![]() ![]() France, unsurprisingly, sees the Australian decision as a betrayal. To be sure, there is a downside to Australia’s decision to build a fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines with technology from the United States: the cancellation of Canberra’s earlier $65 billion deal to produce conventionally powered submarines with Paris.įrance has been actively engaged in the Indo-Pacific, helping mobilize skeptical Europeans to focus on security challenges in the Far East and promoting a regional trilateral coalition with Australia and India. Although India’s naval capabilities are significant, the scale and scope of the threat presented by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy have led India to focus on a wide range of maritime coalitions, including the Quad as well as separate relationships involving Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and France. Given India’s own mounting security problems with China, all actions designed to deter China, with or without Indian participation, are of strategic benefit to New Delhi.īecause India is increasingly preoccupied with overland threats from China, it needs enduring partnerships to protect its maritime flank. ![]() President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have justified the new nuclear coalition in the name of strengthening deterrence against China. Some in the Indian leadership might see AUKUS weakening the Quad by leaving India and Japan out. But it sets the stage for a more vigorous security engagement among three important strategic partners of India and will contribute to New Delhi’s own quest for a stable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. It will be a while-perhaps late in the next decade- before Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines start prowling the Indo-Pacific. coalition-already known by the acronym AUKUS-is among treaty allies, but also aims at leveraging nuclear cooperation to facilitate strategic outcomes in the Indo-Pacific: In this case, to significantly enhance Australia’s military capabilities and bind it in a long-term relationship to Britain and the United States. It also paved the way for India’s participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, with Australia, Japan, and the United States. ![]() and global non-proliferation bureaucracies-helped harmonize the two countries’ strategic interests. The historic civil nuclear initiative-implemented in the face of relentless opposition from U.S. Bush administration to end India’s international nuclear isolation helped transform the ties between New Delhi and Washington. Realists in New Delhi will recall how the decision by the George W. By drawing London into the new trilateral coalition with Canberra, Washington is also ensuring a long-term role for its traditional European ally in stabilizing the Indo-Pacific. Until now, the United States has shared the technology of military nuclear propulsion-used to power submarines with unparalleled stealth, speed, range, and endurance-only with the United Kingdom. In ending the long-standing taboo on transferring military nuclear propulsion technology even to its allies, the United States is also acknowledging that deterring China requires outside-the-box thinking. The objective of the coalition is to help Australia build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and deepen security cooperation in other areas, such as defense-related artificial intelligence and quantum computing, cyberwarfare, and underwater technologies.įrom New Delhi’s perspective, the new coalition signals a strong political resolve in Washington to confront the growing security challenges from Beijing. For India, the formation of the new Indo-Pacific coalition AUKUS-among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States-is welcome for a number of reasons. ![]()
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