{"id":77103,"date":"2022-12-13T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=77103"},"modified":"2022-12-13T10:39:46","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T23:39:46","slug":"taking-ausmin-to-the-third-dimension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/taking-ausmin-to-the-third-dimension\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking AUSMIN to the third dimension"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

On 6 December, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for the annual Australia \u2013 United States Ministerial Consultations, or AUSMIN, held this year in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

In addition to the four principals, the Australian and US delegations included<\/a>\u00a0senior defence, intelligence and foreign policy officials. This tendency towards a security focus is born out of AUSMIN\u2019s origins in the ANZUS Treaty<\/a>, which established \u2018a Council, consisting of [the parties\u2019] Foreign Ministers or their Deputies, to consider matters concerning the implementation of this Treaty\u2019. The first bilateral meeting held under the auspices of AUSMIN was in 1985, following the United States\u2019 1985 suspension of its security commitment to New Zealand for refusing port access to US nuclear submarines.<\/p>\n

It was therefore interesting to see the most recent AUSMIN joint communiqu\u00e9<\/a> commit to \u2018establishing a regular meeting between the Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific and US Agency for International Development Administrator to support closer development cooperation throughout the Indo-Pacific region and globally\u2019. Given the alignment<\/a> in the two countries\u2019 \u2018political will and strategic visions\u2019 for foreign aid, it makes sense to hold regular high-level dialogue between development leaders. But, recognising that development is central to the international relations and security aspirations of AUSMIN, such discussions shouldn\u2019t remain discrete. There\u2019s a clear case for the consultations to become 3D\u2014that is, to elevate development alongside diplomacy and defence by including both countries\u2019 most senior development representatives.<\/p>\n

The joint statement identifies a litany of global and regional issues and challenges for Australia and the US to cooperate on. In the first paragraph alone, both countries commit \u2018to advanc[e] a stable, rules-based international order\u2019, \u2018strengthen and reform the multilateral system \u2026 to address the climate crisis\u2019, and \u2018protect and promote human rights \u2026 and advance the rules of the road for technology, cyberspace, trade, and commerce\u2019. Development already plays a key role in delivering on a number of these goals; aside from the obvious human security benefits of development assistance, Australia\u2019s aid program also supports regional cyber<\/a> and climate<\/a> resilience, for example. But few if any of these goals fit a purely development, diplomacy or defence categorisation, and achieving them will require coordination across the policy communities\u2014each of which brings unique capabilities, perspectives and experiences that are essential but alone inadequate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s evident that each country recognises this and is working to reconfigure its foreign policy toolkit in response. In Australia there\u2019s been a growing appreciation<\/a> among senior politicians, policymakers and officials of the need to respect, resource and coordinate all the arms of statecraft in the context of a more challenging environment. Wong has stressed<\/a> that \u2018[f]oreign policy must work with other elements of state power to succeed\u2019, while Marles wants to<\/a> \u2018marshal and integrate all arms of national power to achieve Australia\u2019s strategic objectives\u2019.<\/p>\n

This rhetoric is slowly being translated into reality: the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s Office of the Pacific was established in 2019 with a mandate<\/a> \u2018to enhance whole-of-government coordination and to drive implementation of [Australia\u2019s] regional activities\u2019, and the terms of reference<\/a> for Australia\u2019s new international development policy declare that it \u2018will be whole-of-government and outline the use of Official Development Assistance (ODA) and non-ODA to advance a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific, alongside Australia\u2019s diplomatic, economic, defence, and security engagement\u2019.<\/p>\n

The US has similarly honed in on diplomacy and development as key assets that complement and work in concert with defence; the US Global Fragility Act<\/a> , for example, emphasises the shaping role each can play to help prevent conflict and instability and reduce the need for a defence response. This dynamic was pithily captured<\/a> in 2013 by then\u2013defence secretary Jim Mattis: \u2018If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Biden administration\u2019s 2022 national security strategy<\/a> is explicit in saying it \u2018encompasses all elements of national power\u2014diplomacy, development cooperation, industrial strategy, economic statecraft, intelligence, and defense\u2019 in pursuit of goals almost verbatim to those in the AUSMIN Joint Statement. The 2022 national defence strategy<\/a> likewise outlines the concept of \u2018[i]ntegrated deterrence [which] means using every tool at the Department\u2019s disposal, in close collaboration with our counterparts across the US Government and with Allies and partners\u2019.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s clearly an appetite among US and Australian policymakers for more joined-up thinking when it comes to formulating and prosecuting foreign policy, and bringing the development portfolio into AUSMIN would align with the integration agendas of both countries. Having the Australian development minister and USAID administrator in the room would be a powerful signal to their respective bureaucracies that such an approach is here to stay and to maintain momentum. As well as enhancing cooperation and coordination on shared interests and specific challenges, a 3D AUSMIN would open up opportunities to have conversations and share lessons on how to implement, operationalise and align whole-of-government statecraft more broadly.<\/p>\n

Australia didn\u2019t have a minister for international development when AUSMIN was established almost 40 years ago, and development has traditionally been an underdone aspect of the US\u2013Australia alliance (as Marles recognised<\/a> in July). But with aid emerging as a focus<\/a> for both governments amid a more challenging strategic environment that demands smarter statecraft, now is the time to bring development into the AUSMIN fold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 6 December, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, for the annual Australia \u2013 United States …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1646,"featured_media":77106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[832,210,17,584,285,2070],"class_list":["post-77103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-aid","tag-ausmin","tag-australia","tag-development","tag-foreign-policy","tag-us-foreign-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTaking AUSMIN to the third dimension | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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