After much ado, Australia finally signed a contract to acquire 12 extra-large conventional submarines with a French state-owned industrial group, which had no experience in building the vessels. The decision involves significant technological risks and went against the Japanese wishful anticipation that its Soryu-class sub would surely be Australia’s choice because it satisfies all major operational needs.
Apparently, Australia was pleased with the contractual terms on local submarine building and employment. Yet, many Japanese sub-builders and naval planners inwardly feel relieved from concern about the possible compromise of Japan’s super-secrets involved in technology transfer for sub-building in Australia. They also feel easy about the good prospect that their meticulous and inflexible sub-building plans in times of limited domestic capacity will not be strained. Only Japanese defense strategists are vexed with the miscarried deal.
Thus, strategic analysis has paramount importance in evaluating Australia’s decision on the contract.
It has to be noted that the administration of US President Barack Obama had pressed Australia to acquire Japanese submarines. However, with the decision deadline approaching, the Obama administration suddenly loosened its grip on Australia, leaving Japan at the altar.
The administration of former US president George W. Bush had already encouraged Japan and Australia to strengthen security cooperation. The two countries issued the Joint Declaration of Security Cooperation in 2007. Mired in the continuing aftereffects of the great financial crisis of 2007-2008, the two countries also concluded the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement in 2010, the Information Security Agreement in 2012 and the Agreement Concerning the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology in 2014. These laid a solid institutional foundation to build a more robust security relationship between the two countries through arms trade.
Consequently, Japan-Australia security relations have reached the stage of “special strategic partnership” or a politico-military alignment.
Nonetheless, it has become increasingly obvious that, with its hegemonic power weakening, the US wanted to see the alignment elevated to an alliance, hoping to have the two shoulder the security burden on its behalf in militarily checking China in the South China Sea. This would have been made possible by Australia’s acquisition of Japanese subs.
It would have meant that Australia would have to depend on Japan’s military secrets in sub-related technologies essential for maintenance and upgrade of the subs for the next 30 years or the average life span of a newly commissioned vessel. The deal would have exerted an exceptionally strong gluing effect.
Against this backdrop, Japan’s aggressive bidding signified its acceptance of its role to reinforce anti-China military containment with Australia on behalf of the US. The bottom line is that Japan will continue the current strategy to depend on the weakened US hegemon as its sole security guarantor.
However, this approach assumes that the US will continuously be able to play a hegemonic role if it can get good supplementary and complementary support from Japan and Australia. Moreover, the support must not be strong enough for the US to totally subcontract the anti-China containment to the two countries. Thus, it is crucial to understand Australian’s careful strategic analysis regarding the question of whether it should jump on the US-Japan bandwagon.
Today Australia depends on the US as its sole security guarantor, but does not have a formal treaty-based alliance with Japan. This means that Australia has no obligation to defend Japan nor to fight with Japan against China.
Yet, the US plays a hub role to produce a virtual Japan-Australia alliance, taking advantage of its bilateral alliances respectively with Japan and Australia. Thus, the enhancement of the security cooperation merely reflects the two US-led alliances.
For Australia, such an effect remains good if and only if the US is able and willing to honor its defense obligation to the country. Otherwise, the virtual alliance may be a risky overstretch that would entrap Australia in Japan’s possible open hostility against China.
At a time when the US hegemony seems uncertain, Japan has chosen to put all of its eggs into one basket: the bilateral alliance with the US. From a Japanese perspective, the risky choice is relevant, because China has recently exhibited its naked aspiration to be a regional hegemon.
Given its geographic proximity to the aspirant, a nuanced balancing strategy of cooperation with China and autonomy vis-a-vis the US is a luxury for Japan. In the worst-case scenario in which the US hegemon either withdraws its security commitment to Japan or gets completely debilitated, Japan has to squarely face a hard choice of being strategically independent as a full-fledged military power or being on China’s orbit as a Finlandized state.
In contrast, Australia does not have to confront such a hard choice. It is also unwilling to bet on the uncertain future of the US hegemony while currently taking advantage of it. Given its great distance from China, it can take a nuanced balancing strategy.
For Australia, an enhanced alignment with Japan in the context of a “virtual” trilateral alliance with the US and Japan simply serves as a useful military stick against China.
In nutshell, Japan and Australia have divergent strategic calculations and risk-taking behaviors that are consequent upon their disparate geo-strategic conditions vis-a-vis China and dissimilar perceptions on the prospect for the US hegemony. Essentially, Japan and Australia are in the same bed, but with different dreams.
More importantly, the sub deal issue is epiphenomenal to the state of the US hegemony. The issue may be a harbinger that all the specific defense-related issues will be colored with grand, strategic debates on the process toward a multipolar world after hegemony.
Until the debilitation of the US’ global hegemony or the miscarriage of China’s would-be regional hegemony becomes clear, political leaders and security policymakers across the world have to live with much ado about correct choices in individual security policy options.
Masahiro Matsumura is a professor of International Politics at St Andrew’s University (Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku) in Osaka, Japan. The original, longer version of this article was first published in Asia-Pacific Watch, produced by CSCAP-Taiwan, with the title “Aborting a Sub Contract: An Illusion of Japan-Australia Alliance.”
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