(MENAFN- Asia Times)
Three years have passed since the United States, Australia and United Kingdom announced on September 15, 2021, that they would enter into a security partnership called AUKUS.
A major part of the deal involved the US and UK helping Australia acquire nuclear-propulsion submarines. This decision by the Morrison government controversially entailed backing out of a A$90 billion deal with a French company to purchase 12 submarines.
In recent months, the AUKUS deal has generated a fair amount of criticism from former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull , former foreign Minister Gareth Evans , and some in the media .
Critics have focused on five main arguments about AUKUS:
the pact enhances the prospects of war with China
Australia doesn't need nuclear-propulsion submarines
the deal makes our neighbors in Southeast Asia uneasy
it drags us back to our Anglosphere past, tying us closely to the US and UK
the forecast cost of the submarines, between A$268 (US$180.2 billion) and A$368 billion, is unconscionably high.
Yet, each of these claims is based on assertions that miss the point. Here's why.
1. AUKUS increases the likelihood of war
Some critics argue that by acquiring nuclear-propulsion submarines, Australia will support a more belligerent posture by the US towards China, notably over Taiwan. And this makes war more likely.
This, however, belies American awareness of its own limitations and the risks such a provocative approach would entail.
Others argue that AUKUS encourages a military-industrial complex that ostensibly makes Australia more of a dependent – rather than independent – ally to the US. And this denies Australian agency in regional or global security affairs.
But this bleak interpretation, again, sees a binary world in which Australia would be expected to support the US unquestioningly in a potential war with China over Taiwan. It also overlooks the prospect that war might not happen – that China will squeeze, rather than seize Taiwan .
As defense expert Peter Dean has observed , the debate over Taiwan's security is“an argument without context.” It ignores the importance of Australia's own regional security strategy. Whether or not we'd support the US in a war, Dean says, is the wrong question in the wrong argument.
This belief that AUKUS increases the likelihood of war also misreads the nuanced nature of deterrence for which credible force is needed.
Indeed, realists widely acknowledge that weakness invites adventurism, even aggression. The whole point of having a defense force is to deter would-be aggressors by giving them pause for thought and, failing that, to inflict such costs on an enemy, they fail in their objectives.
Tensions are greater today than they have been in generations. And as strategic studies expert Brendan Taylor argues, there are at least four flash points in Australia's region: Korea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and Taiwan.
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