Richard Fontaine,the chief executive of the Centre for a New American Security think tank,also said there had been a naive reaction to in which he suggested Australian nuclear-powered submarines could play a role in a war between the United States and China over Taiwan.
Donald Trump has threatened to boot Kevin Rudd as ambassador to the US if he is re-elected.
While some commentators have seen Campbell’s remarks as controversial given their allusion to possible conflict in Taiwan,Fontaine said:“I saw it as a statement of the obvious.
“He said the submarines could be relevant in a variety of contingencies,including cross-strait contingencies. If that’s a surprise to anyone,it shouldn’t be.”
Speaking as the US,Australia and United Kingdom begin talks to allow other nations such as Japan to enter the trilateral pact,Fontaine said he feels “pretty confident” that Trump would stick with AUKUS if he defeats incumbent Joe Biden.
“There are grounds to worry about what Trump might do if he were back in office,but AUKUS is unlikely to be one of them,” said Fontaine,who served as a senior official on Asia policy in George W. Bush’s administration and is visiting Australia for a national security conference run by the Australian National University.
Richard Fontaine from the Centre for a New American Security said Australians should be more worried about Trump’s protectionist trade policies than the Republican frontrunner tearing up AUKUS.Erin Scott
“I think it’s such a win-win and I think would be perceived that way if a Trump administration was to come back into office.
“The chances that AUKUS would survive a political transition in the US – just as it survived one in Australia – are very high.”
Australians should be more worried about how they would be affected by Trump’s protectionist trade policies,he added.
Fontaine said there was widespread support for AUKUS among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington,and that the pact has the potential to help alleviate,rather than exacerbate,problems in the US naval industrial base.
He said he saw as an “off-the-cuff” response to a line of “baiting” questions by GB News interviewer Nigel Farage.
“I don’t think that has really anything to do with how Kevin Rudd might or might not serve his country as ambassador to the United States,” he said.
“Kevin is an able representative of Australia and I think he will do a fine job,whether Biden is in power or Trump is president again.”
Fontaine last week hosted a discussion with Campbell,who played a crucial role in the creation of AUKUS as Biden’s top adviser on Indo-Pacific affairs.
Former US president Donald Trump.AP
“What we’re confronting now are challenges that require a much deeper engagement with allies and partners,and I think the idea over time will be in a number of potential areas of conflict and in a number of scenarios,” Campbell said.
“I think those practical circumstances in which AUKUS has the potential to have submarines from a number of countries operating in close coordination that could deliver conventional ordinance from long distances – those have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios,including in cross-strait circumstances.”
Fontaine said that it would always be a sovereign decision for Australia to decide how to use its nuclear-powered submarines and whether to participate in a hypothetical conflict over the self-governing island of Taiwan.
“I think[Campbell’s] point was that the entire thrust of the US approach to Taiwan is to deter war from happening in the first place,” he said.
Fontaine said it would be a “good development” for AUKUS if Japan was able to join the so-called “pillar II” of the pact,which relates to collaboration on advanced military technologies such as hypersonic weapons,quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
There is no suggestion of any other nations,including Japan,joining Pillar I of the pact,which relates to nuclear-powered submarines.
US ambassador in Tokyo Rahm Emanuel wrote inThe Wall Street Journal last week that Japan was “about to become the first additional Pillar II partner”,but it is expected the AUKUS nations will begin with talks to explore expanding membership of the pact.
US President Joe Biden hosts Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit at the White House this week ahead of a landmark meeting with Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos jnr.
Australian officials have been keen for AUKUS to get some “runs on the board” before opening up the pact to other nations,and there are concerns Japan lacks the necessary security protections to share such sensitive technology.
“Japan has taken some of those steps,but not all of them,” Campbell said last week in his discussion with Fontaine.
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