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A club for hemming China in
On Monday — the day that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters that Canada is interested in joining the AUKUS defense alliance — documents were released at a public inquiry that showed that Canada’s intelligence agency believes China “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 general elections.”
Also on Monday, as Chinese ships carried out exercises in disputed waters in the South China Sea, the US, UK, and Australia announced that they were talking to Japan about inviting that country to participate in Pillar II of the security pact.
China’s growing military and political belligerence is rattling other countries, and they are responding by drawing together in a way that would have been out of the question a decade ago.
Neighbors under pressure
Pillar I of AUKUS, which was announced in 2021, is a collaboration between Australia, the Americans, and the Brits aimed at adding a powerful new capacity to Australia’s military: nuclear-powered (though conventionally armed) submarines. This is a huge spend for Australia — $368 billion over 30 years — that carries an inherent political risk. And to make the deal, Canberra had to blow up relations with France by abandoning a deal to buy French subs. The Aussies only did that after a year of tense political and economic confrontations with China that left decision-makers in that country gravely concerned about its future in a neighborhood dominated by Beijing. Australia’s back was against the wall.
Like Australia, Japan is being driven to closer cooperation with the United States by its concerns about an increasingly powerful and assertive China. Japan’s trade-focused economy depends on international shipping passing freely through the South China Sea, for instance, where China has been clashing with the Philippines.
So Tokyo has reason to be interested in Pillar II of the AUKUS arrangement, which focuses on defense technology sharing, including quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, artificial intelligence, and electronic warfare — all areas where China presents a technological challenge, and where Japan could offer expertise.
With China rapidly expanding its military, Japan has decided to break with its post-war pacifist tradition and dramatically increase defense spending.
Northern lightweights
Canada is also opening its checkbook, but at a much smaller scale, which would explain why the AUKUS partners are making a point of talking about doing business with Japan, rather than Canada.
Nobody is talking about adding other countries as full members, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday, but proceeding on a project-by-project basis.
Historically, Canada spends little on defense, falling well short of the 2% of GDP that NATO members have all agreed to spend. In an increasingly dangerous world, though, pressure is mounting for Canada to step up, and on Monday, Trudueau’s government did roll out a five-year plan to bring defense spending up to 1.76% of GDP by 2030, up from 1.38% last year.
Allies welcomed the announcement, but there was nothing significant enough to make Canada a much more desirable partner for AUKUS, says Eugene Lang, a former Liberal defense official turned Queens University professor. Officials are interested.
“I just don’t know that we're doing anything to get their attention,” he says. “What they're doing in AUKUS is investing in developing brand-new technologies. To my knowledge, Canada has not got any specific money set aside for any of that.”
University of Ottawa Professor Thomas Juneau, who has interviewed allied officials about Canada’s potential role in AUKUS, found that Canada is increasingly seen as a free rider in defense and intelligence circles. It’s not surprising that Japan was invited before Canada, he says.
“It's really normal for AUKUS to bring in Japan before Canada because Japan is not only a much bigger country than we are, but it's right next to China.”
Wolf warriors
On the other hand, because of its Five Eyes intelligence-sharing experience, Canada could more easily cooperate with AUKUS than Japan, says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group.
And while it may not be spending enough money to be taken seriously, the Trudeau government has moved to be more circumspect in its relationship with China, limiting Chinese investment in critical minerals and being cautious about research projects.
“The scales have fallen from a lot of politicians’ eyes in the West,” Thompson says. “The question remains, how do you have constructive diplomatic and economic relations with Beijing, while at the same time competing with them geopolitically and seeking to build up and maintain deterrence?”
China will object to the new alliances being organized around it, but don’t expect Beijing to stop buying sabers and rattling them.
“China has a rising economy, so the idea that its rising economic power wouldn't come with rising geopolitical ambition is a fantasy, and we've kind of believed in that fantasy for a while, not just in Canada but in other Western countries,” says Juneau.
“But it was a fantasy all along.”
File Photo: The South Korea and U.S. alliance fired eight combined surface-to-surface missiles ATACMS into the East Sea in response to North Korea multiple ballistic missile (SRBM) provocation from around 4:45 p.m on June 6, 2022.
Did the Ukrainians just use ATACMS?
Ukrainian officials have pleaded with Washington for months to provide its military with so-called Army Tactical Missile Systems, widely known as ATACMS, to hit important Russian targets deep behind enemy lines. It appears the US has now sent a small number of these missiles – and Ukraine claims that it used them on the battlefield on Tuesday to big effect. Its Special Operations Forces say they destroyed nine Russian helicopters, an air defense launcher, and an ammunition depot, with multiple Russian casualties.
Were the weapons they used the sought-after ATACMS? Ukraine isn’t saying, though President Volodymyr Zelensky dropped some not-so-subtle hints following the strike. “I thank those who are destroying at scale the logistics and bases of the occupiers of our land. We have results,” Zelensky said Tuesday. “I thank certain partners of ours: effective weapons, just as we agreed.”
Zelensky has every reason to talk up Ukrainian successes. The counteroffensive has so far fallen well short of the hopes and expectations of allies. The crisis in Israel has distracted the US and Europe and may require military resources that might have gone to Ukraine. Some hard-right Republicans in the US have called for a halt to US help for Kyiv.
It’s also likely that the missiles used in this case were an older version of ATACMS that lack the range of the more modern weapons Ukraine is still hoping for. Most targets inside Crimea, for example, remain out of reach for now.
But this attack reminds us that Washington remains Ukraine’s ally, Ukraine’s military remains a potent fighting force, and much still happens behind the scenes that we become aware of only when something large explodes.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes a statement to the media inside The Kirya, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defense, after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday Oct. 12, 2023.
Netanyahu’s failed Gaza strategy
Six days after Hamas launched one of the biggest-ever attacks against Israel, the country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip is ramping up. The Israeli military has ordered some 1.1 million civilians living in the northern half of the Strip to move south ahead of an expected ground invasion.
So far, Israel’s Air Force has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on the Strip, targeting Hamas leaders and infrastructure. But Israel’s military positioning has shifted: In contrast to previous military campaigns where its focus was on conducting surgical strikes on military sites, the IAF is expanding its mandate to include a broader range of Hamas-linked targets, even when they also serve civilian purposes. For instance, in recent days, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, where it said Hamas engineers were being trained to build explosives.
The fact that Hamas is launching its operations from civilian strongholds is also no longer a deterrent for the Israeli military.
Israelis across the right and left, bitterly divided over politics, overwhelmingly back the government’s stated aim of eradicating Hamas and making this the last war Israel fights with the terror group. They also are united in mutual loathing for the current government – led by PM Benjamin Netanyahu – which failed to preempt and respond to Saturday’s carnage, and, according to the public, is responsible for the failed Gaza policy in the first place. A whopping 86% of those polled say the government is responsible for Saturday’s massacre, according to a new Jerusalem Post poll.
Netanyahu, who has been premier for the past 13 years (minus a brief stint in opposition), has sought to bolster Hamas in the Gaza Strip to weaken its rival, the Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank.
As long as the secular nationalist PA remains feeble under octogenarian President Mahmoud Abbas, the thinking went, Bibi and his right-wing governments could avoid having real conversations about Palestinian statehood.
Under Netanyahu’s watch, Hamas has received truckloads of cash from the Qataris that it has used to bolster its terrorist infrastructure. What’s more, it increased work permits for Gazans in Israel to nearly 20,000 in 2023 compared to 2,000-3,000 in 2021 in an attempt to keep the calm in Gaza.
Part of this approach was rooted in a core belief: better the devil you know than the one that you don’t. As a result, Israel was willing to tolerate rocket attacks and semi-regular military flare ups with Hamas and other terror outfits. But Saturday’s massacre has shown this to be an abject policy failure.
“We have here the collapse of Netanyahu’s conception that if he weakens PA and strengthens Hamas,” the status quo can be maintained, said al-Monitor journalist Ben Caspit at a webinar on Thursday.
So what – or who – comes next? Although no one knows who might take over the Gaza Strip if Hamas is wiped out, Israeli leaders no longer believe that tomorrow could be worse. The worst has already come.
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South Korean soldiers check military fences as they patrol near the demilitarized zone separating North Korea from South Korea, in Paju, north of Seoul February 12, 2013.
Hamas attacks prompt South Korean security rethink
Seoul’s painful history with North Korean infiltration – including deadly border skirmishes and incidents along the Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the countries – means it can’t afford to ignore Israel’s deadly experience with Hamas. Newly appointed Defense Minister Shin Won-shik cited the Hamas attacks on Tuesday when he said South Korea would suspend its participation in a military agreement with North Korea that limits where Seoul can deploy drones, ships, and foot patrols along the DMZ.
The agreement dates back to the previous administration of President Moon Jae-in, who pursued a policy of reconciliation with Pyongyang. But current President Yoon Suk-yeol has taken a hawkish tack. Though there have been no deadly border incidents since 2018, when the agreement was signed, Kim Jong Un’s missile and nuclear provocations have driven relations between the countries into the ditch – and Pyongyang has notably violated the agreement at least 12 times.
The opposition in control of South Korea’s legislature is likely to protest the move. They see the deal as a crucial safety valve that keeps tempers from boiling over – something they say is crucial when relations are so poor.
Still, the suspension is likely to be approved. While formally ending the deal entails a complex legal process, suspending it only requires the assent of the Cabinet.