Does AUKUS Make Sense For AUNZ?

OK, a bit of pandering to my total of 11 subscribers Down Under. I just listened to a really intelligent interview on NZ TV. The interview features Hugh White, who is a former official in the AU Defense Department, now an academic emeritus. For those not familiar with AUKUS, here’s the Wikipedia description:

AUKUS, also styled as Aukus, is a trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Announced on 15 September 2021, the partnership involves the US and the UK assisting Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. The partnership also includes cooperation on advanced cyber mechanisms, artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic, electronic warfare, innovation and information sharing. The partnership will focus on military capability, distinguishing it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance that also includes New Zealand and Canada.

Apparently the NZ government is rather keen on the concept of NZ joining AUKUS (ANZUKUS? Doesn’t quite work.). White suggests, very diplomatically, that Kiwis should think twice, while also stating why he has, despite his long standing pro-American sympathies, become an AUKUS skeptic. To put it bluntly, White clearly doesn’t regard AUKUS as a good idea at all for either AU or NZ. White recognizes that AU and NZ will only be tagging along behind the US. They will not be in a position to have much impact on the relationship, but could find themselves in a dicey relationship with China if they are, inevitably, perceived to share the US hostility to China. In that regard, the other day I noticed that Canada circumnavigated Taiwan with one of their war ships, for reasons that are utterly unclear to me—except that the US wanted that. The same reason that Canada flies spy planes along China’s coast. Well, I suppose Canadians figure they’re an ocean away from China and have the US as a neighbor. I have no idea what excuse AU and NZ could come up with for such daft behavior.

First the video, which is only twelve minutes long:

Here’s the description for Youtube:

Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University Hugh White has deep reservations about New Zealand joining AUKUS Pillar Two. The New Zealand Government describes AUKUS Pillar Two as a technology-sharing agreement, not a defence or military arrangement.

But White has concerns about the risks New Zealand could be drawn into a conflict it didn't ask for by aligning itself too closely with the likes of the US, Australia, and the UK.

White is in New Zealand on the invitation of former Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Opposition leader Don Brash. The pair strongly oppose New Zealand joining Pillar Two.

Next, a summary of the presentation by Arnaud Bertrand. I believe the summary fairly represents White’s views:

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

This is perhaps the most important and powerful case against AUKUS that I've heard, especially because it comes from one of Australia's preeminent strategic thinkers: Hugh White, inaugural Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and former Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Australian Department of Defence.

Here's what he says:

- White argues that the era of Anglo-Saxon (British and American) dominance in the Western Pacific is ending. He states: "We are facing one of the, perhaps the biggest transformation in our shared international setting since European settlement." This transformation is driven by China's rise as an economic and military power comparable to the United States.

- As a result he argues that there's no alternative to treating China as an equal partner: "Nobody really knows what America's aim in Asia is. But one thing's for sure, nobody in Washington thinks they should treat China as an equal partner. And my basic argument to my many friends in Washington is that if they don't treat China as an equal partner, then they're going to be taking on a rivalry with China that I don't think they can win."

- He emphasizes this point repeatedly, arguing that given China's economic and military power, especially in the Western Pacific, the U.S. cannot maintain its previous position of uncontested primacy: "I don't see how, in an era where China's economy is as big as America's, in an era where its military power in the West Pacific is really quite comparable to America's, in an era where China is increasingly potent as a nuclear armed power, the US and China can find a way to get on in which the United States doesn't, at the very least, treat China as an equal partner."

- White sees AUKUS as problematic because it aligns Australia (and potentially New Zealand) with a U.S. strategy that refuses to acknowledge this new reality. He argues that by supporting AUKUS, these countries are effectively endorsing a primacy approach that is "not a smart way to go" and risks destroying both their prosperity and their security, because they'll "only be prosperous and secure if the United States and China can find a way to get on."

- On the economic benefits arguably brought by AUKUS: "The idea that you buy those economic benefits at the price of committing yourself to support an approach to this really fundamental question about the shape of our future order in Asia, which I don't think is going to work, that would be a very high price to pay for a very doubtful benefit."

2:26 / 7:54

7:57 AM · Aug 4, 2024

Australia and New Zealand would do well to consider the fate of NATO, co-conspirator in the Anglo-Zionist war on Russia and the world.