AUKUS defence pact is good news for the West, only up to a point

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Remember back at the G7 meeting in Cornwall in the summer? The talk then was of Britain being on the back foot internationally. Post-Brexit, President Macron’s France was supposedly in the process of forging a much stronger relationship with the Biden White House. The beaten up Brits under Boris Johnson were being bashed about over the question of sausages, in relation to the Northern Ireland border. It was a tale of isolated, silly old Britain, declining in importance and being eclipsed by a  geopolitically sophisticated Europe led by France.

The truth is that on the edges of the G7 jamboree American, Australian and British officials were already making good progress on a secret defence pact. It didn’t leak. At all. On Thursday evening, AUKUS was unveiled by the leaders of the three countries. Rather than building nuclear-powered submarines with France, the Aussies gave Macron’s team just a few hours of warning that they have decided to buy American.

The subs are just one part of the deal, though. The three countries propose – and we’ll see how meaningful this is – to share technology. AI, Artificial intelligence, is increasingly going to shape warfare and intelligence. The subtext is America beginning a reorganisation of the West against an increasingly assertive China. Not with the aim of triggering a conflict, but to show the Chinese Communist Party that the democracies will stand together in the face of threats, espionage and bullying, of the kind inflicted on an exposed Australia that shares a neighbourhood with China.

To describe the French government as being furious about being cut out of this deal would be an understatement, akin to saying Napoleon Bonaparte was a determined chap with an interest in military strategy, or the French are jealous that the language of rock’n’roll is English, or that they make some not bad red wine in the Bordeaux region. Macron’s team said the pact is a “stab in the back”. It is hard to imagine stronger language being used publicly about an ally.

In the narrow context of Brexit it is possible, but wrong, to see this as a big Anglosphere win with no reservations. Yes, the US and the UK are building with Australia an alliance to deter China without involving continental Europe. The EU is a trading giant but on questions such as defence and intelligence it is hopeless. So with China rising, the Anglosphere, or part of that grouping, is getting on with it. 

With unintentionally comical timing, Ursula von der Leyen chose this week to say that the EU member states must unify on defence and security. VDL was in a former life, before becoming Commission President, a notoriously ineffective German defence minister, best known for arguments over politically correct uniforms. Most EU states refuse to spend enough on defence and decline even to think seriously about what to do about the challenges of collective security. The policy can be summarised somewhat crudely as: NATO, it seems, will always be there, somehow. The Americans can pay. Try not to annoy the Russians too much and carry on smiling at Xi and exporting to China.

So, this new pact is just the EU being taught the facts of life?

To view it so simplistically, as a Brexit boon and Anglo win over a naive EU and grumpy old France, would be a grave mistake. The pact, or at least the way it emerged, represents a failure of diplomacy and statecraft by the Biden administration.

Don’t get me wrong. The stunned silence among the Europhile faction in the hours following the announcement will have made some of you smile. I know I laughed for perhaps 30 seconds. This was followed by a brief surge of optimism. And then doubts.

There are several problems.

It is only weeks since the Americans made the most appalling mess of leaving Kabul, abandoning the Afghan people and insulting and disregarding allies in the process. The attitude seemed to be that British officers and others would suck it up because of American air-cover and sheer might. Can this administration be trusted? It doesn’t look like it. We should at least be cautious.

Since the failure of Iraq, successive US Presidents have retreated, scaling back their interest in the outside world. Culturally, America is dominant through the internet and social media. Politically, American politicians have shifted. America’s “head” is somewhere else, in isolationist territory.

The AUKUS pact doesn’t wipe away what happened in Kabul, or the clear message the Americans have been sending the rest of us since the “too cool for school” Obama years, the erratic behaviour of the Trump era, and the ice cold attitude of the Biden team.

The current President of France may be annoying on occasion, but he is the President of France, a proud Republic and great ally. Perhaps the biggest and least mentioned story in European security of the last decade is the extraordinary closeness of the French and British military. They are interwoven, working together constantly.

Macron is partly to blame for how the new deal happened, or why his erstwhile allies are sceptical about French diplomatic intentions. The British have been seeking a bilateral summit for many months and have been turned down. The French said there is nothing to discuss, so no point in a summit. That turned out to be shortsighted.

Macron’s answer is always to say that the solution to European security lies in the EU. Brussels kept suggesting during the Brexit talks that Britain should sign up to be part of a European defence structure. This is a complete non-starter. No British government is going to put the UK under EU defence structures. Something else to facilitate European cooperation, outside Nato and beyond the EU, is required.

Nonetheless, couldn’t the Americans have handled it better and smoothed the way with France, using statecraft to soften the blow and leave open the possibility of French involvement later? Instead, an important move to energise the West ends up leaving it divided. 

What I’m reading

A copy of the FT (Chris Giles saying it’s time to start tightening monetary policy by capping QE, well yeah) as I fly over northern France on the way south. Heathrow was packed, and like the centre of London this week it felt almost… normal. Some things never change though. The venerable and witty gentleman seated next to me on the plane said when BA handed out little bottles after we got airborne that it was shame they contained water and not gin. When he attempted to order a sandwich via the “BA Shop” there was only some kind of feta salad and an alleged tapas arrangement involving hummus. All he wanted was a ham sandwich. None on board. Presumably it’s down to Brexit, or Covid.

This week Niall Ferguson highlighted something similar, tweeting a link to a Harvard guide for students on the  etiquette involved in eating with masks. Try little sips, the student were told.

Try little sips is good advice. I am reminded in that regard of what Dame Ann Leslie said when we flew back from a trip to Japan (organised by the great Bill Emmott, then of the Economist) more than 20 years ago. “My dear,” she said to the air hostess in business class, “with these small measures you are pouring us we are never going to get drunk.”

A bottle was brought.

Here above France in economy class  there is no such carousing. We live in less decadent times, in a puritanical climate. The very nice BA team have just brought round some complimentary crisps. Says the Scottish man next to me, these crisps are hellishly difficult to eat with a mask on.

Reaction dinners

More normality. Reaction dinners are back. At Reaction, we run a Young Journalists Programme. It’s one of the main reasons a group of us set up Reaction in 2016, to offer opportunities to brilliant youngsters who want to be journalists. It’s been very successful, and across Fleet street and beyond are its alumni. The programme is funded by our dinners, with leading authors, historians and politicians speaking. We have two such dinners in the diary, one in October and one in November. If you would like to hear more or support, please email me ASAP.  

Have a good weekend.

Iain Martin,
Editor and publisher,
Reaction