Amid rising concern over China’s military heft, the United States and Australia are rapidly operationalizing their alliance as part of a strategy of collective deterrence. At the heart of this agenda is a major expansion of bilateral force posture cooperation that will see Canberra assume an increasingly central role in hosting forward-deployed U.S. forces and preparing the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to support high-end military operations in the Indo-Pacific region.
At present, the persistent rotation of U.S. Bomber Task Forces through Australian airfields and the planned deployment of U.S. nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) to Western Australia under the Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) arrangement are the most advanced elements of force posture integration. Much more, however, is on the way. With new initiatives quickly progressing between the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Army, and Space Force and their ADF counterparts, Australia is transforming into a pivotal strategic node within the United States’ regional alliance network.
But the U.S.-Australia alliance has a long way to go before it is equipped to manage the requirements and risks of force posture integration. While posture developments are an essential part of collective efforts to bolster America’s strategic position and uphold a favorable balance of power in the region, they also raise thorny alliance management challenges. Two stand out as critical priorities for Canberra and Washington: avoiding expectations gaps and coordinating escalation management.
AVOIDING EXPECTATION GAPS
To develop a credible capacity for collective deterrence, Washington and Canberra must have an aligned understanding of how they will operate together from Australian soil. Yet, given the rapid tempo of force posture developments and associated military exercises, progress in the field risks getting ahead of policy guidance set by the bilateral Force Posture Working Group and at annual Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN). Specifically, as the U.S. military services get to work accrediting the ADF to perform key operational tasks and rehearsing how war-fighters will use Australian facilities in real-world contingencies, force posture arrangements appear to be taking on a life of their own—where the military options being created add up to more than the sum of their parts.
From an alliance management perspective, this is a concern. Canberra may discover that agreed-on force posture initiatives are evolving more quickly than the government’s ability to assess their operational significance, strategic implications, and second-order effects. Washington may worry that some of the military options it thinks are being created with Australia are not viewed in the same light in Canberra. These expectation gaps over collective capability aims could harm the alliance’s ability to signal resolve and mobilize forces for maximum deterrence effect.
Take the 2011 Enhanced Air Cooperation initiative as a microcosm. Under its auspices, the U.S. Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) have spent more than a decade fostering the ability to operate in an interchangeable way, including by deploying B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers to Australia. In the past five years, however, cooperation has rapidly expanded on many fronts. Select Australian bases are being equipped with the infrastructure needed to support forward-deployed U.S. Bomber Task Forces. Bilateral exercises are honing the RAAF’s ability to integrate with U.S. bombers, with Australian E-7 Wedgetails now accredited to perform battle space management, KC-30 tankers approved for aerial refueling, and most RAAF fighters trained for escort duties. ADF ground staff are also being certified to undertake a wide range of auxiliary tasks for visiting U.S. forces, including logistics support, flight-line maintenance, and refueling.
Such cooperation has significant implications for Australia. In strategic terms, these activities go well beyond the sum of their parts, positioning the RAAF with a latent capability to provide full spectrum support to U.S. Bomber Task Forces and to integrate into U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command’s plans for strategic attack, deterrence, and assurance missions. Whether all this was appreciated in detail when various civilian and military officials signed off on individual components of cooperation is unclear. Nor is it necessarily the case that U.S. and Australian officials have symmetrical expectations for how the RAAF might actually support U.S. bombers in a crisis. Similar expectation gaps are likely to be in play with the establishment of a combined SSN taskforce through SRF-West, the integration of forward-deployed U.S. P-8A maritime patrol aircraft with Australian assets, and the use of ADF troops to support rotational U.S. Marine Corps and Army contingents.
None of this is a criticism of the combined military options being sought, which are vital for strengthening deterrence in the region. Rather, it is a wake-up call for political and policy leaders to develop a comprehensive understanding of the collective aims and potential repercussions of force posture cooperation—from both countries’ perspectives. This is critical to ensuring the U.S.-Australia alliance can build a resilient, cohesive, and credible collective deterrence capability.
An essential step in addressing this challenge is the clear articulation of a framework for delineating the roles and missions each ally would assume in a regional crisis or contingency. Judging by current posture initiatives, the rough division of labor is fairly straightforward: Australia would offer access to ports, bases, airfields, fuel depots, and other strategic infrastructure; deliver logistics, sustainment, and maintenance support to U.S. forces; secure its immediate region from threats to the continent; and provide a degree of operational support for U.S. power projection and the flow of forces into theater. The United States, with Canberra’s input and consent, would forward-deploy large numbers of forces for high-end combat operations in, but mostly beyond, Australia’s immediate region.
This blueprint for an alliance division of labor has been hinted at in successive AUSMIN consultations since 2020, which have outlined maritime domain awareness (MDA), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), bomber operations, and integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) as key alliance missions. Beyond these tacit signs, however, the United States and Australia have found it politically difficult to have a detailed conversation about military roles and responsibilities. In particular, Australian concerns about sovereignty and “independence within the alliance,” combined with a view that Canberra does not have the social license to precommit the ADF to specific roles in future contingencies, are holding Australia back from broaching this critical discussion.
Notwithstanding these concerns, Australia has much to gain from pursuing a formal articulation of alliance roles and missions. First, this kind of planning process contributes to deterrence by signaling credibility and political will, and by pushing the alliance to increase its preparedness for key mission sets—all of which shapes China’s strategic calculus during both competition and conflict. Second, when it comes to operationalizing already specified mission sets, such as ASW, MDA, and IAMD, or rolling out complex initiatives like SRF-West and Bomber Task Force integration, there is no viable alternative to coordinated planning, which hinges on a robust conversation over roles and missions. Third, as the pace of posture developments and military exercises is already sketching out the contours of future roles and missions, Canberra will have far more agency by deliberately driving this process now than allowing it to take shape organically. Finally, while discussing roles and missions entails setting expectations about options, it does not actually commit Australia to specific actions without future government consent.
In sum, it is high time for Washington and Canberra to have a frank conversation about mutual posture expectations so that both sides can set the terms and limits of operational-level integration in constructive ways.
COORDINATING ESCALATION MANAGEMENT
A crucial part of advancing a strategy of collective deterrence is ensuring that agreed-on force posture arrangements are employed according to the interests and approaches to escalation management held by both Washington and Canberra. But coordinating crisis escalation across a range of regional scenarios involving China will prove challenging for the alliance for two main reasons.
First, in circumstances outside of a major war in which Australia would undoubtedly invoke its ANZUS treaty commitments and support a U.S. war-fighting campaign, it is likely that the allies will have somewhat different views on how to handle threats, signal resolve, and avoid inadvertent escalation. Second, during a fast-paced crisis or conflict, there will simply not be time for clear-headed deliberations, certainly not without hindering the alliance’s capacity for deterrence signaling and rapid response.
Dealing with escalation management therefore requires thinking now. To this end, Australian policymakers need to reflect more deeply on U.S. decisionmaking when it comes to crisis escalation, including what this entails for Australian capabilities that could be brought to bear to support U.S. operations, what assets Australia would not be comfortable with providing, and where ADF involvement could heighten escalation risks.
During an active crisis with China, for example, U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command may well ask the RAAF to provide aerial refueling or fighter escorts for U.S. bombers carrying out deterrence signaling from Australian air bases, supported by ADF ground staff. Similarly, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command might request Australia to use its long-rage targeting capabilities, including its over-the-horizon radar network, to enable cruise missile strikes against Chinese targets in the region, such as dual-capable ground-based theater missiles, launchers, and supporting infrastructure. In fact, the United States’ 2022 Missile Defense Review encouraged Indo-Pacific allies to “pursue ground- and space-based sensor systems for warning and tracking” to contribute to collective deterrence aims.
That these and other plausible scenarios carry escalation risks is not in question—the business of deterrence and alliance management is about cost-benefit trade-offs. The real issue is whether the United States and Australia have an accurate, detailed, and shared understanding of the escalation dynamics that inevitably arise from efforts to operationalize force posture initiatives in a crisis. Canberra, for instance, might see the above requests as too escalatory and politically risky to countenance in advance of hostilities. Depending on the scenario, it might view them as unduly increasing Australia’s exposure to Chinese attack or contributing to a spiral of uncontrolled escalation.
Unfortunately, Washington and Canberra do not have publicly available strategic guidance or policy coordination processes that are focused on exploring and reconciling these potential differences. Correcting this will require the establishment of political-military forums that can address escalation risks, management strategies, and alliance expectations across a range of potential regional flash points.
Escalation issues will be even thornier and more difficult to manage when it comes to conventional-nuclear integration. Against a backdrop of growing strains on the United States’ extended nuclear deterrence commitments, Australia will likely become more closely blended with the U.S. nuclear enterprise. In fact, the Joe Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review mentioned Australia for the very first time, signaling the growing salience in U.S. strategic thinking of Australia’s roles and responsibilities in nuclear deterrence. Crucially, the Nuclear Posture Review’s reference to “leverag[ing] ally and partner non-nuclear capabilities that can support the nuclear deterrence mission” appeared to capture the logic of what is taking place with Bomber Task Force rotations, the joint facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape, and the development of SRF-West. Through these arrangements, Australia may be shaping up to play a far more central role in supporting U.S. nuclear operations in the Indo-Pacific, appropriating elements of NATO’s Support of Nuclear Operations With Conventional Air Tactics (SNOWCAT) program and potentially exploring a maritime equivalent that involves the ADF’s forthcoming SSNs and other ASW platforms.
These arrangements demand thorough, forward-looking consideration. Worryingly, the United States and Australia are yet to deeply engage in discussions about conventional-nuclear integration and its implications for escalation and alliance management in a crisis. Critical questions about what allied operations would be considered escalatory or raise the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation remain unaddressed. Rectifying this will require Washington and Canberra to turn their Strategic Policy Dialogue into a more robust forum for policy coordination on nuclear deterrence, assurance, force posture, and planning.
Beyond this, Canberra must also ask itself under what circumstances it is comfortable being directly implicated in U.S. nuclear operations by, for instance, carrying out combined ASW missions against China’s nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines or refueling and escorting potentially nuclear-armed U.S. bombers. In theory, Australia could play an indirect role through the provision of conventional enablers in the space and cyber domains or by concentrating its SSNs on conventional tasks, such as monitoring and blockading choke points and littoral waters to free up U.S. assets for nuclear-related missions. Answering these questions will require Australia to develop a deeper understanding of what kinds of Chinese targets the United States might seek to hold at risk across a range of contingencies, and whether this would be perceived by Beijing as threatening its nuclear deterrent or regime stability.
Finally, there is an extended nuclear deterrence aspect to U.S.-Australia force posture cooperation that must be addressed. Given Australia’s role in U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications, coupled with its decision to host U.S. bombers and SSNs, it is more heavily implicated in contributing to extended nuclear deterrence than any other U.S. ally in the region. What’s more, as the Northeast Asian security landscape is considerably worse than Australia’s neighborhood, it is far more likely that Australia will find itself supporting U.S. extended nuclear deterrence commitments for Japan or South Korea than for its own direct security. Australia thus needs to be highly attuned to the evolution of the region’s extended deterrence debates and planning consultations. To achieve this, Canberra should work with Washington to join the new trilateral extended deterrence dialogue with Tokyo and Seoul, transforming it into a quadrilateral forum where Australia has the kind of voice that its skin in the game merits.
CONCLUSION
The emerging suite of U.S.-Australia force posture initiatives represents the most consequential adaptation of the alliance to the Indo-Pacific’s deteriorating strategic environment. It is positioning Australia as a key pillar of efforts to bolster the United States’ regional strategic position and advance a strategy of collective deterrence vis-à-vis Chinese aggression.
But this agenda is also pulling the alliance into unchartered territory—raising a number of risks and challenges that Washington and Canberra must address as part of efforts to operationalize the alliance. Avoiding expectation gaps and coordinating on escalation management are at the very top of this list. Faced with a rapidly evolving alliance and the loss of strategic warning time, the United States and Australia need to prioritize these alliance management challenges today.