AUKUS: A New Cold War in the Indo-Pacific? An Expert Discussion
On November 10, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “AUKUS: A New Cold War in the Indo-Pacific?” In September 2021, the United States, Britain and Australia entered into a trilateral defence cooperation agreement – AUKUS. The main tasks for this cooperation were named: strengthening stability in the Indo-Pacific, developing Australia's military potential and jointly combating new challenges to regional security. However, there is a reason to believe that the new agreement could undermine rather than strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific. Although officially the new alliance does not have an anti-Chinese orientation, it is obvious that its creation will lead to an increase in the presence of the participating countries in a part of the world that has traditionally been the sphere of influence of Beijing, and will become an attempt to contain China, and possibly the beginning of a new Cold War with a large-scale arms race. A number of states, including Russia, have expressed concern that the new format for cooperation could potentially lead to a violation of the nonproliferation regime. AUKUS assumes that the nuclear powers – the United States and Britain – will transfer to Australia the technology for building nuclear submarines with conventional weapons, which could become a dangerous precedent and open a new way for the creation of nuclear weapons by a non-nuclear power. Also, this agreement has led to the termination of a multibillion-dollar contract between Australia and France for the construction of submarines. Paris considered this step a betrayal – the French ambassadors were recalled from Washington and Canberra. What could be China’s response to the creation of a new defence alliance? How will the new agreement affect the relations between the United States, its European allies and Australia? Could Australia become a nuclear power in the future? How should Russia react to the emergence of AUKUS? These and other questions were answered by the participants in the discussion. Speakers: Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney Andrew Futter, Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester, UK Vasily Kashin, Senior Research Fellow, Deputy Director, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) Sim Tack, co-founder and chief military analyst at Force Analysis Moderator: Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.
On November 10, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “AUKUS: A New Cold War in the Indo-Pacific?” In September 2021, the United States, Britain and Australia entered into a trilateral defence cooperation agreement – AUKUS. The main tasks for this cooperation were named: strengthening stability in the Indo-Pacific, developing Australia's military potential and jointly combating new challenges to regional security. However, there is a reason to believe that the new agreement could undermine rather than strengthen security in the Indo-Pacific. Although officially the new alliance does not have an anti-Chinese orientation, it is obvious that its creation will lead to an increase in the presence of the participating countries in a part of the world that has traditionally been the sphere of influence of Beijing, and will become an attempt to contain China, and possibly the beginning of a new Cold War with a large-scale arms race. A number of states, including Russia, have expressed concern that the new format for cooperation could potentially lead to a violation of the nonproliferation regime. AUKUS assumes that the nuclear powers – the United States and Britain – will transfer to Australia the technology for building nuclear submarines with conventional weapons, which could become a dangerous precedent and open a new way for the creation of nuclear weapons by a non-nuclear power. Also, this agreement has led to the termination of a multibillion-dollar contract between Australia and France for the construction of submarines. Paris considered this step a betrayal – the French ambassadors were recalled from Washington and Canberra. What could be China’s response to the creation of a new defence alliance? How will the new agreement affect the relations between the United States, its European allies and Australia? Could Australia become a nuclear power in the future? How should Russia react to the emergence of AUKUS? These and other questions were answered by the participants in the discussion. Speakers: Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney Andrew Futter, Professor of International Politics, University of Leicester, UK Vasily Kashin, Senior Research Fellow, Deputy Director, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) Sim Tack, co-founder and chief military analyst at Force Analysis Moderator: Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.