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Ashley Townshend Profile picture
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Dec 6 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
1/ This year’s Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (#AUSMIN) are taking place today with a focus on collective deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. I expect the alliance to accelerate down this path. But it must also attend to the challenges this involves 🧵
smh.com.au/politics/feder…
2/ For context, the Australia-US alliance has become the pace setter for regional efforts to balance China’s power, bolster America’s eroding strategic position, and deepen integration btw allies and partners to collectively defend the Indo-Pacific order. iiss.org/publications/s…
3/ Nowhere is this agenda more apparent than in the rapid expansion of US-Australia force posture initiatives, which recently attracted a lot of attention when news “broke” about Canberra’s decision to support US bomber operations from northern Australia.
4/ Last year’s #AUSMIN was the big news on this score, resolving to enhance air, land and maritime posture arrangements, and to establish a combined logistics, sustainment and maintenance enterprise to support high-end military operations in the region.
5/ Today’s #AUSMIN is likely to flesh out this agenda. I’m esp looking for rotational placing of warships/subs, long-range fires cooperation, and more MRO + logistics: fuel/munitions/materiel stocks, new airfield and port infrastructure, greater AUS ability to sustain US assets.
6/ Posturing for combined military ops is essential. Given China’s missile threat, US needs more dispersed and resilient locations to operate/pre-position forces. AUS' strategic geography and support for a strategy of collective defence are invaluable.
7/ But this is uncharted terrain for the alliance. Posture integration w/out formal mechanisms for combined planning (which we've has never had) brings risk. Both sides must align expectations re roles, responsibilities, thresholds for action in a crisis. ussc.edu.au/analysis/opera…
8/ Expectations also need to be aligned – and fulfilled – on defence industrial integration. Australia has long sought reform to US tech transfer/export control rules (ie ITAR) to enable seamless defence tech cooperation and boost AUS’ industrial base. breakingdefense.com/2022/06/the-nt…
9/ Last year’s #AUSMIN resolved to advance this agenda through NTIB, GWEO and AUKUS. But progress has been glacial. Export control reform won’t make the cut today. But I’m looking for progress on AUS production of munitions/components under US licence, incl LRASM, HIMARS, MLRS.
10/ Empowering Australia to be a more capable defence industrial partner muse be seen as a critical enabler of wider posture integration and collective defence aims. The US munitions base is ill-equipped for conflict with China. A source of supply in AUS is logistically valuable.
11/ There’ll be much more on the #AUSMIN agenda. But these two areas – combined posture and defence industrial integration – have potential to operationalise the alliance in unprecedented ways, provided risks are managed and both work in sync. It can be done but won’t all be easy

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More from @ashleytownshend

Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Dec 7
1/ This year's #AUSMIN is a wrap. On Indo-Pacific defence and security, its a lop-sided outcome. Ongoing progress on force posture integration, but little on AUS' push for US support to empower its defence industrial base in aid of the alliance. Short 🧵: defense.gov/News/Releases/…
2/ As expected, AUSMIN fleshed out some of the big force posture enhancements laid out in 2021. Progress here is incremental. For Air Force, it's more of the same infrastructure buildup and rotations. For Navy and Army, no specifics are agreed to yet, which is surprising. Image
3/ On the logistics, sustaining and maintenance front, there's more tangible progress. Prepositioning warstocks and preparing bare bases/airfields for military rotations is essential for distributing US forces and leveraging Aus strategic geography. Image
Read 8 tweets
Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Oct 31
A lot of breathless chatter about B-52s in Australia. For such an important bilateral force posture initiative, this isn't helpful for public understanding or debate. I given my own analysis to @4corners. But sensationalism is taking over. So a brief 🧵1/
abc.net.au/news/2022-10-3…
The story's headline is misleading. It’s not a US Air Force plan to deploy B-52s. It’s a joint Australia-US decision. Or, more accurately, a series of decisions Canberra has made with Washington since 2011. You can trace these on @DefenceAust's website: 2/ defence.gov.au/Initiatives/US…
Australia's agency should be central to @4corners story. Instead, it implies Washington is calling the shots and embroiling Australia in its warplans. This is wrong. The decision is bilateral, governed by a 2014 treaty, and supported by a working group. 3/ dfat.gov.au/geo/united-sta…
Read 16 tweets
Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Oct 28
Biden’s National Defense Strategy (NDS) is finally out. From an Indo-Pacific standpoint, it can be summed up as follows: China's the priority threat, the US can’t deter it alone, so much more is required from allies and partners. My initial thoughts: 1/ media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/20… Image
NDS deserves credit for frankness about the demands of competition w China/Russia. This requires accepting risks in other areas, deeper reliance on allies/partners, and reform to broken DoD processes (ie R&D, acquisition) and defence ecosystem (ie export controls, innovation) 2/ Image
It also deserves credit for its brief but intelligent grasp of the reqs for successful deterrence of China – which involve denial, resilience, and collective cost imposition (strategic, conventional, horizontal) in a dynamic where perceptions are key and deterrence is tailored 3/ Image
Read 10 tweets
Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Oct 13
The Biden admin’s National Security Strategy is finally out. It’s far too late to meaningfully set policy direction, serving instead as a fairly predictable strategic messaging exercise. Some initial takeaways from an Indo-Pacific security perspective🧵 1/ whitehouse.gov/wp-content/upl…
First, this is maximalist strategy out of sync with US means, as @EmmaMAshford has noted. In fact, only thing taken off the agenda is regime change in Middle East. A strategy that doesn’t make hard choices isn’t a strategy. Those choices will, instead, be made by circumstances 2/
Second, there’s a stronger emphasis on interconnections btw Europe and Indo-Pacific than in the interim NSS. Some links clearly exist. But the idea that these security orders are fundamentally interdependent is unproven. It’s convenient to say so if you want to avoid tradeoffs 3/
Read 9 tweets
Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Jul 15
My 2c: I’d call AUKUS a “work in progress” set of defence industrial and tech sharing/development initiatives.

Agree, it’s more than an arms deal, more than just military, builds on existing cooperation, and is *not* an alliance or vehicle for foreign/defence policy action.

1/
This isn’t necessarily good. AUKUS (advanced capabilities, not subs) is at risk of overstretch because it means different things to different bureaucratic actors within and between 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 — which is why we have all these well-informed debates about *what it is* on Twitter.

2/
For some it’s about fielding game-changing military capabilities in the 2020s; for others it’s about next-gen tech co-development, or new research collabs, or leveraging advanced tech p’ships for whole-of-society payoffs etc. Some are focused on acquisition, others on R&D.

3/
Read 5 tweets
Ashley Townshend Profile picture
Jun 14
I’m pleased to share my new @IISS_org analysis with @jamescrabtree on the state of US defence strategy, alliances and partners in the Indo-Pacific, launched at #SLD22.

It’s a sobering read. A🧵on why we’re so worried about the trajectory of US strategy. 1/iiss.org/publications/s…
Some good news first: the Biden admin recognises the Indo-Pacific should be its top priority and China its pacing challenge.

It realises the US can’t uphold a favourable balance of power vs China by itself (see graph) and its trying to advance a strategy of collective defence 2/
But the US has not matched its Indo-Pacific rhetoric w the actions and resources needed to bolster its strategic position

Despite some progress, the Biden admin is lagging on the three key elements of US defence strategy in the region: prioritisation, posture and partnerships 3/
Read 12 tweets

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