The US alliance and defending Australia: Hugh White

she won't welcome to sp nice to be back let's start with a central irony a central truth the entrapment abandonment tension in the Alliance and the the irony in a way that the greatest threat to Australia's alliance with the u.s. is always in some ways going to be the u.s. what the US demands or what the u.s. fails to deliver and you're starting to think that it's kind of failed to deliver yep I think traditionally Australians have worried more about entrapment and abandonment we're worried that being an ally of the United States is going to drag us into Wars we don't want to fight and you think that you know long history of debates about Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and so on but I let that's been a legitimate concern but I think by far annoyed a bigger concern we face today is abandonment that is of the United States ceases to play the role in Asia and the role in our security that we have wanted it to play and that our defense policy today continues to assume that it will play you know well our whole defense policy is based on the idea that United States will remain the dominant power in Asia and as such will prevent any major power challenge to Australia security and that if some reason that doesn't work out and we do face a threat from a major power the United States will be there to defend us and I think the core argument I'm making in the book is that we can no longer base out offense policy on those assumptions and that's a very unsettling conclusion to reach because although we've often there's a premise of your question suggests being anxious about how much our alliances are demanding of us we've tended to be fairly confident that come what may they would deliver for us and that's what I think we now have to reconsider why do you say that China is going to win and the u.s. is going to lose look because in the end China is more powerful relative to United States than any adversary the United States has ever faced before just take the Australian Treasury's figures as given in the government's 2017 foreign policy white paper in 2030 11 years from now they estimate China's GDP will be 42 trillion and America's will be 24 42 to 24 America has never since it emerged from isolationism at the end of the 19th century America has never faced a power with an economy bigger than its own now as China's power grows as its wealth grows its power grows as its power grows the costs are missing to the United States of trying to preserve its leadership role in Asia in the face of China's very clear challenge goes up and the question then is well is America sufficiently committed to preserving its position in Asia to pay those higher costs and risks and I'm very unpersuaded that they are I think those customers are going to be very high not only because China's powerful but because it's very resolved to establish itself as a leading power in East Asia in the western Pacific and I don't think American policymakers have seriously engaged with those risks nor have they attempted to sell them to the American public to persuade the American public that America must in its own interests remain the primary power in Asia at the price it will cost them to do so in the face of China's power and results history says that the u.s. does stay the course it suffers a disastrous draw and career it loses a war in Vietnam it stays the course in the global competition with the Soviet Union why would America not stay the course just because China is going to be pushing a bit in the region yes really important question if we look back and the premise of question is right the fact is until now America has always when its had moments of doubt its shaken itself and said ok let's go ahead but I think the difference this time is that it's never faced a power in Asia or anywhere else as powerful as China is today remember that at the height of its power in the middle of the Cold War the Soviet Union Nevadan economy bigger than half the size of America's China's 10 years from now it's going to be near enough to twice the size of America's I think for all the fact that we've talked about the rise of China to wear blue in the face in this town for a decade or two decades we still haven't really caught on to what the rise of China means it is the most fundamental shift in the distribution of global wealth and power since Australia was settled by Europeans so I think that is a that is that the first point the second point is that we look back through America's history of engagement beyond the Western Hemisphere never any trouble getting Americans to engage in the Western Hemisphere the Monroe Doctrine really is highlighted of the American strategic psyche but the big question is what what draws America to engagement beyond the Western Hemisphere and I think there's a fairly consistent pattern here repeatedly in 1917 in 1941 and again as the post Cold War as a post-world War two cold war environment evolved in the late 40s America faced the prospect that a single power or group of powers could dominate the whole of the Eurasian landmass Germany where it looked like it might win first the first world war the Nazis and Imperial Japan in 1941 and the Soviets of course in the early days of the Cold War in the late 40s and into the 50s in all of those cases America faced the very real threat that a single power would dominate the whole of Eurasia and a power that could dominate the whole of Eurasia would have the power to threaten the United States at home in the Western Hemisphere that in the end and there was a very good essays by George Kennan on this when he was writing after he's retired from the State Department that in the end is what's driven America out of the Western Hemisphere at a global engagement and it's and that's why in the end it ran the whole way through the Cold War with extraordinary commitment of American resources and risk and courage to win the Cold War after the Cold War there was very real doubt as to whether America would do that and you know we tend to forget how uncertain Americans were in the early 90s about its future role in Asia but in the end it did decide to stay engaged in Asia but why because it decided it was going to be cheap in the 1990s China was not resisting America's position at the leading power in a neither was Japan United States was facing no contestation to its strategic position in Asia therefore preserving primacy with Chiba why wouldn't you do it though it's not going to cost you very much what's different today is that America faces higher costs and risks because of China's power and resolve and it doesn't have a commensurate imperative to preserve that leadership and when the costs are high and the imperatives are low I think the chances of that policy being sustained have got to be seen to be very low if Donald Trump is in some sense is the least strategic US president were ever likely to see the US president with least sense of history least sense of a world beyond New York even Trump is not in the ends stepping back from Asia in the way that you're talking about he's he's fuming about the cost of alliances but the the Washington strategy that we're seeing coming out from the United States the indo-pacific strategy is not a withdrawal strategy well a couple of points there I'm not sure that Trump is the least strategic president we've ever seen his strategy is different and I'm far from sure that Trump himself is committed to the new cold war with China he never talks about it he never he personally never describes China as a strategic rival he has a very strong focus on China as an economic rival but the language of strategic rivalry the language that we have seen coming out of Washington directly write the language coming out of Washington in the last 18 months since the national security strategy of December 1917 through vice-president Pence's Hudson Institute speech you know I guess knocked over last year and things we've seen since then there's a very steady drumbeat of the various surge of statements by the United States about the strategic rivalry they see from China and their commitment to resist but but Trump does not say it and I think this is trumping entirely consistent Trump has a vision of America's strategic posture which is quite Jacksonian that is that America does not for like a traditional therefore sort of pre pre twentieth century America does not set out to rule the world and does not set out to lead the globe and bring salvation to mankind it simply seeks to look after itself so if you threaten America Donald Trump's strategy will reach out and grab you but if you don't threaten America then you're somebody else's problem and Trump's approach to alliances has been completely consistent with that now that's not to say the Trump might not get the United States into a war with China but if he does it won't be because China threatens American leadership in Asia it's because China threatens his own sense of himself I think he is potentially a dangerous leader but a dangerous leader because of his personal sensitivities his egocentricity rather than the coherent strategic vision and under what's under what circumstances do you see the u.s. going to war with China very important question neither America nor China no one's serious in Washington no one's serious I'm sure in Beijing wants to see it war between these two powers and that's good news but it doesn't get you very far when doesn't want to over over rigged these historical analogies but you don't know ignore them either the real historical analogy was not in for Dame today he is not that we've got a rising power meeting an established power the sort of acidities argument though of course that's true but the real analogy the one that sends a shiver down my spine is the analogy between the situation we face today in the situation at the powers of Europe found themselves in in July the second half of July the last week of July 1914 because in the last week of July 1914 none of the major powers wanted to go to war but all of them believed they could get what they wanted without going to war because they believed the other side would back down the Austrians thought they could punish the Serbs without getting at being attacked by the Russians because they thought the Russians would let their Serbian allies down the Russians thought they could attack the Austrians without going to war with the Germans because they thought the Germans would let the Austrian allies down and so on the whole way around the clock and they were all wrong now what does that mean in Asia today you look at a situation of like Taiwan the Americans may well believe that they can resist a Chinese military pressure against Taiwan without getting themselves into a full-scale war with China because the Chinese would back off the Chinese may very well believe that the United States would not do that because the Chinese would because the Americans would back off in other words neither side wants a war but both believes they can get what they want without it well because I think the other one will back down and if they're both wrong then they both step into a conflict which neither side is then able to get that because once you step into the contact the stakes with conflict the stakes become higher so I think the chances of the US and China going to war not accidentally in the sense that you know they both do intend the war they just both find themselves in a situation where choosing the war is the least bad outcome because therefore may taken prior steps which were based on an underestimate of one another's result and I'm very struck by how often in conversations with Americans I with Americans who are in part of the strategic policy community their tendency to assume that China would not in the end risk a major war with the United States is very deeply entrenched I think profoundly mistaken under what circumstances would Australia not side with the United States in a war with China well let me change the question a bit under what circumstances should Australia not side with United States in a war with China well straight off the pin in a war that we don't think is likely to succeed in achieving its strategic objectives if we were confident that by supporting the United States in conflict with China we could reestablish reassert American leadership in the region and lead to a durable post-war order in which US leadership was established and protected and endure and enduring in other words if we think believe that fighting a war would take us back to the old status quo that we have known and loved for so long then there would be an argument for fighting that war because that would be a very desirable outcome but the less confident you are that that was the outcome the less credible it is that Australia should you in such a war and I think the chance of that outcome are exceptionally low the United States has no capacity to win a quick easy victory against the Chinese you know in a conventional war and failing that the risk of stalemate leading to escalation leading to a nuclear exchange is very high interestingly enough the first of those propositions at least was confirmed even by the u.s. itself in the East Asia strategy report they published at the beginning of June this year where they said there's not a direct quotation but that the United States no longer has an advantage in the early stages of conflict with China so the second part of the answer is depends what kind of what we're talking about now people when they talk and speak in Australia about supporting the United States in a war with China or Iran or anybody else tend to sort of presupposed it'll be short quick and cheap and a war with China will not be that I think the chance for becoming a nuclear war for the reasons I've just sketched a really quite high and so we do need to ask ourselves would Australia really do that I personally think we wouldn't and people who say as many people in this town do that we would have no choice I simply wrong of course we have a choice it will be a terrible choice be terribly serious thing to do but we would have a choice and my argument would be not just that we shouldn't take part in such a war but that we should do whatever we can to display the United States from taking part in it this is a very tough question because you might say for example if the issue is Taiwan well don't we have an interest in in sustaining Taiwan's democracy against the pressures from an authoritarian China yes we do but are those interests worth a war with China which could easily become a nuclear war that's a tough call but I think the answer is no and that of course is the end of the Australia lines for the United States and as the end of America's position in Asia but it's not my but the fact is it works both ways the United States fights the war with China it fights it to a style right it's credentials as regional leader I destroyed and so it's its position in Asia is undermined and its value to Australia's and allies go on anyway this is the point there's no there's there's no easy way around this whatever happens I think we end up with the United States whether it goes to war with China or backs off we end up with an Asia in which the United States ceases to have anything like the strategic ladders had here the - the only way through that which of the through the future which avoids that is either that China backs off which I still think a lot of people in this town and a lot of people in Washington are somehow hoping will happen that the Chinese will decide that notwithstanding the fact that their economy despite all the naysayers keeps on going not like not a 10% per annum but at 6% per annum but the Chinese will somehow suddenly decide on oh that's okay we've changed our mind we're happy to live under under America's strategic leadership forever not very many things in this business that I'm prepared to say will not happen but I'm gonna chance it on that one that will not happen the other alternative of course is it the US and trying to do some kind of deal but the United States preserves a strong strategic role in Asia but accommodates China's ambitions by giving it more space now seven years ago now I wrote a book that argued that that's exactly what America should do and is what Australia should argue for I never even then thought it was a very likely possibility but I thought it was worth a chance now I think it's very unlikely because I just think the time has passed when America has enough negotiating credentials with China to impose on China that kind of deal that's why I'm become so pessimistic about the future the u.s. role in Asia you what thank you like right please

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Keywords: aspi, hugh white, us alliance

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Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019