{"id":77163,"date":"2022-12-15T12:35:18","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T01:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=77163"},"modified":"2022-12-15T13:34:24","modified_gmt":"2022-12-15T02:34:24","slug":"the-shifting-winds-of-ausmin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-shifting-winds-of-ausmin\/","title":{"rendered":"The shifting winds of\u00a0AUSMIN"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Each AUSMIN meeting, when the foreign and defence ministers from Australia and their American counterparts get together, generally each year, is marked by a communiqu\u00e9.<\/p>\n

These statements signal the matters of mutual agreement and shared concern, and typically mark progress and intent on initiatives of the two nations.\u00a0Mostly they are fulsome, covering an exhaustive range of current issues. The\u00a02022 communiqu\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0is one such, albeit reorienting towards the Pacific and for the first time referencing indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what\u2019s new.\u00a0What\u2019s often interesting are the absences and subtractions from earlier communiqu\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

If we cast our eye back over\u00a0previous outcomes<\/a>,\u00a0three differences stand out: a change in tone that reflects how the respective governments think about the world; a shift in emphasis of a specific threat vector; and the priority accorded a recent major initiative.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take the first: tone. Throughout the 2010s, leading into last year\u2019s communiqu\u00e9, there was a sense of a darkening world, increasing tensions and a rising existential threat. Democratic values were under pressure.<\/p>\n

The focus this year was more on climate change and\u2014as mentioned\u2014on the Pacific and indigenous peoples. There was less of a sense of an existential threat generated by inimical revanchist powers. Instead, there was a return to language reminiscent of 20 years ago, urging Beijing to be a responsible stakeholder.<\/p>\n

That language does not resonate with Washington\u2019s recently released\u00a0national security strategy<\/a>, which evoked a strong sense of mission, of competing for the future and pushing back against nuclear-armed autocracies.<\/p>\n

That suggests communiqu\u00e9 language driven by Australian wordsmithing. That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s a tectonic shift in the fundamentals of Australian defence and foreign policy\u2014there remains the thread of continuity that typically binds consistency into those policies through changes of government.<\/p>\n

But we are seeing a reallocation of priorities, a different lens and a purpose that is more about dealing with the messiness of the world. That could suggest a Canberra that sees its role as helping broaden support by addressing issues of regional concern, but risks being more easily distracted and potentially spreading itself more thinly across issues.<\/p>\n

The second issue is the prominence accorded cyber. Cybersecurity receives but one mention, early on, along with technology, trade and commerce in a reference to a need for \u2018rules of the road\u2019.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s in contrast to earlier communiqu\u00e9s that identified it as a real threat, from its first mention in 2009 onwards. In 2011, it merited\u00a0its own specific statement<\/a>; in 2012, there were seven mentions; in 2013, five; in 2014, three; and in 2015, five. The 2017 communiqu\u00e9 was unusually brief; even so, cyber was called out as a threat. Once AUSMIN returned after a hiatus in 2020, cyber was mentioned twice and hit a high point in 2021 with eight mentions, including getting its own paragraph.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s apparent lack of interest in cyber at AUSMIN, traditionally a forum for strategic, international relations and defence issues, may be a straw in the wind. Cyber will clearly be an ongoing issue for societies and businesses into the foreseeable future\u2014it is an inherent feature of modern digital and data systems.<\/p>\n

But the war in Ukraine raises questions on the value of cyber in conventional warfare. The failure of an anticipated Russian cyber offensive cast doubt on the prospect of a \u2018cyber Pearl Harbor\u2019. After all, it was that possibility that prompted the\u00a02011 AUSMIN statement to reference ANZUS itself<\/a>, should such a cyberattack be directed against either nation.<\/p>\n

That, of course, is not to say that cyber has no effect\u2014it evidently does\u2014or that cyber isn\u2019t being used in the Russian effort\u2014it evidently is<\/a>. And\u00a0the prospect<\/a>\u00a0remains of\u00a0heightened Russian activity <\/a>over the coming months.<\/p>\n

But it suggests that conventional policy mechanisms continue to struggle with grey-zone activities. Many of those activities go to the nature of government, concern domestic issues, and generally don\u2019t lie within the remit of the defence and foreign policy establishment.<\/p>\n

Still, policymakers are not sitting on their hands. We can find part of what may have fallen earlier under the label of cyber in the 2022 communiqu\u00e9\u2019s language on the need for trusted digital and network infrastructure, and its references to public\u2013private partnerships and to the Quad. That, arguably, helps mature and progress the debate around cyber, by encouraging the civilianising of the defence effort.<\/p>\n

The last matter is the absence of half of AUKUS. Yes, the nuclear submarines are there: they get their own paragraph. But there is nothing that explicitly recognises the second\u2014and potentially much more valuable\u2014pillar of AUKUS, the technology accelerator. Ideally that would have been called out.<\/p>\n

Instead, technology issues have been either boxed into specific initiatives\u2014such as the\u00a0guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise<\/a>\u00a0and space surveillance\u2014or shunted to the Quad, as with the earlier reference to emerging technologies, and conflated with cooperation and collaboration with the region. That\u2019s potentially problematic. The language around working on the defence trade treaty promises more of the same rather than offering the breakthrough needed to access technology and kit.<\/p>\n

One possible explanation may be that while Australia stands to be the greatest beneficiary of the AUKUS accelerator, and needs US assistance, it is also the one that needs to do the heaviest lifting and so make, proportionally, the greater investment. The US side may be waiting to see whether Australia is indeed serious about building capability or is content to remain a technology taker, reliant on its inherently extractive economy, helpful friends and good luck.<\/p>\n

It can be easy to read too much into the absence of a thing. Yet, attention accorded in communiqu\u00e9s, like the allocation of resources, denotes priorities. This year\u2019s AUSMIN communiqu\u00e9 suggests a government less driven by existential threat, less tolerant of cyber\u2019s challenges and less across the broad technology space. We\u2019ve yet to see whether the shifts noted here are simply short-term decisions of fit or indicative of longer-term trends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each AUSMIN meeting, when the foreign and defence ministers from Australia and their American counterparts get together, generally each year, is marked by a communiqu\u00e9. These statements signal the matters of mutual agreement and shared …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":861,"featured_media":77166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3111,210,391,285,2397],"class_list":["post-77163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-aukus","tag-ausmin","tag-cyber","tag-foreign-policy","tag-us-alliances"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe shifting winds of\u00a0AUSMIN | 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\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-shifting-winds-of-ausmin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The shifting winds of\u00a0AUSMIN | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Each AUSMIN meeting, when the foreign and defence ministers from Australia and their American counterparts get together, generally each year, is marked by a communiqu\u00e9. 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