Managing the U.S.-Japan Alliance

Squaring the Triangle: An Australian Perspective on Asian Security Minilateralism

25 the national bureau of asian research Squaring the Triangle: An Australian Perspective on Asian Security Minilateralism Rory Medcalf RORY MEDCALF is Director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is a former diplomat, intelligence analyst, and journalist, and can be reached at . Originally published in: William Tow, Michael Auslin, Rory Medcalf, Akihiko Tanaka, Zhu Feng, and Sheldon W. Simon, “Assessing the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue,” National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR Special Report, no. 16, December 2008.© 2012 The National Bureau of Asian Research. This PDF is provided for the use of authorized recipients only. For specific terms of use, please contact . EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This essay examines the criteria Australia uses in deciding whether to pursue minilateral security dialogue arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region, applied to the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) and the short-lived quadrilateral dialogue. MAIN ARGUMENT Australia’s deepening role in the TSD with the U.S. and Japan, and its flirtation with a quadrilateral dialogue involving India, can be explained according to a set of nationalinterest criteria that include, but go beyond, a soft balancing of Chinese influence. These include a wish to help socialize Japan as an active regional security provider, an imperative to keep U.S. attention focused on the region, and a concern to ensure a continued major place for Australia in the system of U.S. alliances and partnerships. POLICY IMPLICATIONS • Australia will benefit from sustaining and deepening the TSD, while using its new strategic dialogue with China to help moderate any Chinese perceptions of the TSD as a threat. • The experiment of the quadrilateral dialogue suggests that Asia-Pacific countries should make a greater effort to identify areas for security dialogue and cooperation where shared values are not a prerequisite for progress. • At the same time, Australia cannot assume that its distancing itself from the quadrilateral dialogue will end the trend of connecting the spokes among U.S. allies and partners: Canberra will need to be mindful of potentially being excluded from a continuation of that process, for instance through growing Japan-India ties. 27 SQUARING THE TRIANGLE u MEDCALF 27 A notable feature of Asia-Pacific regional security architecture in the first decade of the 21st century has been a modification of the rigid hub-and-spoke system of bilateral alliances centered on the United States. Specifically, this has involved what might be termed “connecting the spokes”: the creation and strengthening of strands of dialogue and cooperation among U.S. allies and partners.1 Australia’s moves in this direction have included deepening ties with Japan through a 2007 security declaration and the first steps toward a serious strategicrelationshipwithIndia.New“minilateral”mechanismshavealsoemerged,however,which strengthen security relations between U.S. partners and allies while simultaneously tightening these states’ links with Washington. The most developed of these mechanisms is the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD) involving the United States, Japan, and Australia. A less successful venture was the quadrilateral dialogue (or “quad”), which included India. This dialogue convened once in 2007 before being set aside. This essay offers an evaluation of the TSD and, briefly, of the quad from the perspective of Australian national interests. It poses the following questions: What does Australia want from regional security architecture? How does the TSD fit Australia’s requirements? Did the quad fit Australia’s requirements, and if not, why not? The preliminary conclusions from this brief discussion are useful in explaining some of Australia’s choices regarding participation in and prioritization of particular minilateral institutions as well as in predicting future Australian policy behavior in this field. The Rise of Minilateralism The Asia-Pacific appears doubly cursed when it comes to region-wide multilateral diplomatic architecture. On the one hand, there are too many arrangements.2 The region is criss-crossed by an array of forums, with overlapping memberships and agendas and a confusing range of appellations and acronyms: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), various ASEAN +1 arrangements, ASEAN +3, and the East Asia Summit. On the other hand, the architecture generally does too little. Dialogue tends to be superficial and to skirt sensitive issues, interstate cooperation and policy harmonization are curtailed by the jealous protection of national sovereignty, and the region lacks the genuine confidence-building measures so familiar in European security multilateralism. The weakness of multilateralism in Asia...