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Australian Submarines: Why Japan?

10 Sep 2015

Australia’s submarine technology cooperation with Japan is a commitment to burden-sharing with the US in the Asia-Pacific.

In anticipation of the Australia Royal Navy retiring its beleaguered line of Collins submarines in 2025, Australia has three options: replacing the Collins class by building the next fleet domestically, importing off-the-shelf or collaborating with an international partner to have a portion of the future submarines built domestically. Despite Prime Minister Abbott’s campaign pledge to build the submarines domestically, his government has decided to consider working with an international partner.

Currently, the government is running a “competitive evaluation process” to consider proposals from Japanese, French and German companies. Working with Japan is a viable option because of the Japanese submarine industry’s technological superiority, even though it may be politically unpopular in Australia.

From a strategic perspective, Australia should work with Japan because such cooperation would signal to the US that Australia is serious about upholding the US-centered order of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific by: (a) closing Australia’s own capability gap and (b) supporting other US allies in the region, for example by invigorating Japan’s defence industry.

Today, Australia, Japan and the US – three of the richest and most vibrant democracies in the Asia-Pacific – face common challenges both externally and internally. Externally, they must use deft diplomatic and military signaling to shape an increasingly bellicose China’s pattern of behavior so as to avoid any negative security developments. Internally, each of the three countries must contain government spending, balance budgets, and check the growth of government debt. Due to such domestic constraints, none of the three countries will be able to rely solely on internal balancing to achieve the first goal of balancing China. Instead, the trio is seeking ways to optimise external balancing, especially through cooperation with each other. A submarine deal between Australia and Japan would perfectly fit the bill.

If an Australia-Japan submarine deal is realized and all goes well with its implementation, Australia and Japan would individually benefit. Australia will be able to overcome its undersea capability gap in a timely manner and Japan will be able to set a positive precedent to reenter the global weapons market after lifting its self-imposed arms embargo in April 2014. Furthermore, Australia and Japan would also jointly benefit, as they could use the deal to signal to the US the seriousness of their commitment to burden-share in pursuit of regional security and their determination to politically support the US’ “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific.

For states such as Japan and Australia that rely on a patron-ally for their security and are constantly plagued by abandonment fears, signaling commitment to the US is important in order to entice the US to bind itself closer to their security. While Japan’s technological superiority in submarine production makes working with Japanese companies a logical choice for the Australian government regardless of such strategic thinking, alliance considerations are an extremely important factor that must be taken into account in order to explain what is driving Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s outreach to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

It is remarkable that Australia became only the second state in the world to sign an international agreement on security cooperation with Japan in 2007, after all, Japan and Australia have a history: modern Australia faced its first foreign attack from Japan in 1942 at Darwin. After WWII, it took the US’ commitment to Australian security through the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) for Australia to begin rebuilding relations with other Asian states. In the immediate postwar era, it was what the US could do – protect Australia from “the danger of a Japanese renaissance” – that facilitated closer relations between Australia and Japan.

But in the era of the Pacific Century, it is both what the USA can do, as well as cannot do, that encourages greater Australia-Japan cooperation. Because of the financial limits discussed earlier, the US is increasingly encouraging its “spokes” to work together within the “hub-and-spoke” system. But as no other state in the world can come close to matching the US’ capabilities as a patron-ally, Australia and Japan continue to make their security choices based on the belief that the US can and will balance China so long as regional allies are demonstrably willing to pitch in and share the burden.

While it may not be surprising for Australia to seek out other friends in the region, Japanese overtures to Australia go against the grain of its narrowly US-focused security culture that has been inculcated for decades. Japan’s willingness to embrace a “strategic” relationship with Australia signals its resignation to the idea that the US alone can no longer adequately provide for Japan’s security.

Technological issues in Australia and legal and constitutional constraints in Japan continue to limit what they can achieve together bilaterally and trilaterally together with the US, so as Australia and Japan seek to overcome such restrictions, the submarine deal appears a godsend to both sides: Australia can acquire the necessary submarine capabilities to defend its territory and, for Japan, defence-technology cooperation with another US ally can help set a positive precedent for future projects. Within Japan, there is interest in the submarine deal because defence contracts are an untapped export market. However, Japan’s clumsy approach to “selling” submarines to the Australian population and unwillingness to unequivocally commit to building parts of the submarine in Australia could be its undoing.

The US has played a background role in all these developments: the proposed submarine deal is, after all, primarily a bilateral issue between Australia and Japan. But if the purpose of procuring submarines is to be a better partner to the US in the region; this naturally suggests an answer to the question, “why Japan?” Australia is pursing a defence-technology cooperation relationship with Japan in order to signal commitment to the region and a defence-technology cooperation relationship with an extra-regional state would simply not meet that goal.

This article was adapted from ‘Australia’s submarine technology cooperation with Japan as burden-sharing with the USA in the Asia-Pacific‘ originally published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs. Mina Erika Pollmann is a recent graduate Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, majoring in International Politics with a concentration in Foreign Policy, and writes for The Diplomat‘s Tokyo Report. Alan Tidwell is a visiting Professor and Director of the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. This article can be republished with attribution under a Creative Commons Licence.