Don’t ignore the proposal from down under

Lee Baek-soon
The author is a former Korean Ambassador to Australia.

Nearly three years have passed since Aukus — the trilateral security partnership among Australia, Britain and the United States — was established in September 2021. The respective defense ministers of the three original members released a meaningful joint statement last month announcing that tripartite security cooperation will expand from military to technology affairs. In other words, they are considering the incorporating Korea, Japan, Canada and New Zealand into Pillar 2, which involves technology cooperation, while confining the membership of Pillar 1, dealing with military cooperation, to the three original members.

In the following U.S.-Japan summit in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden recommended that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida join Pillar 2. The second pillar focuses on cooperation around cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing, cybersecurity, supersonic missiles and fighter jets.

The United States now wants to ally with Western countries in its lonely battle with China on the high-tech frontier to effectively block the nation from possible technology transfers and speed up its own research and development.

China opposed the U.S. move and criticized Japan’s willingness to participate in Pillar 2 of Aukus. In a recent 2+2 meeting between the foreign and defense ministers of Korea and Australia in Melbourne, the latter nation reportedly proposed that Korea join the second pillar. Given Korea’s positive response to the proposal, the time has come to weigh the merits and demerits of participation.

The formation of Aukus in 2021 attracted close attention from the rest of the world because it represented not only a tripartite military alliance, but also a trilateral security body among countries with Anglo-Saxon backgrounds. The launch of Aukus was considered a signal that America would change its decades-old alliance structure based on the hub-and-spoke model.

That system has functioned well for the past 70 years since America’s emergence as a superpower after World War II. But problems arose with the gradual decline of U.S. power around the globe owing largely to China’s dramatic rise. The United States can hardly rely on the hub-and-spoke system to manage and protect its all allies on a one-to-one basis.

The solution U.S. strategists have come up with is the so-called lattice structure. The novel concept came into the spotlight during a recent security debate hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The new alliance model still puts United States at its center, but a number of groups, each consisting of three to four countries, rally around it in consolidated alliances with Uncle Sam.

The United States will try to create more lattice-structured alliances in addition to the Quad, or quadrilateral security dialogue, and the Aukus in the future. In terms of structural dynamics, the new security network will be more solid and resilient than the hub-and-spoke network.

The Korea-U.S. alliance is based on the traditional security model. But under the current system, a spoke can be damaged or broken if security conditions of the two countries change or external factors affect them.

The United States will surely prefer the new security model as it doesn’t mandate a myriad of one-on-one alliances. If the conventional security model aims to one-sidedly protect U.S. allies, the new one is designed to jointly demonstrate their military power. Washington will most likely move in that direction. Korea must thoroughly consider whether to join a lattice structure defense mechanism in the future.

In such a context, Korea must engage in trilateral security cooperation with America and Japan more aggressively than it has before and consider the creation of small — yet multilateral — security bodies centered around Korea. I also hope our government considers the proposal from Australia to invite Korea to Pillar 2 of the Aukus. Some countries will surely oppose Korea’s participation in the pillar, but Australia’s proposal is an opportunity for our nation nevertheless.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.