Global Courant 2023-05-31 08:57:35
In line with that of the Chinese Communist Party necessary to review “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049, US intelligence sources assign that Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be able to counter US military might in the Indo-Pacific and to be ready for a takeover of Taiwan by 2027.
This is an alarming prospect, confirmed by recent Chinese military exercises around the island. Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), in his Congressional testimony in March said the PLA Navy (PLAN) is on track to deliver 440 combat ships by 2030, including a significant increase in aircraft carriers and large surface combatants.
As it gains momentum, the PLAN will likely use its large naval forces to further defend, even enforce, illegitimate Chinese claims to parts of the East and South China Seas – areas where foreign ships of all kinds have the right to navigate under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which China ratified in 1996.
In this deteriorating geopolitical environment, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have drafted the AUKUS Submarine and Technology Sharing Agreement, which has been called a “trilateral security partnership” based on defense capabilities supporting “mutual national defense objectives”.
In the words of Mara Karlin, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, the agreement will “elevate the submarine industrial bases and submarine capabilities of all three nations, enhance deterrence and promote stability in the Indo-Pacific.”
Indirect deterrence
Before explaining how AUKUS enables “direct deterrence” from a capability, capability and force perspective, it is important to identify forms of “indirect deterrence”, namely by promoting deterrence through a constellation of security alignments and the strengthening of the defense industrial base.
In the case of these last two forms of “indirect deterrence”, AUKUS – as with the US-Japan-Australia Trilateral and the Quad – is a minilateral. Such a minilateral is not, strictly speaking, an alliance, but offers its members a shared pool of military capabilities – or whatever dubbed a ‘federated defense model’.
Within the United States, these alignments are consistent with the government’s organizing principle of “integrated deterrence,” which was outlined in the 2022 National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Nuclear Posture Review.
In addition to accelerating efforts to advance planning, coordination, and operations among various U.S. government agencies and U.S. allies, AUKUS also provides integrated deterrence at the defense industrial base level for all three collaborating countries.
While calling this “submarine deterrence” is going too far, it would also be remiss not to mention the reinforcing effect AUKUS will have on naval shipyards, the nuclear enterprise, and the submarine sensor and weapons systems industries, all of which contribute to the national strength.
Instant scare from under the sea
to define deterrence as “building forces that are credible in all domains and across the full spectrum of conflicts to deter aggression,” Karlin also noted that AUKUS is about more than just Pillars I and II, but also addresses submarine deterrence throughout the process. Indo-Pacific in a range of regions.
At its simplest level, the agreement contributes to submarine deterrence by providing its members, particularly Australia, with new advanced warfighting capabilities: it provides two types of nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) platforms – the Virginia-class and the ” AUKUS class” to replace Australia’s aging Collins class of conventionally powered submarines.
While a rough measure, more ships with long-range capabilities, bolstered by the advanced weapons capability and kinetic effects they can deliver at greater range, can more effectively deter an opponent, in the event that they’re contemplating aggression.
AUKUS map: Council on Geostrategy
Thus, AUKUS provides all three countries with a more widely distributed force position closer to likely areas of operations, relative to the PLA navies in the Western Pacific.
As shown in the map above, nuclear-powered submarines greatly complicate the PRC’s calculus. They can be sent north of Australia to hunting grounds around the South and East China Seas, which are critical to China’s maritime lines of communication across the Pacific and into the Middle East and East Africa.
By making these routes more vulnerable to interdiction, AUKUS forces the PLAN into a more defensive stance, allowing resources to be diverted away from large warships and logistics vessels designed for expeditionary operations.
It does this through the two-part trajectory framework agreed in March 2023. The first part of the trajectory consists of increased port visits by US and UK SSNs from 2023, adding to INDOPACOM’s and Royal Navy’s ability to regularly position troops east of the Strait of Malacca and west of the International Date Line (IDL) – a useful mitigation of the tyranny of distance faced by US and UK naval forces.
The second part of the framework includes a rotational element in Australia under the Submarine Rotational Force West, intended to begin in 2027. According to to the Australian Department of Defence, this will consist of “a rotating presence… of one UK and up to four US nuclear-powered submarines” at Fleet Base West.
This is likely to attract Astute-class and Virginia-class submarines. Again, this contributes to a joint and combined campaign, allowing the three allies to synchronize joint capabilities through more exercises and further strengthening sustained forces between the Straits of Malacca and the IDL.
Forms of deterrence provided by AUKUS
AUKUS therefore offers deterrence on multiple levels. The first two are forms of “indirect deterrence”, or factors that enhance general deterrence at the state level.
AUKUS sends a signal of intent – through political alignment – that may cloud a potential aggressor’s calculations. This is AUKUS as a minilateral grouping, and as an architecture rather than a defense-industrial deal. AUKUS provides indirect deterrence by contributing to national strength by contributing to each member’s industrial defense base by providing opportunities for industrial cooperation and production. It frees up national resources for shipping industries that may previously have been in decline.
AUKUS also has several direct deterrence effects. It is useful to use the four-pointed “Seize the initiative” INDOPACOM approximation to divide them:
In its simplest and most direct form, AUKUS contributes to submarine deterrence by providing its members, particularly Australia, with new advanced warfare platforms (the SSNs and their systems). That these are superior systems, with extended range from their nuclear propulsion, adds to their impact on the logistics and planning of potential adversaries. Because submarines can hide underwater, they are an asymmetric weapon system, designed to threaten sea routes and surface shipping, both commercial and military. Then there are the agreements made in March this year, such as the two-part path enabling a second direct form of submarine deterrence: offering those platforms in a distributed attitude across the region. Whether through port visits or a more sustained presence through Submarine Rotational Force West, AUKUS is bringing more Allied troops to the Western Pacific. Finally, there is the deterrent effect of Submarine Rotational Force West itself: that of an integrated allied operational force that will ideally operate under a combined chain of command.
A powerful tool
As American, Australian and British submarines train, exercise and deploy, so will their operational capability and effectiveness. They will become an integrated force capable of great strategic effect – deterrence – in the Indo-Pacific, a valuable asset for any war planner.
Whether these six forms of deterrence will deter Xi from ordering PLAN forces to sortie across the Taiwan Strait or conducting coercive activities across the First Island Chain is unclear.
While they may not be enough—given the time it takes to get these systems and structures online—these burgeoning capabilities will complicate PLAN’s planning and logistics.
In the future, in any actual kinetic contingency, they will also be a powerful tool to curb Chinese regional ambitions and military coercion.
John Hemmings is senior director of Indo-Pacific foreign and security policy at the Pacific Forum in Honolulu, which originally published this article. Global Courant republishes it with permission.
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