The initial high of announcing AUKUS has faded for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has returned from the United States to face a less congenial domestic agenda
Nick Witney
24 September 2021
Prime Minister Boris Johnson joins US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to announce the launch of the new AUKUS Partnership
Image byNumber 10
The British remain deeply divided about their country’s proper place in the post-Brexit world. Yet there are certain underlying attitudes towards foreigners that they have all imbibed with their mothers’ milk. One is their fondness for Australia (so many family ties; Ashes cricket; all those seductive soap operas). Another is the desire for the Americans, no matter what they think of them, to treat the United Kingdom with respect – and recognise that it still counts. And, of course, there is the pleasure the British always take in getting one over on the French (That Sweet Enemy, as an excellent history of the bilateral relationship is entitled).
No surprise, then, that last week’s announcement of the new AUKUS defence partnership, ticking all the above boxes, should have been generally well-received in the UK. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was happy to hold out to Parliament the prospect of “hundreds of highly skilled jobs”. The right-wing press was relieved to celebrate the apparent injection of some real substance to the so-far nebulous concept of Global Britain. For the prime minister, it was also a welcome chance to move on from post-mortems of the inglorious end to Britain’s Afghan misadventure. As Johnson headed to the White House, British officials were happy to imply that America’s reopening to European travellers, and President Joe Biden’s (underwhelming) pledge of new money to help poorer nations fight the climate crisis, were evidence of the restored efficacy of what they are now at pains not to call the “special relationship”.
Alas, the sugar rush did not last long. The main story coming out of the White House meeting was Biden’s reminder that the Brexiteers could forget their dream of an early trade deal with the United States, at least whilst Johnson persists in his reckless efforts to nullify the Northern Ireland Protocol – a foundation stone of his own Brexit deal. And AUKUS itself is raising awkward questions. As ex-prime minister Theresa May asked in Parliament, what would be the implications of the deal for British involvement if China attacked Taiwan? The nineteenth century British Empire, with its unrivalled naval might and domination of world trade, may have felt free to intervene in conflicts wherever it wished. But does it really make sense for a medium-sized power with a faltering economy to attempt to reprise that role today, on the far side of the globe?
Moreover, as brutal as China’s recent repression of Hong Kong and bullying of Australia has been, can the British really afford to antagonise the Chinese in their own backyard when, not so long ago, their markets and investment were cited as reasons for uncoupling from Europe with high confidence? And can the UK really expect an infuriated France to exert itself to block the cross-Channel illegal migration flows that have occasioned so much hyperventilation by the government in London this summer? Or the European Union, humiliated by AUKUS torpedoing the launch of its Indo-Pacific Strategy, to hold back from trade sanctions if Johnson persists in playing fast and loose with the Northern Ireland Protocol?
What are the British expected to bring to the party – or, to put it another way, what slice of the pie may the Americans allow them?
Then, of course, there is the question of what the British will actually get out of the new partnership. Clearly, the UK is not going to be building the submarines, after the unholy mess it has made of its latest Astute-class hunter-killer boats. There have been vague references to wider cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence, but the only specific programmes mentioned – such as those to supply the Australians with Tomahawks, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles – concern American weapons systems. Is the UK, then, as the French have disobligingly suggested, just a fifth wheel on the carriage? What are the British expected to bring to the party – or, to put it another way, what slice of the pie may the Americans allow them?
The answer may lie in the Americans’ profound aversion to sharing their nuclear propulsion technology with any ally, no matter how close. They have done so only once, in 1958, to get the British started – and only after an almighty internal row to overcome the opposition of the almost-sovereign Office of Naval Reactors, under the legendary Admiral Hyman Rickover. After that, the shutters came down again; the British have been expected to manage on their own ever since. After 60 years, it is a fair bet that the once-common technology has evolved in significantly different ways. So, perhaps the Americans would feel more comfortable allowing the British to supply the nuclear propulsion plants, and to keep their own, almost certainly more advanced, technology under wraps? Or perhaps this is all still to be decided: a future submarine task force is to be allowed up to 18 months to determine the best way to acquire the boats.
For now, then, the initial high of being able to announce this surprise new partnership has faded for Johnson, who has returned from the US to face a less congenial domestic agenda – growing supply-chain difficulties, and a mounting cost-of-living crisis as energy prices skyrocket, the tax burden increases to its highest level for 70 years to keep the health service from collapse, and millions of the poorest families prepare to lose a critical £20-per-week welfare supplement. Winter is coming, and the palm-fringed shores of the Indo-Pacific will seem a very long way away.
The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of its individual authors.
AUTHOR
Nick Witney
Senior Policy Fellow
AUKUS: Winners And Losers – Analysis
Western hypocrisy over nuclear proliferation and the key role of its armament industry in determining foreign policy is again exposed
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his colleagues are today basking in the flag waving congratulations from patriotic and red-blooded Australians for his success in pulling off the AUKUS agreement to intensify military cooperation between Australia and its two western allies against what the trio have identified as their common enemy – China.
So how big and momentous a deal is it exactly?
According to former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott:
“This is a historic and important decision made by the Australian government. Historic because it overturns decades of strategic caution and announces to the world that we take national security seriously. Important because it acknowledges the scale of the strategic challenge from China and declares that Australia will play our part in meeting it.”
Hugh White, an academic from Canberra’s Australian National University, similarly noted that “the new agreement will make Australia the only non-nuclear armed country in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines”.
“That is a very big deal indeed…In the escalating rivalry between America and China, we’re siding with the United States and we’re betting they’re going to win this one.”
More critical Australians have denounced it as a big mistake with former Prime Minister, Paul Keating arguing that Australia’s sycophancy to the US was only damaging its own interests.
Weeks earlier Keating had chastised the government for leading Australia into a “Cold War” with China.
“Australia is a continent sharing a border with no other state. It has no territorial disputes with China. Indeed, China is 12 flying hours away from the Australian coast. Yet the government, both through its foreign policy incompetence and fawning compulsion to please America, effectively has us in a cold war with China.”
Clearly this advice is being ignored by Morrison who is committed to winning a coming kaki election where according to one Australian wag, he can show off to the electorate the new hair on his chest grown with US and British assistance.
Winners
Is Joe Biden the big winner? With the US tail between its legs from the Taliban inflicted ignominious Kabul retreat and numerous domestic challenges to overcome, he now can show off one achievement with the assistance of “that fella from down under”.
But is it such a big victory for the US? Available data confirms that the US has an overwhelming military superiority over China in the Indo Pacific and South China Sea regions. Although the number of US military bases in these two regions has not been publicly disclosed, what is known is that there is a very large number of US military bases ringing China. Around the world the US maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries with several hundred thousands of land, sea and air troops and other military personnel ready to take out any enemy.
The latest addition of Australian nuclear submarines and another military base does show that Biden is more macho than Trump in foreign policy. But it will not count at all in the US’s troubled national politics or enhance America’s national security. Rather the exercise smacks of nuclear overkill. The US has presently 400 intercontinental missiles. The warheads on the ICBMs only represent one quarter of deployed US strategic warheads. More than half of deployed US strategic warheads are mounted on submarine-launched missiles. The remainder are nuclear bombs and warheads on cruise missiles bunkers that can reach Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow and nuke them into oblivion – several times over.
China, on the other hand, has one military base – not in Latin America or the Indo Pacific region but in Djibouti, Africa! Not only is China’s military power in land, sea and air much less than the US but its military budget is considerably smaller (see table).
Boris Johnson appears to be the bigger winner. This latest flying of the British flag in a region where it has been reduced from colonial giant to post-colonial third tier status may provide gratification and a sense of self-importance for the domestic audience. But more significant to the British power elite is the mouth watering US $90 billion contract that Morrison tore up and which the British armament industry and mass media are drooling over. The fact that it is Macron and France that this Anglophone initiative has killed off makes this perhaps the most important English victory over the French since the Battle Of Agincourt. To sooth French outrage but scarcely believable and more hypocritical to anyone who has followed British politics since Brexit is the British Prime Minister’s most recent declaration that “Our love of France is ineradicable.”
Losers
Notwithstanding the British PM’s “forever” love declaration and reminders from Australian leaders of how tens of thousands of Australians have died to defend France in past wars, France – as the big loser – will be looking for revenge. Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to the United States, noted on twitter that the deal blind-sided France. “The world is a jungle,” “France has just been reminded of this bitter truth by the way the US and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia. C’est la vie.” Harsher words have come from France’s top officials. “There has been duplicity, contempt and lies,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declared on France 2 television, adding relations with Australia and the United States were in “crisis”.”You can’t play that way in an alliance.”
The loss of the “contract of the century” submarine deal is not just a massive economic blow. It is also a huge political setback for French President Emmanuel Macron who is running for re-election next year. Further comments by Morrison and his cabinet members on the need for Australia to replace the ‘obsolete’ French designed Shortfin Barracuda program with a technologically superior British submarine have rubbed more salt into the open wound. Meanwhile, the French outrage has been greeted with disapproving and contemptuous feedback from the British and Australia public. A satirist commentator has pointed out that the major problem of the French design is that it could only go into neutral or reverse drive! These and similar comments in social media may yet come back to haunt the AUKUS partners. Expect interesting times ahead for British-French relations.
Beware the Unintended Consequences
Lord Peter Ricketts, former British ambassador to France has warned that the recall of ambassadors from the US and Australia by the French government is just “the tip of the iceberg”. According to him, “there is a deep sense of betrayal in France because this wasn’t just an arms contract. This was France setting up a strategic partnership with Australia and the Australians have now thrown that away and negotiated behind the backs of France with two Nato allies, the US and UK, to replace it with a completely different contract. I think for the French, this looks like a complete failure of trust between allies. Therefore, causing them to doubt, what is Nato for?”
This may yet turn out to be a case study for an introductory course on “Classic Foreign Policy Bungling and Disasters”.
Away from Nato, China has warned the three countries to “abandon the obsolete cold war zero sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical concepts and respect regional people’s aspiration and do more that is conducive to regional peace and stability and development – otherwise they will only end up hurting their own interests”.
Also shattered for now and for good is the campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific backed by New Zealand and countries of the Indo-Pacific region. Australian disregard and disdain for its “little brother” and the Pacific island nations has never been more obvious.
And in the contested South China Sea region, Indonesia and Malaysia in immediate responses have expressed deep concern over the arms race being intensified by the new tripartite military pact; and called on nations to avoid provoking a nuclear arms race as well as meet their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
Key takeaways for now
Western hypocrisy over nuclear proliferation and the key role of its armament merchants and supporting politicians in determining foreign policy is not only again exposed from this new military pact. North Korea, Iran, Turkey and a host of other countries wanting to join the nuclear weaponry club will have greater justification for crossing what the west has set up as an elastic red line.
As for Australian PM Morrison, he has instigated a new round of the cold war which has him pinning the target on his own country’s back as well as the backs of Asia and Pacific neighbours.
*Lim Teck Ghee, a former graduate of the Australian National University, is a political analyst in Malaysia. He has a regular column, ‘Another Take’ in The Sun, one of the nation’s print media.
US President Joe Biden with Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Photo Credit: White House video screenshot
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