CSS WITH TATHEER

QUAD – AUKUS PACT

CURRENT AFFAIRS WITH MUHAMMAD USMAN ARIF (PAS)
(CSS/PMS MENTOR)
Strategic dialogue between United States , Japan,
Australia and India
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
 INTRODUCTION:

 The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as

the Quad or QUAD) is a strategic dialogue between the United
States, India, Japan and Australia that is maintained by talks
between member countries.

The QUAD INITIATED IN:

 The dialogue was initiated in 2007 by Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, with the support of U.S. Vice
President Dick Cheney, Australian Prime Minister John
Howard, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
 The dialogue was initiated in 2007 by Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, with the support of U.S. Vice
President Dick Cheney, Australian Prime Minister John
Howard, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
  The Quad, officially the Quadrilateral Security
Dialogue, is a group of four countries: the United
States, Australia, India, and Japan. Maritime
cooperation among them began after the Indian
WHAT DOES QUAD Ocean tsunami of 2004. But today the countries—all
DO? democracies and vibrant economies—work on a far
broader agenda, which includes tackling security,
economic, and health issues.
  Working closely with these countries is natural for
the United States. Australia and Japan are U.S. treaty
allies, and India is an important strategic partner.
The Donald Trump administration worked closely
with these countries, and the Biden administration
What are U.S. is expanding the Quad’s agenda.

interests in the  The Indo-Pacific spans two oceans and several

continents, making it important to U.S. maritime
Quad? interests. In 2019, $1.9 trillion worth of U.S. trade
passed through the region. This year, 42 percent of
the world’s exports and 38 percent of global imports
are expected to pass through, according to a UN
report.
 Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was a strong
believer in the Quad’s power to ensure a “free and open Indo-
Pacific.” Abe worked to persuade the Trump administration of
the value of this coalition approach across the Indo-Pacific.

What are Japan depends heavily on open sea lanes for its trade with the
world. The U.S. and Japanese militaries already work closely
Japan’s aims for across the region, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have
slowly built relationships [PDF] with their Australian and
Indian counterparts. Similarly, Japan has played an important
the Quad? role in supporting investment in manufacturing, trade, and
infrastructure development across the region.

Japan and its Quad partners share concerns about China’s role
in the region and Beijing’s challenges to the rule of law.
Beijing’s assertion of its sovereignty in the South China Sea, as
well as Chinese provocations toward islands China and Japan
both claim in the East China Sea, has made Tokyo wary of
China’s military build-up. Strategic consultations with other
Quad partners are vital.
  China’s relations with each of the Quad members have become
more tense during the pandemic. U.S.-China tensions remain high;
Beijing’s frustration was conspicuous when the new Biden foreign
policy team had its first meeting with its Chinese counterpart in
Alaska in March. Australia continues to bear the brunt of Chinese
economic sanctions after suggesting a World Health Organization
investigation into the origins of COVID-19 last year. India and Japan
have clashed with China over territorial disputes. China’s
ambassador to Tokyo has publicly criticized Prime Minister Suga,
claiming that the new Quad diplomacy reflects a “Cold War
How has China mentality” and that it is “100 percent outdated.” In addition, recent
polls have shown negative views of China have soared among
responded? publics across the region.
 Yet, few policymakers in the Quad countries see an advantage in
trying to contain Chinese influence militarily. Instead, the Quad
leaders have emphasized cooperation across areas of shared
interest to bolster confidence in the democracies’ ability to
counter China’s assertion of regional influence. As long as tensions
with China remain, the Quad’s agenda is likely to expand as the
democracies of the Indo-Pacific seek to balance China’s growing
power.
Impacts on PAKISTAN
AUKUS PACT
 The United States , United Kingdom and
Autralia announed new defence deal on
Thursday , Septembet 16th , 2021, under which
America and britain will help Australia deploy
nuclear –power submaries in Pacific region .

WHAT HAS
HAPPENED? Although the leaders of the three counties
have not said so specifically , the deal is being
seen as a step towards curtailing China,which
has made significant aggressive manoeuvres
in the Pacific region, especially in and
around South China Sea , where it
has expansive territorial claims.
 It means Australia will end the contract given to France in
2016 to build 12 diesel electric-powered submarines to
replace its existing Collins submarine fleet. The deal
marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion
technology with an ally apart from the UK.
  Rise of China and Perceived military dominance of
China in this region
Why did  Nuclear-propelled submarines in this context have longer
Australia want to range, are quicker and are harder to detect.
change its the UK national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove,
suppliers? has made it clear Aukus is about more than a class of
The need of the deal
submarine, describing the pact as “perhaps the most
significant capability collaboration in the world anywhere in
the past six decades”
The US president, Joe Biden, spoke of the need to maintain
a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and to address the region’s
“current strategic environment”
 WHAT IS AUKUS:
 Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that a "a
new enhanced trilateral security partnership between
Australia , the United Kingdom and United Staes ,
named "AUKUS"

WHAT IS THE
AGREEMENT? CONTINUED...
 Will be a "partnership where our technology , our
scientists , our industry, our defence forces are all
working together to deliever a safer and more
secure region that ultimately benefit all."
  The first major initiative of AUKUS , Marrison said ,
would be to deliever a Nuclear-powered submarine
fleeet for Australia.
 "Over the next 18 months, we will work together to
seek to determine the best way forward to achieve
this. This is include an intense examination of what
we need to do to exercise nuclear sterwarship
MAJOR responsibilities here in Australia."
INITIATIVES:  The nuclear –powered submarines will give Australia a
lot of naval heft in the Pacific , where China has been
particularly agrresive.
 While US and Britain have had the capility for
decades,Australia has never had one.
  It means China faces a powerful new defence alliance in
the Indo-Pacific, one that has been welcomed by regional
partners such as Japan.
Geo-political  It also reaffirms that, after Brexit, the US still wants the
significance: UK, and not the EU, engaged as its key military partner.

 . It also gives Biden focus for his post-Afghanistan tilt to

Asia.
  China has been one of Australia's biggest trading
partner , but the relationship has sound over the last few
years.
 It was in consideration of Chinses sensibilities that
AUSTRALIA AND Australia had pulled out of the Malabar Naval
CHINA Exercise with the US, India and Japan after participating
2007 edition.
RELATION  Australia come back to Malabar in 2020, which marked
the first time in 13 years that the navies of the four
QUAD nations war –gamed together.
  The domestic unease
 The generosity of the US and the UK is expected to
make Australia the world’s seventh country with a
nuclear submarine. From Australia’s point of view,
AUKUS is poised to “bolster” Australia’s position along
with the Quad and the Five Eyes Alliance, which are
clearly far beyond the proper configuration of a middle
The AUS factor power.

 To boost local military complex: plans to build a future

nuclear submarine project in South Australia, where the
shipbuilding industry is strong, supporting more than
8,000 jobs.
  The establishment of AUKUS marks a major shift in US global
strategy. This shift is based on two irreversible realities that
American elites recognize. One is that China’s rise is unstoppable
and difficult to reverse. The other is that the US no longer has or
has lost the confidence to keep China down on ground, especially
in Eurasia. On the one hand, the “comprehensive strategic
partnership of coordination” between China and Russia, two
Eurasian land powers, is hard to shake. On the other hand, the

The US estrangement between the US and Europe has widened since

Former President Trump; and Brexit marks the end of the era of sea

calculations: power controlling continental European affairs since the Industrial

Revolution, and Europe led by the land powers of Germany and
France is bound to resist the ordering of the US and increasingly
pursue “independence” for its own interests.
 In this regard, AUKUS is essentially the cornerstone of America’s
new strategy of “retreat as advance”. The fundamental purpose of
it is to command the seas and then maintain strategic dominance in
international affairs, especially in the competition with China.
“whoever rules the waves rules the world” under the guidance of Mahan’s concepts of sea power is
that, in contrast to the open and free access of the sea, countries in various regions on land have
always been isolated from each other due to poor transportation, hostile by political confrontation,
blocked by economic closure, and excluded by cultural discrimination. Therefore, as opposed to the
divided and closed land, commanding the open and free sea will hold the strategic initiativ
  when security analysts talk about the “China threat,” they
mean the direct military threat it poses to Taiwan, Japan,
South Korea, India, the Philippines and Vietnam, among
others, but not the three AUKUS signatories – Australia, U.K.
and U.S.
 In fact, China is not only Australia’s number one trading
partner, but also has never threatened Australia militarily, or
implied such a threat. Moreover, the UK is located on the
other side of the planet, while the US maintains a huge and
Who’s ever-expanding lead over the Asian power’s military
capabilities.
Insecurity?  AUKUS is President Biden’s way of outsourcing some of
the heavy lifting that will be required to deter or prevent
a Chinese invasion of Taiwan at some point in the next
two to three decades, with the construction of eight-
nuclear powered submarines in Australia the
centrepiece of his strategy.

Last year, the Pentagon released a report into China’s military and development
capabilities, saying, Chinese security forces continue to “lack a robust deep-water anti-
submarine warfare capability.” Nuclear powered submarines, which can stay beneath the
surface of the ocean longer, making them much harder to detect than their diesel-powered
cousins, are the stuff of Beijing’s worst nightmares.

“The United States already operates 68 nuclear powered submarines. Britain 11,” he
observes. “Once Australia’s nuclear submarines are ready, China’s ability to dominate sea
lanes and invade or blockade Taiwan will be reduced.”

The deal also includes cooperation on missile capabilities, cyber defense, artificial
intelligence, quantum computing, research and development, and industrial supply chains,
according to a statement by the White House.
  Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said the three
countries were in the grip of an “obsolete cold war zero
sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical concepts”
and should “respect regional people’s aspiration […]

Response from otherwise they will only end up hurting their own
interests”.
China  while the state-run Global Times, which often takes a
harder line than Chinese officials, said: “Australian troops
are also most likely to be the first batch of western
soldiers to waste their lives in the South China Sea.”
  Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have already come
out strongly against Australia possessing a fleet of
nuclear-powered submarines.
 Their concerns rooted in the fear that acquiring nuclear-
powered submarines inevitably leads to acquiring nuclear
Response from weapons in the future. Their concerns heightened by

ASENA? Australia not being a signatory to the Treaty on the

Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

 Indonesia, fear the anti-China security alliance will force

them into having to choose between Beijing or
Washington DC, thus forfeiting their “strategic ambiguity.”
  For the last 30 years, the U.S. was able to embark on its Middle
Eastern policy vis-à-vis its European partners, but strategic gains that
directly hinder EU profitability will cause certain fractions in this
practice.
 The most significant impact of AUKUS on the MENA security complex
is expected to be observed in the Eastern Mediterranean. Since the
EU has practically perceived the Turkish pivot for energy resources
towards this area and North African interests in this area as threats,
the U.S. has supported European interests in securing the energy
Impact on routes and protecting the integrity of South European shores.
However, a political dissemination process that was potentially
MENA region. started with AUKUS might divide this unification in foreign policy.

What and how?  The Eastern Mediterranean is a quagmire of competing interests, and
a transatlantic fracture will only escalate the situation. This escalation
might give middle powers like Turkey broader room for maneuver. If
the U.S. stops supporting these interests in the region, the EU
backlash and the hawkish French position will lose a certain share of
their influence and capacity. A significant shift towards the Indo-
Pacific Ocean might reduce the pressure on great and middle powers
competing for interests.
  he French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, less
diplomatically called the deal “a stab in the back”.
 Back in 2016, France had described the Australian
contract as the deal of the century and the start of a 50-
year marriage. It was intended to symbolise a wider
Australian-French alliance in the Indo-Pacific that would
extend to weapons intelligence and communications.
Why France was Australian partnership was also central to its 2018 Indo-
Angry? Pacific strategy.

 The defense export and technology transfer contracts

were argued to be over $60 billion – an impactful boost to
the French defense industry.
 Punching lines
Under American hegemony, Asia Pacific has experienced the
longest period of peace since the start of the Industrial
Revolution, but the emergence of China as a rival power has
created a sense of insecurity not felt in the region since Imperial
Japan invaded Nanjing in 1937, and then soon after the rest of
southeast Asia.
But why is this seen in the context
of possible miltary agreesion
involving China?
  WHAT IS THE IMPLICATION FOR PAKISTAN AND
HOMEWORK CHINA ? WAYFORWARD..
THANK YOU !