Lord Risby is Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Council on Geostrategy, and a former Conservative MP.
Question marks over our defence capabilities have emerged in post-budget discussions. Calls for higher defence spending grow increasingly loud.
Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, supported by North Korea and Iran amidst a widespread lack of international enthusiasm for Ukraine, alongside China’s growing military capabilities, its close friendship with Russia, its extensive activities in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America, have been a collective wake up call, underlining the dangerous attempts to rewrite the international order.
In 2021 Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States began a consultation process to upgrade Canberra’s submarine capability – AUKUS. Australia has become concerned by unwelcome Chinese naval activity in the Indo-Pacific region. That now looks highly prescient.
The UK is already fully integrated into the security architecture of the Euro-Atlantic. In recent years we have engaged with the nations of the Indo-Pacific with much greater commitment, as well as integrating the UK more deeply in the region’s security, benefiting from the economic and business opportunities offered there. But it is AUKUS, a technology accelerator agreement, that promises to have the greatest potential impact on regional and global security.
The agreement centres on two pillars. Through pillar one, which is about equipping Australia with nuclear-powered submarines and Britain’s next-generation undersea capabilities, we ensure that our defence infrastructure is of the highest standard. This will allow us to continue to participate in upholding a world free from coercion and the use of force in both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.
Through pillar 2 two, which is concerned with accelerating and deepening the development and delivery of state-of-the-art military capabilities, the UK helps ensure that in a world so influenced by advanced technology systems, we will not fall behind key developments.
AUKUS acts as a transparent and intensively close way of enhancing our trilateral relationship. It gives Britain a chance to share in the upgrading of the capabilities of two of our closest partners. The magnitude of its opportunity cannot be overstated. We already have a strong relationship with the US and Australia, but AUKUS plans to better operationalise this bond and take it to further heights.
AUKUS is an initiative that goes above and beyond the vagaries of electoral cycles. It must, as the project will require sustained effort and consistent expenditure from governments in all three partner countries into the 2040s. It is a firm signal that we are placing greater emphasis on each others’ geostrategic sensibilities and objectives, embedding a long-term step-by-step strategic partnership. For it to be successful we cannot duck out of supporting appropriate defence expenditure.
In order to maximise the functional benefits of AUKUS, higher spending must be viewed as a national endeavour, expressed as such and given overarching focus across all relevant parts of government. This will enable us to embrace fully the generational commitment that AUKUS demands.
In building a more integrated deterrence posture, greater interoperability – the ability of military equipment or groups to operate in conjunction – will be required across the three nations. This enhanced informs collaborative projects through pillar two, such as shared approaches to the next generation of advanced weaponry, such as hypersonic missiles.
There are obvious dangers associated with countries choosing not to obey the rules of the sea. AUKUS is the UK, Australia and the USA united in their effort to resist and if necessary push back together against such activity. A key element to ensuring that the long-term vision of AUKUS is realised will be enhanced people-to-people, governmental and educational links between the three countries, which is already beginning to happen.
The benefits of this long-term generational partnership will not be felt just in the realm of international security but here in Britain directly.
What we know is that the nature of defence and warfare is changing dramatically, such that in pillar two, key areas have been identified for sharing and development. Fundamentally, they are undersea capabilities, but also quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, advanced cyber, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities, electronic warfare, and innovation and information sharing.
Of considerable and enduring importance, AUKUS offers a concerted attempt to integrate our top civil, public, and private companies with our own industrial base. In the past, this has been woefully neglected. This will in turn stimulate the British economy by providing jobs and improving skills, especially in Barrow-in-Furness, where the new submarines will be built.
We thus need bold new ideas, and to pursue them in tandem with our closest allies and partners. AUKUS is key to this. It is about investing in and with our partners, shoulder to shoulder, for the future, so that we can uphold and maintain the international order that is currently so clearly threatened.
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Author: Lord Risby
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