Edward A. Kolodziej is an emeritus research professor of political science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the founding director of both the Center for Global Studies and the Program in Arms Control & Domestic & International Security at Illinois. An expert in international relations and global politics, Kolodziej spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about the implications of the U.S-U.K. sale of nuclear submarines to Australia.
Why is it important to understand the implications of the recent sale of nuclear submarines to Australia by the U.S. and U.K.?
There are at least two major geopolitical objectives of the sale. First, it’s a response to check China’s military buildup in the South China Sea. Beijing has claimed this vast area as its sphere of influence, akin to the U.S.’s Monroe Doctrine over the Western Hemisphere. Several trillion dollars’ worth of global commerce travels annually through this expanse. If China were to control the waters and the air in this area, it would essentially control large segments of global economic activity and trade relations between nations.
The second and equally important reason for the sale is to strengthen and extend the alliance of the liberal democratic states in East Asia and South Asia to counter and contain Chinese power. The sale is just one element in a long struggle over this century between the liberal democracies and China for control of that region.
The original French-Australian contract was for 12 diesel submarines to be constructed over a decade at a cost of $66 billion. The abrupt and unexpected cancellation of the contract in favor of purchasing eight U.S.-U.K. nuclear submarines prompted France to recall its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. Was France’s outrage prompted more by money or national pride?
At minimum, the U.S.-U.K. sale signaled a clash of the military industrial complexes of the U.S, the U.K. and France to build submarines for Australia. The loss of the French contract was a blow to France’s military industrial complex.
More significantly, the U.S.-U.K. contract was viewed by the French as an assault on the French state. Since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958, with the election of Charles de Gaulle, and even during the Fourth Republic, France has claimed to be a major power. Central to that claim is its sale of sophisticated arms around the world. Between 2013-17, France sold arms to 81 countries, accounting annually for 8% of arms sold globally, third only to the U.S. and Russia. In attacking France’s military industrial complex, the U.S. was attacking the French state and undermining France’s claim to be a major power.
The U.S.-U.K. submarine contract also effectively cut France out of any participation in defining the security architecture of East Asia. There are several million French citizens occupying different parts of that region. In marginalizing France, the U.S. was also marginalizing the European democracies from U.S.-U.K. decision-making in pursuing Western interests in East Asia and the South China Sea.
President Biden has described the diplomatic imbroglio to French President Emmanuel Macron as “clumsy.” Is that accurate?
It was not clumsy. The U.S.-U.K. move was a deliberate decision. If President Biden were being candid, he would have said that the U.S. and the U.K. were “going it alone.” Biden came to power proclaiming that, in contrast to the Trump administration, his administration was going to cooperate with the Europeans on all matters affecting their interests. Well, the Biden administration has essentially undermined its own efforts to cooperate with the European democracies.
The Biden administration essentially reaffirmed the counterproductive “Make America Great Again” strategy of the Trump administration. It’s baffling to me that Biden would align with the Trump administration’s view of the NATO alliance as little more than an economic transactional contract rather than a collective security pact among the liberal democracies to address shared security threats.
What is China’s likely response to this gambit?
Ever since Xi Jinping became president of China in 2013, he’s been determined to develop Chinese military parity with the U.S. and with the West more generally. That objective underscores his design for China to dictate East Asian security and, specifically, to secure Beijing’s control over the South China Sea.
The sale of nuclear submarines to Australia will likely prompt China to accelerate its military buildup – not only of its forces, but also its militarization of the South China Sea, principally in the area of the Spratly Islands, where China is developing logistical and military installations to project its power across that area, extending as far as American bases on Guam. Those efforts are likely to intensify. It also means China will likely attempt to increase its submarine detection capacity since it will be at least 10 years before the Australian nuclear submarines will be at sea – if then.
We are witnessing the start of an arms race throughout Asia not only between the U.S. and China, but also involving all of the other states of the region – including Japan and South Korea, America’s allies.
Editor’s note: To contact Edward A. Kolodziej, email edkoloj@illinois.edu.
The paper “What are the political, economic, and strategic implications of the U.S.-U.K. sale of nuclear submarines to Australia?” is available online.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/111698
