The new Labor Party government in Australia is likely to show continuity on AUKUS and Quad initiatives in the Indo-Pacific, while policy approaches on Pacific Islands and China, as also on climate change, may get a re-look.
India and Australia need to take a leadership role in maritime security affairs in the two oceans and have deeper engagements with the Pacific and Indian Ocean island countries.
While the US, Japan and Australia have taken an overtly critical stand towards Russia at the UN, India has abstained from all the UN resolutions condemning Russia. Will divergent views over the Ukrainian crisis weaken the Quad, is a pertinent question being examined in this issue brief.
The recent Joint Statement issued after the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Melbourne indicates the grouping’s drive towards institutionalisation and coming close to achieving a concrete mandate for its existence.
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio gave a resolute call for pursuing “realism diplomacy for a new era” in his Diet deliberations. How strategically innovative and politically effective will it prove in pursuing Tokyo’s national interests in the US–China–Japan calculus?
Given its geo-strategic importance, Indonesia’s cooperation is crucial for success of any regional security framework in the Indo-Pacific. It is therefore important that regional powers pay attention to Indonesia’s concern over Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the newly constituted AUKUS, especially in view of the increasing US–China rivalry in the region.
Australia has remained insulated from mega terrorist attacks, but post-September 11 its involvement in the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has brought terrorism into its backyard. In the wake of these emerging threats, particularly home-grown terrorism (HGT), successive governments have introduced changes in the counter-terrorism (CT) laws, and expanded the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Commonwealth-Cth) at the recommendations of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
Australia’s comprehensive strategic approach towards the Indo-Pacific region and a renewed interest in the Indian Ocean has served to rekindle its relationship with India. Australia’s recently released 2016 Defence White Paper (DWP 2016) demonstrates that a growing convergence in strategic approaches can be discerned as Australia looks West and India begins to ‘Act East’.
On 3 May 2013, Australia’s former Prime Minister Julia Gillard released the Defence White Paper (DWP) 2013, making it the sixth White Paper on defence in the history of Australia, and the third since 2000. The last Defence White Paper, entitled Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, was released in 2009 when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was serving his first term.
