America, Japan and Australia know their national security establishments must work more closely together, as reflected by a number of signed agreements and commitments. But, a pair of independent studies have both concluded, the countries still have significant work to do on training and practicing how to fight together, Breaking Defense reports.
The two reports focus on different bilateral angles. The first, from the University of Western Australia [PDF], is focused on Japan and Australia’s relationship. The second, from the Carnegie Foundation, if focused on Australia and Washington.
But taken together, they have clear overlaps and paint a picture of where trilateral cooperation may be going between the three Pacific partners.
As mentioned, the UWA study is about Tokyo and Canberra.
Author Tom Corben, of the US Studies Center at the University of Sydney, points to the close strategic relationship between the two countries, stressing that this must grow from its current focus on sharing intelligence assessments and declaring new policies to improving operational cooperation, giving Japan more access to Australia’s vast training and testing facilities. He also calls for the recent agreement to regularly rotate Japanese marines in and out of northern Australia to be acted upon.
Corben also notes that the two US allies are more closely bound to each other than to any other military except that of the United States. But much of this relationship is relatively new, and required casting aside more than 50 years of suspicion and angerborne of Japan’s conduct during World War II.
“Australia and Japan will need to consciously build out a bilateral agenda that has practical utility in its own right, not only in support of trilateral cooperation with the United States. While these two objectives may not be mutually exclusive, some degree of distinction will be necessary in order to ensure that the Australia-
Japan defense relationship is robust enough and appropriately scoped so as to stand on its own two feet,” he writes in the report.
The long-term success of Australia-Japan defense cooperation “could hinge greatly” on their ability to harmonize their modernization agendas, according to the report. While the AUKUS ITAR reforms, designed to smooth the sharing of information between the US, Britain and Australia, have eased Australia’s ability to buy and sell weapons with the US, Corben raises the issue of whether the AUKUS reforms will pose “legal disincentives for Japanese companies to work with the Australian government.”
Corben recommends that Australia and Japan boost their submarine surveillance, including deployment of aircraft to each other’s bases and increasing operational intelligence sharing. When it comes to the Japanese forces that will begin rotations to Darwin and its environs, Corben says the two countries should focus on their forces first, “rather than simply focusing on trilateral activities with the United States.” The US Marines regularly come to northern Australia each year for training and exercises.
Finally, Corben says Canberra should consider working with Tokyo to produce and develop long-range strike weapons, including producing Japanese-designed missiles in Australia to avoid possible US arms export restrictions that would affect Japan. Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordinance could be a good focus for this.
US, Australia Bilateral Focus
The second report, edited by Evan Feigenbaum of the Carnegie Foundation, argues that Canberra and Washington “have an unparalleled opportunity to fashion broader, stronger, and multilayered partnerships.
“But this, in turn, will require self-reflection,” he writes,” not just cheerleading. And that means undertaking an intellectually honest appraisal of the promises and challenges inherent to the alliance.”
That means “both countries need to undertake difficult reforms, forge new modes of cooperation, harmonize outdated regulations, better align national strategies, address acute Australian sovereignty concerns and associated questions around risk thresholds, and develop accelerated solutions to enduring alliance management challenges.”
Time is short, with the loss of strategic warning time, so “reforming the alliance is now an urgent priority.”
Australian and American defense planners, he opines, have not fully confronted “some thorny operational questions.” The two countries, he says, “have very little history divvying up roles and missions in the manner that will be required for deterrence, defense, and ultimately warfighting in the context of high-intensity conflict in the Indo-Pacific.”
They also need to better integrate and align their industrial bases. One of the chapters recommends that a “cadre of contracting officers should meet annually to discuss contracting strategies for nontraditional commercial technology providers” and share acquisition lessons. This is all driven by China’s “growing military capabilities and hostile intent.“
It also proffers the interesting idea of a “Future Warfare Strategy Team” that would include strategists, uniformed personnel, researchers and investors to meet biennially. They would explore operational responses to different Indo-Pacific contingencies such as a Taiwan blockade or invasion, a Korean peninsula crisis, or an escalation in China’s coercion of the Philippines.
They also propose several ventures to improve the two countries’ ability to tap entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to best identify and develop advanced commercial technologies, similar to the Defense Innovation Unit of the Pentagon.
