Aukus: The alliance that openly militarises the relationship with China

On 15 September, with the paraphernalia typical of great occasions, including the display of flags, the top political leaders of the United States, Great Britain and Australia announced the formalisation of a security and defence cooperation agreement agreementwhich, even at the risk of overusing the term, President Biden has described as "historic", not so much because of the countries involved - allies and friends of old - but because of the scope of what has been agreed. And it probably is, as it openly militarises the relationship with China and alters the security scenario in the Indo-Pacific region in a way that is still difficult to envisage.

Aukus, the acronym for the announced pact (from AUS, UK and US), commits the United States and Britain to share advanced defence technology with Australia to strengthen the latter's military capabilities in the face of threats - China is not mentioned at any point - in the Indo-Pacific region.

This is a wide-ranging agreementthat includes such sensitive aspects as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cybersecurity. But for all the importance of these areas, what has set off international alarm bells, obscuring everything else, has been the declared intention to help the southern country develop the technology necessary to equip itself with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines that will include it in the limited and select club of nations that have this capability.

France has so far been the first victim of the Aukus. The advertisementhas deeply disappointed the European country, as it has meant the cancellation, without prior notice notice, of a major contract to build twelve Shortfin Barracuda conventional submarines for the Australian Navy worth some 56 billion euros. The fact that Australia has cited delays and cost overruns in the French programme as a crutch to provide some justification for its decision is not credible, even if true, and has not served to mitigate the enormous French anger at what it has received as a stab in the back, as something unbecoming between allies.

US tour to the Indo-Pacific

Several conclusions can be drawn at a glance from what is known about this agreement, many aspects of which have remained hidden from the public. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that the stated security purpose of the pact obscures the reality that, in the end, it has an enormously important economic dimension. It is undeniable that the United States is seeking to secure contracts for its defence industry in a region already immersed in an arms race, degree program, thus putting itself at an advantage over its competitors.

Secondly, the Aukus confirms America's desire to shift the centre of gravity of its strategic effort to the Indo-Pacific region, where it is trying to build an effective counterweight to China's hitherto irresistible rise to hegemonic power in the region. The US is working to create a multi-faceted regional security architecture for the Indo-Pacific, with its Anglo-Saxon allies, perceived by Washington as the most reliable, at its hard core. The region lacks a NATO, and it seems that, perhaps without reaching the Degreecommitment implied by article5 of the Washington Treaty, some subjectsecurity arrangement is gradually taking shape that takes it as an ideal, going beyond the limited scope of the Quad.[1]

If there were still any doubts, it can no longer be unclear where America's first security priority lies. The importance of this interest is demonstrated by the fact that America has committed to sharing such sophisticated technology as nuclear submarines, and that it has done so even at the cost of severely damaging the relationship with such an important partnercountry as France, which it has sacrificed on the altar of the security interest in the region, perhaps convinced that time will heal the wound. In the end, it will turn out that, form aside, Biden's attitude towards Europe - after the regrettable episode in Kabul, moreover - tinged with grandiloquent expressions that speak of the return of the United States to Europe, is not so different from that practised by Trump, intensely criticised as extravagant and aberrant.

What the EU and NATO look like

The slap in the face of France, which reacted by recalling its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra, is also, by extension, a slap in the face of the European Union, because it has been blatantly ignored, and because it is clear that any other similar contract with another European country would have followed an identical fate. Even consideration of Australia's right to disengage from a contract when its security is at stake does not justify the manner in which such a serious decision has been taken, the primary consequence of which may well be to stimulate Europe's desire for an autonomous military response capability. This, as desirable as it is delicate, could lead to a weakening of the transatlantic link, and tear the EU and NATO internally, many of whose partners tie their security inextricably to the United States.

Not all the blame for this misunderstanding, however, should fall on the shoulders of the United States and Australia. The EU is struggling to articulate a common response to the Chinese challenge, relying instead on a policy of engagement that Washington has long since abandoned. If the EU has so far demonstrated anything, it is its inability to provide a credible response to most of the security challenges it faces, as well as its dependence on US military power.

The same could be said of NATO, an Alliance to which, let us not forget, both the United States and the United Kingdom belong. The Atlantic Alliance considered the threat of China for the first time in 2021 at a summit of heads of state in statement, but it is still in the process of adapting to this geostrategic reality, which some of its members believe distracts it from its true purpose goal, which should be none other than defence against Russian pretensions.

Security demands, however, cannot wait. If its European partners were unanimous in seeing China as the security problem it is; if they had a credible and reliable response capability; if they showed a determined willingness to take their own security into their own hands, Washington would certainly not have sidelined them to focus on those with whom it can make faster progress. Sooner or later Europe will have to take a stand against China, and it must take gradethis decision, not in a spirit of revenge, but in order to equip itself with the capacity to respond or assume its irrelevance, if it does not do so.

Australia, in a spiral of expense

Australia has a lot at stake in this project. And not just France's animosity. Despite the fact that, as Biden has been quick to point out, Australia has been an old and reliable ally of the United States for some 100 years, and despite the fact that Canberra has long linked its security to America by hosting a US Marine Corps base in Darwin or participating in the Five Eyesprogramme[2], advertisementimplies a profound strategic reorientation of Australia's national security, abandoning previous policies in which closer economic ties with China and rapprochement with the Asian giant played an important role. With the Aukus, Australia is abandoning this path to adopt, hand in hand with the United States, one of openness civil service examinationthat will force it to strengthen its military and abandon its traditional anti-nuclear stance, which will have a domestic cost that is difficult to quantify. Submarines will probably be followed by other technologically advanced - and costly - capabilities, perhaps not as spectacular, but which will sound like heavenly music to the US defence industry.

With reinforcement will also come Australia's assumption of greater responsibility for what is already seen as the shared security of the Aukus partners. This will allow the United States to direct its resources in a manner more in line with its vital interests. Incidentally, the project, whose advertisementappears to have been timed in the wake of the Kabul evacuation disaster, financial aidto wash away the bitterness that this episode has left behind, and sampleonce again establishes the US as a strong and determined leader.

From Brexit to Global Britain

The UK, for its part, has adopted a particularly interesting role as ajunior partner in this new consortium. As Brexit took it out of the common European project, the country is busy trying to position itself as a relevant and independent global player, in a manner consistent with the concept Global Britain formulated by Boris Johnson.

In seeking to redefine itself strategically after leaving the European Union, London has identified the Indo-Pacific as the arena in which its core interests will be played out. It is not wrong to see it as such. But the linkage it has sought with the Aukus - while acknowledging that it has not, as far as is known, made any concrete commitments - places it as partnera minor player in an entente in which, moreover, it is the only extra-Pacific member. The role it intends to assume may lead it to have to increase its permanent military presence on the continent and, in the worst case scenario, to submit to the pressures of partnersenior, and to have to assume responsibilities that may not be aligned with its real interests.

Time will tell, but it is unclear at this stage how this unilateral path can favour the UK when compared to the path it could have taken without Brexit as a member of a European Union in which it was a major partnerwhose voice was always listened to attentively.

Chinese and French irritation

China has reacted to advertisementas might be expected: with undisguised irritation and coarse offensive language, assessing agreementas an attempt to contain the country in a hostile manner, and calling it a threat to regional security and stability, as well as a blow to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This reaction alone speaks eloquently of the importance of the agreementreached.

China's response has been accompanied by a thinly veiled threat to Australia, which it has explicitly made goalnuclear. China considers that, without technically becoming a proliferator, and despite Biden's care to clarify that the submarines will only be nuclear in their propulsion, Australia could perfectly well, if necessary, embark nuclear weapons on its new submarines and launch them from them, arguing that this is the true nature and raison d'être of this subjectof weapons. This will only reaffirm China's plans for rearmament.

France is, as noted above, the loser on this occasion. Despite the obvious disdain, Biden keeps his hand outstretched to Paris, which he refers to as a "vital ally" in a way that may now sound somewhat hypocritical. As well as Europe's leading military power, France is an Indo-Pacific nation in its own right plenary session of the Executive Councilthanks to its overseas possessions in Polynesia. In an effort to contain China's power, it seems unwise to alienate any support, least of all that of France, which, moreover, agreementcan separate from Britain. The wound will take time to heal, and will leave a lingering residue of resentment that will undoubtedly leave its mark on NATO. subjectBut the importance of joint interest will eventually heal it, perhaps aided by the balm of some future US compensation to France for the snub.

The assertion of US leadership in a sensitive area such as the Indo-Pacific region can only be welcomed by those of us who share with the United States such important values as freedom and the rule of law. It is logical that the United States should seek to move towards greater military cooperation Degreewith those with whom it is most attuned and who are willing to assume greater costs for their own defence. However, in the long run deadline, a policy that ignores such important actors as France - and thus the European Union - does not seem best because of its divisive effects. It is in everyone's interest to ensure that the rift opened by the Aukus advertisementdoes not become a chasm that damages the mutual trust and security that has brought so many benefits to the free world.