{"id":40243,"date":"2018-06-27T15:10:21","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T05:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=40243"},"modified":"2018-06-27T15:10:21","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T05:10:21","slug":"will-the-lucky-ally-become-the-ambitious-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-the-lucky-ally-become-the-ambitious-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the lucky ally become the ambitious ally?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What do President Donald Trump and \u2018America First\u2019 mean for AUSMIN\u2014the upcoming annual meeting between Australian and US defence ministers Marise Payne and Jim Mattis, and foreign ministers Julie Bishop and Mike Pompeo? What should Australia\u2019s agenda be for the meeting?<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s 17 months in office have shown that he\u2019s consistent in his long-held views about international relationships and alliances. We saw that most recently at the Singapore summit, when he unilaterally froze US\u2013ROK military exercises to please his new friend Kim Jong-un.<\/p>\n

The recent G7 meeting, complete with post-meeting tweets, was an even clearer demonstration that Trump sees and treats his allies and partners as supplicants and economic adversaries, not long-term friends who enhance America\u2019s global power and influence.<\/p>\n

The easy approach for ministers Payne and Bishop to take is Australia as the \u2018lucky ally\u2019. We\u2019ve been blessed with not being a large enough economy to be in the G7. We run a trade deficit with the US, so, unlike those who run a trade surplus, we\u2019re not \u2018robbing\u2019 our ally. And, apart from a moment early in the new administration when it looked like Trump would welsh on an Obama\u2013Turnbull refugee deal<\/a>, we\u2019ve done nothing to cause the Donald to pay attention.<\/p>\n

Staying the \u2018lucky country\u2019 in this view means behaving like one of our $200-billion future submarines\u2014running silent and deep to avoid damage from incoming fire and avoiding sea mines. Let\u2019s have photos with smiles and handshakes and let\u2019s talk in nostalgic ways about our 100 years of mateship, forged on the battlefields of two world wars and grown since the formal start of our alliance in 1951. You can hear the speeches from here. Moving but a little empty.<\/p>\n

That approach would leave the alliance on autopilot at a time of rapid change in Australia\u2019s and the US\u2019s strategic environments, driven by two things: the rise of the Chinese state as an aggressive and active user of coercive economic and military power, and rapid technological change. Either we take advantage of this technological change to build our future military capability edge, or, left unaddressed, we lose this strategic advantage, with fundamental negative implications for both countries\u2019 security strategies, our region and the alliance itself.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time to be ambitious in what Australia and the US do to build the alliance for the coming decades. An activist and ambitious agenda may even appeal to Trump, as it involves Australians coming forward not with things we\u2019d rather he didn\u2019t do\u2014or at least not to us, or not now\u2014but with ideas about how to strengthen our security and our economic partnership, to the advantage of the US and Australia. A positive agenda will also be useful in weathering Trumpian tweets, by increasing support for the alliance among stakeholders in the wider administration and Congress.<\/p>\n

Besides, there\u2019s plenty of room for an activist approach: both the\u00a0US National Security Strategy<\/a> and the\u00a0US National Defense Strategy<\/a> are strongly supportive of the broader alliance system. We should be forward-leaning on the future role of those alliances\u2014not merely our own, but the suite of alliances that underpin the global order upon which Australia\u2019s security ultimately rests.<\/p>\n

An activist agenda for ministers Payne and Bishop to take forward with General Mattis and Secretary Pompeo must deal with the two big drivers in our strategic environment.<\/p>\n

On China, we need clarity between us, in ways that then steer our respective policies and actions.<\/p>\n

We need to say\u2014privately and publicly\u2014that particular authoritarian states, notably China and Russia, are using their military, intelligence, economic and cyber powers to coerce other nations and are attempting to interfere in the operation of our domestic debates and processes.<\/p>\n

In Australia\u2019s case, there\u2019s a strong attachment to the policies of the past: the approach of focusing our relationship with the Chinese state on areas of mutual benefit and not on our differences.<\/p>\n

That worked well for both the Chinese state and for Australia when China\u2019s focus was on economic growth and its \u2018peaceful rise\u2019. Now that China has risen, it\u2019s beginning to use its power in ways that matter directly to Australia. It\u2019s also using state power internally in repressive ways against its own people, enabled by new technologies and mass data collection. Early experience shows that the Chinese state is willing to be a coercive power whose actions are quite different to its public diplomacy language of \u2018win\u2013win\u2019 and non-intervention.<\/p>\n

That coercive use of power will only grow if it\u2019s not opposed, called out and frustrated. In the words of the US National Security Strategy, China is a \u2018revisionist power\u2019 that\u2019s asserting itself through an all-of-nation long-term strategy.<\/p>\n

So, while we can still pursue mutual benefit in many areas of economic cooperation with China, we can no longer ignore the differences between the Chinese state and ourselves\u2014because the differences are becoming starker and the differences matter to our security, our stability and our sovereignty.<\/p>\n

We might have two core principles we agree on with our US ally:<\/p>\n