French Pdt Macron PM Australia Scott Morrison
Source: Jedi Foster & Rahma Sophia Rachdi
FRANCE AND EU COMPLAINED OF NOT INFORMED ON AUKUS ALLIANCE----------------------------------------------
France complained that it was kept out of the loop on the AUKUS partnership, ahead of the announcement by the USA. The Australia-UK-US alliance – dubbed AUKUS – announcement came just before the EU was scheduled to detail its own Indo-Pacific strategy on Thursday."The AUKUS security partnership further demonstrates the need for a common EU approach in a region of strategic interest," European Council chief Charles Michel wrote on Twitter, adding that EU leaders would discuss it at a meeting in October.
BARRY PEVEL SENIOR VP & DIRECTOR OF THE SCOWCROFT CENTER FOR STRATEGY & SECURITY AT THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL TALKS ABOUT A « NEW LEVEL OF DETERRENCE AGAINST CHINA »--------------------------
« The AUKUS alliance initiative, which I heartily applaud as one of many that will be required in the coming years to keep pace with Chinese advances, will have manifold implications as it continues to play out. The Biden administration is taking an important step to build a key alliance element of the edifice required for the new era.----------------------------------------------
First, it will have geostrategic implications, as it tangibly strengthens the closest alliance relationships that the United States shares with allies in both the Indo-Pacific and Europe—the United Kingdom and Australia in particular. A major signal from this alliance initiative, the “AUKUS alliance,” of which China will take note, is that a European ally of the United States is joining an Indo-Pacific ally of the United States in working together to develop undersea capabilities and to patrol the seas of the Pacific, and doing so through cooperation around one of the most sensitive combat systems in modern inventories. This signals to China that European allies take China’s ongoing coercive military operations in the western Pacific (for example, against Taiwan and in the South China Sea) as seriously as do America’s Indo-Pacific allies.---------------------------------------
Second, it will have particularly constructive operational military implications, strengthening the ability of the United States-led alliances to deter Chinese military coercion even as Chinese capabilities continue to develop rapidly. Undersea capabilities are critical for preventing the Chinese military from achieving its operational objectives in the most important likely contingencies in the region. A key parameter of this new trilateral alliance will include US submarine access to Australian support infrastructure, thereby strengthening the overall US and allied increasingly “latticed” global defense posture (more of which will emerge after the National Defense Strategy review is completed). In addition, this initiative will also further strengthen the already close defense industrial cooperation among the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom on some of the key technologies that will be of highest importance for future military effectiveness, including artificial intelligence, cyber, and long-range precision strike capabilities.----------------------------------------------------------------
Those critics who say that China will react and that this will lead to a new arms race are missing the big picture: There is a decades-long trend that has only accelerated under Xi Jinping in which China has been developing high-tech, leading-edge advanced military capabilities across the board. The parameters of likely military contingencies in the Indo-Pacific suggest that the United States and US allies have a lot of work to do in order to buttress a weakening deterrent posture in the context of rapid Chinese People’s Liberation Army advances. This is one small but important step in doing just that.---------------------
The interesting echo of history that this initiative represents harkens back to the Eisenhower administration’s policy of sharing nuclear technology with the UK, a policy that caused French President Charles de Gaulle to decry the “Anglo-Saxon” nuclear cooperation and propelled France to develop its own nuclear capabilities. In light of the broad set of strategic challenges that China’s continuing rise presents to the breadth of US alliances, it would be wise for the Biden administration to follow up this set of steps by developing analogous cooperative efforts with France, Japan, South Korea, and other leading allies. » Source: —Barry Pavel is senior vice president and director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council and former top US Defense Department and National Security Council official.
