Under the Aukus deal, the Australian Collins-class submarines will be replaced by nuclear-powered subs with technology provided by the US and Britain. Photo / Australian Defence Force
A leading Australian defence expert and Aukus sceptic, Professor Hugh White, believes that any defence technology sharing involving New Zealand would be best done outside the auspices of Aukus.
He says separating defence co-operation from Aukus – a deal to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines – would avoid New Zealand’s getting entangled with the weight of symbolism that Aukus carried as a counter to the rise of China.
He believes the escalating strategic rivalry between the United States and China carries a serious risk of a catastrophic conflict that could easily become a nuclear conflict.
“So I think what we want is the United States to adopt an approach in Asia which aims to maximise its ongoing influence in the region but avoids escalating strategic rivalry with China,” he said in an interview with the Herald.
Almost necessarily that meant doing a deal with China and conceding quite a lot to China.
“That’s not something that anybody wants to do but the question is not, ‘Do you want it?’ It’s, ‘Do you want it more or less than you want to risk a war?’”
White – an emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University (ANU), a former deputy secretary of defence for strategy and intelligence and an author – is visiting New Zealand next week at the invitation of former Prime Minister Helen Clark and former National and Act leader Don Brash, both Aukus critics.
He will be speaking to the NZ Institute of International Affairs.
White said any “deal” with China would not necessarily be explicit but it required a mutual understanding that the US and China would treat each other as equals.
He believes Aukus is being used by the US to try to demonstrate it is doing something practical to respond to the challenge of China.
“And the fact is, that is illusory.
“This is going to sound a little bit flippant but I mean it quite sincerely – for the United States, Aukus is something to put in the talking points, and that’s all.”
While debate in New Zealand is focused on whether signing up to any part of Aukus would compromise New Zealand’s independent foreign policy, debate in Australia continues over the submarine part of the deal, its hefty price tag of up to A$368 billion ($403.6b) now and the mid-50s, and what obligations it brings.
White believes the deal is fatally flawed and will fail at some point over the next few decades.
He believes that instead of acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines (buying three Virginia class from the US and building five British-designed Aukus-class subs), Australia should stick with conventional subs and get many more of them.
Next, he believes the US will not sell Australia any submarines when the time comes, not only because the American fleet is short of them but because he believes the US would require Australia to commit to use them in any conflict between the United States and China.
And he does not think Australia will be able to develop the skills and industrial base to build and operate the yet-to-be-designed UK Aukus subs.
“Unless we pull out or for that matter one of our partners pulls out quite soon, we’re in danger of losing our submarine capability altogether.”
He said that at present, Aukus did not require an explicit commitment by Australia to join a conflict between the US and China.
But he believed there was a strong implicit assumption in the United States that the deal means just that. And there would be pressure on Australian governments to make that implicit assumption explicit.
New Zealand and other close partners of the US and Australia, Japan and South Korea, are being invited to collaborate on some aspects of Aukus pillar two, said to involve such technologies as advanced cyber, hypersonics, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence.
In a recent podcast by the ANU’s National Security College, the Australian deputy Defence secretary in charge of Aukus pillar two, Hugh Jeffrey, outlined two areas of work already under way by the three Aukus partners, Australia, the US and the UK.
Jeffrey said Australia was getting close to deploying common and advanced artificial intelligence algorithms on military platforms which would be trialled on the P8A maritime patrol aircraft (New Zealand has the same planes) which would be able to process huge amounts of data in real-time of the sea surface and undersea environment.
Another area of work was building precision navigation and timing capabilities on assets ranging from guided munitions to ships or aircraft to enable them to operate in an environment in which GPS was denied.
“It is still very undefined, there is a long way to go and our officials will continue that work,” Luxon said. “It’s a very slow burn.”
Foreign Minister Winston Peters also gave a speech in May about the benefits of signing up to Aukus pillar 2. He has also pilloried Clark and Brash and a former Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, for coming to Wellington to warn against Aukus.
Hugh White said that in what he has heard about pillar 2: “There’s nothing about that kind of co-operation which presupposes that it has to take place under the framework of Aukus.
“Indeed, I think it would make more sense from Australia and New Zealand’s point of view if it was separated from Aukus.”
The potential for Aukus pillar 1 to fall apart was high and it would be better not to be entangled with it.
“I do think it would be possible and desirable to participate in that kind of co-operation outside the Aukus context precisely because it wouldn’t carry the significant big diplomatic and symbolic weight of endorsement for the US broader approach to the whole challenge of strategic order in Asia.”
He said Aukus pillar - technology sharing - was being “glamourised” to draw other countries into the Aukus circle and it was being “misrepresented as a really substantial step forward in the strategic alignment of these countries with the United States”.
“No substantial military capabilities are going to be delivered for decades under Aukus, and China’s strategic challenge to the United States in the Western Pacific is not something that is going to happen in the 2040s,” he said.
“It’s happening right now. If we get to the end of the 2030s without this thing being resolved one way or the other, we’ll be very lucky.”
White believed the key question for New Zealand was not whether signing up to pillar 2 was consistent with an independent foreign policy.
“The question rather is what signals does it send about how New Zealand sees its future in the Asia Pacific and the future of the strategic order in the Asia Pacific.”
And it would be seen as a gesture of support for the US seeking to preserve its position as the leading power in Asia in the face of China’s challenge.
In decades to come, the most influential countries in the region were going to be China, India and Indonesia.
He believed the attempts by the United States to retain primacy would be “both dangerous and unsuccessful”.
“I think it’s important when we face this question that we don’t see it just as a matter, or primarily as a matter, of picking sides.
“We want to see it as a matter of picking outcomes.
“We want to ask ourselves, ‘What kind of future in Asia is going to work best for us?’
“We certainly don’t want to live in an Asia in which China becomes the hegemonic power that can dictate to the rest of us exactly what we do.
“But nor do we want to live in an Asia in which America fights an unsuccessful and, I think, very dangerous battle to try and preserve its leadership in a region [in] which it no longer has the material power.”
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