Why the AUKUS partnership is about much more than warfighting   

With Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arriving in Washington for his first bilateral visit, topics from energy to the economy will be publicly flagged.  

But it will be AUKUS — the trilateral partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — that sits atop the priority list with President Biden, as the two leaders talk about how we compete with the malign rise of China and strengthen regional stability. 

No country gets what it wants through military strength alone. The era of American power, for instance, has relied not just on the United States military but also on the country’s economic heft, superior technology, diplomatic investments and cultural appeal.   

Global influence, and national sovereignty, come from being strong across the board. That’s why the AUKUS partnership was never meant to be limited to a submarine defense pact, but rather a broader boost to the development of critical technologies that are as vital to our economic and national security as to our ability to win a war. This side of AUKUS is the game-changing partnership that can strengthen both our defense and security needs.

The Pillar Two capabilities, including cyber, artificial intelligence and quantum, are crucial to giving us an edge in a much broader strategic competition that China and Russia are pursuing relentlessly below the level of overt conflict. Our investments and collaboration cannot be just about our ability to win a war, but about ensuring we can endure as free and open societies before any war and can survive even if we have to fight one.   

The risk otherwise is that we are gradually eroded by “grey zone” threats — including coercion and interference facilitated by technological capabilities — meaning that we lose our sovereignty without ever fighting. Limiting AUKUS to defense would mean viewing the world in black and white while Beijing and Moscow operate in this grey zone between war and peace. We need to recognize that our destiny is unlikely to be determined by one military battle but by our ability to innovate and harness technology over a long period.   

Open societies have traditionally had the edge on innovation because of our intellectual freedom, whereas authoritarians excel at grey zone operations because they aren’t constrained by the transparent adherence to rules, norms and laws. We must play to our strengths by outpacing strategic rivals through cyber, AI and other technologies that are essential to combatting grey zone activities such as digital intrusions and disinformation.   

Yet, while AUKUS should be defense-led, there are signs of a defense-only approach. To date, implementation of AUKUS Pillar Two has remained with the Defense Department despite other agencies having clear interests and expertise. And at a recent conference hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington, Australian officials framed Pillar Two in terms of delivering capabilities to the warfighter.   

Getting such capabilities quickly is important, but this narrow view risks sidelining the wider benefits of the technologies. It also risks denying defense the advantage of technological breakthroughs that occur outside of defense programs. This is equally relevant for technological investment, which should not be confined to defense budgets. Quantum, for example, is as relevant to cybersecurity as it is to the military and should involve agencies beyond Defense. 

As Chris Miller wrote in his book “Chip War,” “the rivalry between the US and China may well be determined by computing power.” Advanced tech is relevant “from machine learning to missile systems, from automated vehicles to armed drones.”   

Restricting AUKUS to warfighting would also do little to increase global support. A more inclusive Pillar Two would best enable conversations with regional friends less inclined to discuss military-only challenges and those like Japan and South Korea who have advanced capabilities.    

It is instructive that Beijing doesn’t view these capabilities only in military terms. Closed societies use their civil industry to advance their military sector knowing that working together is better than operating in silos. While our open societies should not copy the forced civil-military fusion of our authoritarian rivals, we must still incentivize voluntary public-private collaboration.   

This means continuing to be ambitious with Pillar Two and not closed to new partners or other technologies such as space. It would ensure we compete effectively with Beijing’s grasp of the advantages of building multiple, connecting technologies — a strategy it has pursued since announcing its Made in China 2025 plan eight years ago.   

To understand the ubiquitous role of technology in security, one need only look at the expansion of open source data in identifying threats. The movements of the Russian missile launcher that downed flight MH17, for example, were identified through commercial satellite imagery, big data analytics and social media platforms, as well as military and intelligence sources.    

A broader effort need not come at the expense of military applications. But while our militaries focus on acquiring cutting-edge warfighting capabilities, the AUKUS governments should encourage industry to innovate across the range of security technologies. 

Too many Western strategists have fixated on the “Thucydides Trap” to reduce U.S.-China rivalry to the historical template of an existing power (Sparta) feeling threatened by a rising one (Athens), making war inevitable.    

This misjudgment, not least because of the absence of parallel between open Athens and closed communist China, has seen the West fall for a different trap. Beijing has learnt that open societies, fixating on the risk of war, may try to avoid tension at any cost and be deterred from acting against any malign behavior. What the Peloponnesian War showed is that military superiority did not dictate long-term sovereignty; Sparta initially won on the battlefield, but Athens ultimately survived and influenced the world in ways Sparta never did.    

As outlined in a 2022 RAND study for the U.S. Department of Defense national competitiveness “cannot be reduced to winning or losing wars. Many nations have triumphed in specific battles or even wars and gone on to lose a larger competition.”   

This is a contest for long-term culture, standards and rules. Beijing and Moscow want war to be our red line, whereby we are so focused on deterring and winning a military war that we don’t see the ongoing battle for our societies, as these authoritarian regimes use broad technological advances to divide our citizenry and beat us into submission in everything short of war. Building and expanding AUKUS Pillar Two is our best starting point to avoid that. 

Justin Bassi is executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.