ally of South Korea.
Secondly, there is a widespread apprehension that leadership tension in Pyongyang could have destabilising results. The most worrying likely scenario is a series of further long-range missile tests by North Korea, combined with work to miniaturise nuclear warheads sufficiently so they can be carried on missiles. This is a strategic threat in itself and makes North Korea a more dangerous player in nuclear proliferation.
Australia is ramping up its co-operation with the US on missile defence, despite the theology on the Labor Left that holds missile defence to be the work of the devil.
Conceptually, Ausmin saw a significant move forward into the era of the Indo-Pacific as the replacement paradigm for the Asia-Pacific. An important dialogue is under way between Canberra and Washington here. Essentially, Canberra is asking Washington to view the whole Indo-Pacific region as an integrated theatre of operations.
This is partly because the rise of India is changing the region's centre of gravity. Parts of the US system hold the same view, but the US system is so vast that, as has often been the case, Australia is playing a role in moving the consensus of the US military/diplomatic/political establishment.
The US Quadrennial Defence Review last year described India "as a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond".
A number of Australian non-government institutions are belatedly beginning to understand the significance of India's rise. The Lowy Institute's Rory Medcalf has just published a paper on Australia's Future between China and India, which seeks to understand some of these implications. Lowy is sponsoring a big dialogue which it hopes will become the Indian version of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. And the University of Melbourne's Australia India Institute is beginning to hit its straps.
At the grand Ausmin level, the official communique called for deeper strategic ties between Australia, the US and India, welcomed India's engagement in East Asia and called for greater co-operation with India in providing for maritime security.
It is noteworthy this declaration came just a few weeks after the Chinese navy confronted an Indian ship, the INS Viraat, after it had made a visit to Vietnam. China claims exclusive sovereignty over most of the South China Sea - a claim no maritime Asian nation accepts or recognises. It was significant that the Ausmin communique declared in relation to the South China Sea that "both the US and Australia have a national interest in freedom of navigation" there.
Two big Australian conceptual arguments were carried in an important speech by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd to the Asia Foundation in San Francisco.
The first was the redefinition of the region from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific.
Rudd said: "The critical region for our future now extends to include the Indian Ocean as well. It is in the interests of both the US and Australia for India to play the role of a major international power. India is increasingly looking east with interest, both for strategic and economic reasons, and because of long-standing cultural connections."
He drew the necessary distinctions between China and India, but in assessing the new economic ascendancy of Asia, he said: "It goes without saying that China and India are the main drivers of the new ascendancy."
So the message is clear. India is shaping up to be of similar consequence to China, though from both a US and Australian view vastly more benign. It is up to Washington and Canberra to maximise their leverage and connections with India.
But Rudd had another message for the US too, and that was the importance of a sustained - indeed deepened - US engagement in Asia.
By the way, Rudd also drew attention to a statistic more Australians might like to take notice of. Two-way cumulative US/Australian investment stands at $960 billion. Two-way cumulative Chinese/Australian investment stands at $31bn. Those foolish analysts who continually parrot the line that Australia might face a choice between its main strategic partner and its main economic partner are operating in apparent ignorance of the fact that economic partnership involves trade and investment. As a result, they get the identity of our main economic partner wrong.
But back to Rudd's main message to his US audience. In an era of extremely tight fiscal conditions in the US, there will be acute strategic choices for Washington to make. Rudd was telling them to place their bets on Asia.
It would of course be wrong to overstate the importance to the US system of a single speech by an allied foreign minister, even one as well-respected and well-connected as Rudd. But it is critically important that the US hear this message as often as possible, especially from Asia and especially from friends it respects.
Rudd said in part: "As the world changes, it's even more critical that the US builds its engagement in our region. President Obama talked of the need for a more centred course, and that lies in deep US engagement in Asia . . . The vast majority of countries in Asia welcome that."
As the US defence budget suffers serious cutbacks, Australia will in effect be arguing as part of the Washington decision-making process on budgets not to make those cuts in Asia.
In the new US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, Canberra may well have an ally. He is a native San Franciscan with a natural Pacific Ocean outlook. As a veteran of the CIA and with a lifetime of Washington wheeling and dealing, he is a good man to have dealing with Congress in what is certain to be a taxing time.
The pre-Ausmin high-profile expectation of new US force dispositions and commitments in Australia will be slightly delayed while the US finishes its force posture review, and the two militaries, the US and Australian, work on exactly what the best options for an increased US military presence in Australia might look like.
New Australia-U.S. push deals India in to Pacific | The Australian
THIS week's 60th anniversary Ausmin meeting in San Francisco deserves the overworked adjective historic. It marks a pivot point in which the US and Australia begin to redefine their region not as the Asia-Pacific, but as the Indo-Pacific.
The annual meeting of foreign and defence ministers from Australia and the US - respectively Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith, Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta - took the US-Australia alliance into new territory; into cyberspace and into the Indian Ocean.
The meeting, like the contemporary alliance, was dominated by three technologies and three outside nations. The technologies are cyber warfare, missiles and nuclear weapons. The external nations are China, India and North Korea.
The addition of cyber war was the most important change in the scope of the alliance since New Zealand left in the mid-1980s. In a communique on cyber security, Australia and the US declared: "In the event of a cyber attack that threatens the territorial integrity, political independence or security of either of our nations, Australia and the US would consult together and determine appropriate options to address the threat."
That language might seem bland. It is not. It is close to the formulation of words in the ANZUS Treaty. You might argue that cyber attacks, like any attacks, are already covered by the treaty, so why make an extra declaration they can trigger the alliance?
There are two reasons. One is to draw attention to, and provide a framework for, the deep US-Australia co-operation on cyber security.
But much more important is the desire to send the strongest possible message, especially to Beijing. The author of the overwhelming majority of cyber intrusions the US and Australia experience is China, with Russia a distant second.
Everyone knows this, and you can see occasional references to it in US and Australian defence documents. The Ausmin communique makes the allied response crystal-clear. It may very well provoke a political reaction from Beijing.
The cyber attacks, at this stage predominantly to steal information, are mainly directed at US and Australian defence facilities, but also at government institutions, and at companies of strategic interest to China, especially Australian mining companies.
This year's cyber declaration follows the establishment of a joint cyber working group at last year's Ausmin meeting in Melbourne. Australia set up a similar level of co-operation with Britain at the Ausmin meeting in Sydney. The lead agencies are the Defence Signals Directorate in Canberra, the National Security Agency in the US and the Government Communications Headquarters in Britain.
The US and Australia already conduct many intense cyber security exercises. This kind of co-operation requires the greatest operational intimacy and trust. The US/Britain/Australia intelligence relationship is the core Western intelligence club.
It is the case that the US, and to a lesser extent Australia, are developing offensive cyber capabilities in the event of a cyber conflict, or a general conflict with cyber dimensions. Cyber security generally has experienced huge expansion in recent years in the US, Britain and Australia.
The missile and nuclear technology concerns at Ausmin were centred on North Korea. With everything that is going on in the world, North Korea is slipping under the radar at present. But Western assessments of Pyongyang are intensely pessimistic.
This emerges from two deadly judgments. The first is that China is not really helping on North Korea, and looking back, has not really helped in the past. Beijing enjoys too much strategic benefit out of the status quo with North Korea. Its difficult neighbour is a costly irritant to the US, a source of leverage for Beijing, which can offer or withhold help on Korean issues, and provides a territorial buffer between China and the US ally of South Korea.
Secondly, there is a widespread apprehension that leadership tension in Pyongyang could have destabilising results. The most worrying likely scenario is a series of further long-range missile tests by North Korea, combined with work to miniaturise nuclear warheads sufficiently so they can be carried on missiles. This is a strategic threat in itself and makes North Korea a more dangerous player in nuclear proliferation.
Australia is ramping up its co-operation with the US on missile defence, despite the theology on the Labor Left that holds missile defence to be the work of the devil.
Conceptually, Ausmin saw a significant move forward into the era of the Indo-Pacific as the replacement paradigm for the Asia-Pacific. An important dialogue is under way between Canberra and Washington here. Essentially, Canberra is asking Washington to view the whole Indo-Pacific region as an integrated theatre of operations.
This is partly because the rise of India is changing the region's centre of gravity. Parts of the US system hold the same view, but the US system is so vast that, as has often been the case, Australia is playing a role in moving the consensus of the US military/diplomatic/political establishment.
The US Quadrennial Defence Review last year described India "as a net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond".
A number of Australian non-government institutions are belatedly beginning to understand the significance of India's rise. The Lowy Institute's Rory Medcalf has just published a paper on Australia's Future between China and India, which seeks to understand some of these implications. Lowy is sponsoring a big dialogue which it hopes will become the Indian version of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. And the University of Melbourne's Australia India Institute is beginning to hit its straps.
At the grand Ausmin level, the official communique called for deeper strategic ties between Australia, the US and India, welcomed India's engagement in East Asia and called for greater co-operation with India in providing for maritime security.
It is noteworthy this declaration came just a few weeks after the Chinese navy confronted an Indian ship, the INS Viraat, after it had made a visit to Vietnam. China claims exclusive sovereignty over most of the South China Sea - a claim no maritime Asian nation accepts or recognises. It was significant that the Ausmin communique declared in relation to the South China Sea that "both the US and Australia have a national interest in freedom of navigation" there.
Two big Australian conceptual arguments were carried in an important speech by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd to the Asia Foundation in San Francisco.
The first was the redefinition of the region from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific.
Rudd said: "The critical region for our future now extends to include the Indian Ocean as well. It is in the interests of both the US and Australia for India to play the role of a major international power. India is increasingly looking east with interest, both for strategic and economic reasons, and because of long-standing cultural connections."
He drew the necessary distinctions between China and India, but in assessing the new economic ascendancy of Asia, he said: "It goes without saying that China and India are the main drivers of the new ascendancy."
So the message is clear. India is shaping up to be of similar consequence to China, though from both a US and Australian view vastly more benign. It is up to Washington and Canberra to maximise their leverage and connections with India.
But Rudd had another message for the US too, and that was the importance of a sustained - indeed deepened - US engagement in Asia.
By the way, Rudd also drew attention to a statistic more Australians might like to take notice of. Two-way cumulative US/Australian investment stands at $960 billion. Two-way cumulative Chinese/Australian investment stands at $31bn. Those foolish analysts who continually parrot the line that Australia might face a choice between its main strategic partner and its main economic partner are operating in apparent ignorance of the fact that economic partnership involves trade and investment. As a result, they get the identity of our main economic partner wrong.
But back to Rudd's main message to his US audience. In an era of extremely tight fiscal conditions in the US, there will be acute strategic choices for Washington to make. Rudd was telling them to place their bets on Asia.
It would of course be wrong to overstate the importance to the US system of a single speech by an allied foreign minister, even one as well-respected and well-connected as Rudd. But it is critically important that the US hear this message as often as possible, especially from Asia and especially from friends it respects.
Rudd said in part: "As the world changes, it's even more critical that the US builds its engagement in our region. President Obama talked of the need for a more centred course, and that lies in deep US engagement in Asia . . . The vast majority of countries in Asia welcome that."
As the US defence budget suffers serious cutbacks, Australia will in effect be arguing as part of the Washington decision-making process on budgets not to make those cuts in Asia.
In the new US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, Canberra may well have an ally. He is a native San Franciscan with a natural Pacific Ocean outlook. As a veteran of the CIA and with a lifetime of Washington wheeling and dealing, he is a good man to have dealing with Congress in what is certain to be a taxing time.
The pre-Ausmin high-profile expectation of new US force dispositions and commitments in Australia will be slightly delayed while the US finishes its force posture review, and the two militaries, the US and Australian, work on exactly what the best options for an increased US military presence in Australia might look like.
New Australia-U.S. push deals India in to Pacific | The Australian
