Welcome to mid Rats with Sal from Commander Salamander and the Eagle One from Eagle
Speak at see or shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in
all things maritime and welcome board everybody. We greatly appreciate you taking time to
join us, and today we're going to focus on one of the more interesting
national security and diplomatic developments of the last fifteen years in the Indo Pacific theater,
the Quadrennial Security Dialogue or Quad of the United States, India, Japan,
and Australia. And returning to Midrafts to discuss will be Blake Herzinger,
Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defense Program at the United States Study Center.
Blake, welcome back to Midrats. Hey, Sal, how you go
one, Thanks for having me. Hey, it's great to having you back
with us today, and we appreciate you taking time. And it's got to
be a beautiful Singapore Sunday morning on the other side of the planet, that
we should all take a moment and light a cannel for modern technology. That
we can't do this just like we're in the same room with each other,
but we are literally on the other side of the planet and We told everybody
early on in the advertisements show that we're going to talk about the QUAD today.
So as a scene center, Blake being that you are kind of in
the meta center of where the QUAD is located. For the listeners that might
not be familiar with the Quad, as we're going to talk about it today,
it's could describe to him what it is, and also the work that
you and your team just got through working on that describes as it exist today,
you bet. So. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has its roots actually in
the multilateral response to the Boxing Day tsunami of two thousand and eight. So
Japan, Australia, India, and the United States worked together in basically delivering
kind of an HDR response to the tsunami and then just sort of kept talking
after that, and then there was a bit of political heartburn that happened kind
of Visa v. China and the four members. It was at that time
seen as a bit too provocative by some members, and then some members dropped
out. Other members then were upset that those members had dropped out, so
it became this whole bruhaha kind of went away and then was resuscitated a few
a few years ago. Now that everyone is sort of on the same page
about the PRC, or at least a similar page. So the QUAD as
we see it today was revived and it was really formalized. So we saw
leaders summits and joint statements and all these things that you see when a when
a dialogue or a grouping becomes real, you know. And then and then
they had to find something to do with it. What is the QUAD going
to do? And that is still actually kind of the open debate. There
has been an effort to drive it in a direction that has focused more on
public goods. So during COVID, we saw a vaccine partnership that was designed
to you know, co produce vaccines and deliver them to places that needed them.
That was somewhat successful, not entirely, but somewhat. We have seen
a Maritime Domain Awareness Project and Indo Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness Initiative IPMDA. There
have been any number of clean energy transition support programs, so it's very public
goods focused in an effort to sort of appear not necessarily aimed at the PRC
because it has been painted, of course by Beijing as an effort to contain
China, because everything is apparently an effort to contain China. So the project
that I worked on at the US Study Center for the University of Sydney with
four colleagues was designed around, hey, what if we could find a really
productive maritime security role or the Quad, and so our our project bolstering the
Quad and then to use that the subtext was a case really for finding a
four partner approach to maritime security. So we examined everything from logistics to anti
submarine warfare. You know, how could these four partners work together in a
way that doesn't imply or create a traditional alliance but all but does create deterrent
capabilities and does build capacity across the four partners to handle because some of the
maritime challenges that we face today, how does you know one of the issues
I would think that the all of these people, all these four partners in
the Quad, it would be interested in is is UH maritime domain awareness?
And I think you focused on that on one piece I saw on nine dash
lines. You want to talk a little bit about about that role for for
the Quad and how that meshes with the existing agreements between some of the country
Singapore being one of them for piracy, you know that that great organization that
works out of kin of Singapore. Yeah, absolutely so. So IPMD gay
Is has been kind of structured within the Quad, I think in my in
my view, it builds on what the Maritime Security Initiative already did, which
was a unilateral US deal announced in twenty fifteen that has been quite successful actually
in the Pacific. But absolutely sharing kind of among those four partners, in
particular sharing maritime domain awareness information and then including fusion centers like Singapore's IFC.
India also has its own IFC in Delhi. Now, Japan does a fair
bit on the MDA front, and using the Quad kind of as a clearinghouse
for sharing information with partners that aren't inside the Quad is a good way to
sort of put a friendly face on it, you know, because the leaders
of the Quad have been careful, and they do need to be careful that
the Quad isn't painted as this you know, NATO for Asia thing that is
designed to confront China. They want to reach out to partners like Singapore,
like South Korea, you know, Vietnam, Philippines, and it's hard for
those countries to partner with an organization that is explicitly anti China. So QUAD
leaders have appropriately done their best to structure the QUAD in such a way that
it's useful but also avoids a very you know, explicitly confrontational approach. So
that's kind of where it's at now. One of the points that y'all made
in your study over at the United States Study Center on the Quad is saying
the Quad is not living up to its full potential. And when you look
at it on paper, you can see that potential there, but it also
becomes really apparent, like the old old sesame street thing. One of these
things does not belong together. And you have you as Australia, we have
a bilateral treaty, we have the Aucue Agreement that we might want to talk
about some parallel efforts there that might involve the Quad. Later. They also
have the US Japan Bilateral Security Agreement, and Japan and Australia, especially in
the last few years, have really up their game their own bilateral relationships.
But then you have India that nobody has a on paper security arrangement with,
and they also run with the with the tough kids in the blocks and bricks
being the eye and bricks and India has had some interesting I wouldn't say they're
playing both sides of the coin or the argument, especially in evolves China and
Russia. Just they live in a complicated neighborhood, They have complicated security arrangements,
so they're going to have a complicated view. But the awkwardness of India
having a slightly different relationship when you try to look at it in the big
pixels point of view, that seems to be slowly changing in a more pro
quad way, whether it's quad or I like the phrase quad minus, which
is quad members doing stuff together without everybody playing. Is that a correct assumption
from what y'all looked at. Yeah, and it's that you've highlighted. You've
highlighted. Really the crux of one of the big issues is that how do
you do some of these activities as four partners that that aren't allies. You
know, three have alliance relationships that you know, the traditional heaven spoke model.
And then, as you mentioned already, Japan and Australia getting closer together
in arrangements that don't necessarily involve the United States. And then there's India.
However, I think after the twenty twenty killings at the line of actual control
in the Himalaya. I think we've seen Indian as stance toward Beijing harden in
a lot of ways. I don't think it's necessarily politically feasible for India to
play the middle, and I don't think they intend to. But but you're
absolutely right to say, you know, they have a complicated relationship, and
it's a complicated neighborhood. That's it's fair to say. But India is looking
for ways to you know, deter China. You know, they have a
very sensitive relationship. They're kind of in India's north. China's navy is increasingly
present in the Indian Ocean, which makes Deli quite uncomfortable. It's an interesting
one because when you go to you know, the East East China see or
in South China see or West Philippine see if you like that better, which
I do, or East which the Vietnamese like better, and so do I.
But you hear you know China kind of saying, well, you know,
this is the South China see has our name on it. And then
they go into the Indian Ocean and India it doesn't love it, and they
say, well it's not like it's their ocean. Like all right, well,
you can't really have it both ways, guys, Like if you're going
to say your name is on it that therefore it belongs to you, then
I guess you don't really have a role in the Indian Ocean. But you
know, that is their one. They're one overseas naval base in Djibouti,
so they are crossing the Indian Ocean constantly. I believe they're forty fifth Anti
Piracy task Force just just deployed, maybe forty fifth somewhere in the forties,
So they are you know, they are present. They are not going away.
So India has to deal with this and they have to figure out how
I don't necessarily anticipate India ditching their non aligned kind of stance that is traditionally
part of their kind of political identity, but getting closer to the US,
Japan, Australia to find ways to deter China, I think is within the
realm of possibility. I don't think it's necessarily useful to paint this as you
know, this democracies club, because I think there's some problematic developments on the
ground in India on the political front. So you know, this kind of
ongoing effort to champion democracy is all well and good, but it's also very
difficult to marshal a group effectively if you're pointing fingers at autocracies or non non
democracies and then saying, oh, except these ones. You know, we
like these ones because they're sort of like democracies. You know, we've done
that dance with Vietnam in recent years. We're doing that dance now with India.
Yes, it's a democracy, but are there also problematic, non non
democratic things happening there? Certainly, you know, democracy as a as a
mobilizer is tough at the moment. The uh there's an article in the Hindus
understand Times talking about how the QUAD and AND and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations should learn to work together. I guess it is there. I mean
they act like there's some kind of competitive uh gap uh competitive spirit between the
two entities. You do you see that this does this make any sense that
there's I mean, it makes sense to work together, I guess, But
is there a competition between in interview between the QUAD and the AND and the
Association. So this was part of when when the quad re emerged and was
formalized. And this this has happened also with AUCUS, the Australia uk US
technology Sharing arrangement is immediately voices within AUSION started kind of worrying publicly that these
arrangements would somehow detract from ausion centrality in the region. Now, ausion centrality
is something that we talk about a lot, not a lot of people know
what it actually means. It has become sort of a shibboleth. You know,
we acknowledge ausion centrality, we respect it, etcetera, etcetera. Things
like AUCUS, you know, really, to me has nothing to do with
ausion centrality. That's a tech sharing agreement. And if you talk about the
Quad, the Quad has been able to reformalize and found this energy because ausion
is effectively has effectively been neutralized VISA v. The PRC. You know,
there's nothing that ausion can really do in a space that is strategic for all
four of these partners, and so they have grouped up to figure out how
to do something among the f or them. They can interact with aussion,
but they're not. I think that it's partly a recognition that ausion can't do
some of the things that need to be done. It's a consensus driven organization.
It is irrevocably splintered from the inside. They cannot come to a resolution
on things like the South China Sea, even with states like Cambodia preventing joint
statements, even with a collective position on the South China Sea. So you
know, we can respect ausion centrality without waiting for aussion to move because if
you're waiting for that, then you're gonna wait a long time. I see
understatement at the year. And one of my favorite things in life is,
you know, first thing, first thing to do, go to the go
to the map, and if you have a globe, even better. I've
actually picked up a globe a couple of years ago, very enthralled with the
old school British Empire globe. But when you look at there's there's a nice
you know, the America's way off on screen, right. But obviously we
are an important part of the Asian security arrangement. And when you look at
the other members in the area I guess you mentioned earlier. Really you know
two of the right in the center that come to mind that have similar concerns
about an expansive PRC. That's you have Vietnam and the Philippines, and you
have another circle of nations, some of which you just mentioned Cambodia if not,
and they have a historical connection with the Chinese mostly they both hate Vietnamese,
but they have they're building that naval base there, so that's one of
them. You have Malaysia that has a long standing security interaction with especially Australia.
You have Thailand that on and off relationship with the US to a certain
extent. And then you've got a few wild cards out there that, even
though they don't want to be, they really are Pacific players. Canada is
one that actually has deployed there recently and have done some nice things with folks
in the area. And what is happening off the western coast of South America
I think has some potential for nations such as Chile to become more involved as
their fishing stocks or strip mined out there by the Chinese fishing fleets. So
when you look at that type of arrangements, I guess the big pole in
the tent we talk about, at least from a distance from from what I
read, they're just down the street from you, but really the nation to
watch is we move into the middle part of the century, it's got to
be Indonesia. How are the Indonesians reacting or looking at this old development?
Are they is there anything they buy fine attractive to it? Or do they
just want to stay out of the way and continue to grow. So Indonesia
is an interesting one. It I think every year or every two years,
you get a big piece in you know, the Economist or the New York
Times when when someone discovers Indonesia and they'll say, like, oh my gosh,
you know, huge amounts of natural resources, particularly in the ev supply
chain, enormous population, you know, growing economy, strategic geography, and
they write this big you know, Indonesia is about to arrive article and then
you know washern's repeat. Someone does that same article a year later. Because
Indonesia has some constraints on it, mostly self imposed, some demographic you know,
they have hundreds of millions of people spread across seventeen thousand islands. Pretty
hard to govern effectively outside kind of the capital region, in the in the
main metropolitan centers. But it's it's a tough one because they are they're a
leader within ausion. You know, they're traditionally kind of looked at as this
I hesitate to use big brother, but sort of. You know, they
are the largest kind of weightiest group in ausion by population, by economy,
etc. But they don't exercise a lot of external leadership that you know,
if you look all the way back to the beginning of the Non Aligned movement,
you know that held in Bandung also in Indonesia, you know, traditionally
a leader within the Non Aligned movement as well. Now we have security partners
ships with them. We just finished the Indonesian led super Garuta Shield exercise.
We conduct you know, the Navy's Carrot exercise with Indonesia. They run Komoto
as well, which we're a part of, and any number of other security
activities. But they are also very interested in not being part of a you
know, a China directed security relationships, so they don't want to do anything
anti China. They actually explicitly list themselves as not a claimant state in the
South China Sea, which is an interesting bit of wordsmithing when you dig into
it, because clearly they are China's claims within the nine dash line overlap Indonesia's
easy near the in the in the New Tuna See and the Nintuna Islands.
But Indonesia frames itself is not a claimant because it does not it does not
low does it. It says that the Chinese claims are invalid, therefore it
does not recognize them. Therefore there is no conflict. Therefore, you know,
we don't have a disagreement, yea. So it's it's an interesting one
because they have had their own run ins with the China Coast Guard up there.
The China Coastguard has intervened in constabulary boardings and stopped the Indonesians from towing
Chinese fishing vessels, ramming them until they broke free, and letting them escape.
So they've had any number of faceoffs out there, which led to the
Indonesians renaming that area the North and the Tennessee and making their position a bit
more clear. But Indonesia also has run hnds up there with you know,
Vietnamese fishermen, with other you know, illegal fishermen from around asion. So
they are very quick to point that out that it's not you know, for
them, it's not just China. It is a big deal. But you
know, they're they're not driving their foreign policy based on what China's up to,
and they're also not rushing to get in bed with Washington or the Quad.
They're usually one of the more skeptical parties on things like the Quad.
They were very skeptical with Aucus. These were things that they did not particularly
like. But they do have a close relationship with Australia, again a complicated
one. So that's one place where in some cases it might be wise to
kind of step back and work with our allies in Canberra to position ourselves appropriately
with regard to Indonesia. When China does something interesting like this recent brand new
map that came out with which claimed a whole lot of territory, I mean,
I know some countries that Philippines and others have already kind of reacted to
it. But how does that affect these you know, the Ascon Nations and
they had the kind of quad because China is pretty bold and they're and they're
putting out such a ill thought out map. Yeah, you know, it's
an interesting one because they're pretty much the number one trading partner for most of
the region. And while you know, Philippines was very outspoken and others were
as well, uh, you know, trade continues, interactions continue, positive
relations continue on other fronts. Most AUSION member states are pretty pragmatic and the
way they approach China. You know, yes they have disagreements, yes they
have problems, but they are still pursuing you know, economic utility in those
areas where they can. We saw that to an exaggerated degree under the do
Tertei presidency in Philippines. You know, a US ally that that you know,
kind of huge, very close to Beijing for five years or on and
off, attempting to get you know, higher levels of investment out of China,
and it didn't really materialize. And now we kind of see Philippines swinging
back the other way under the Marcus presidency. But they're you know, one
of the mistakes that sometimes we can make is establishing this sort of coldwear paradigm,
cold war paradigm, wherein we can just not talk to the Chinese or
not trade with the Chinese, and that just doesn't work for anybody. We
are too tightly interwoven. Still, despite all the talk of you know,
decoupling or de risking or however you want to look at it, every country
in the world is still tied to China. In some way, and you
see that to a pretty exaggerated degree here in this region. The Indonesians often
put it as most of these countries are trying to row between two reefs without
getting too close to either, and they want to draw benefit from both relationships
with the United States and from the Chinese without getting into a coalition with one
against the other. Some of the countries have laws against you know, acting
militarily against another state, you know, with a third state, the Vietnamese
being one of the most marked examples of that. So yeah, it's pragmatic.
You know, No they didn't like that map, but yes, they
are going to continue to trade. They are going to continue to arrange military
exercises with with the Chinese. They are going to continue to have high level,
high level visits and interactions with the Chinese. At the same time in
spite of all the challenges just you know, we hit the wavetops of the
area and the as we talked about before, the political and the regional sensitivities.
The quad itself has since two thousand and seven and a couple of trips
here and there, it is you can see where going along that crawl walk
run timeline where if you want to say, you know, the crawl was
the response to the Boxing Day tsunami, and like things where you have humanitarians
hadr humanitarian assistances response other of those you know, self power type of coordination
and discussion issues going towards walk, like the maritime domain awareness or and as
you pointed out quite a few times in the in the projects you'll put together
the export of the P eight alpha, Australia flies it, we fly it,
the Indians fly it. Maritime surveillance ties right into that, trying to
build a mutual maritime domainness structure. And I think that if anything else,
if you're looking for sensitivities, it's it's hard to really argue about what maritime
surveillance and reconnaissance is and domain awareness that's just telling everybody what's out there,
because a lot of the low level flashpoints in this area, whether you're talking
about piracy or illegal fishing, it comes from that lack of maritime awareness.
And then you know, you can go into the run part, which is
some of the exercises they've been doing recently. But it seems like the core
of what everybody's moving towards is that center part that that walk part with the
quad to work towards the the achievable and probably the path of least potential drama.
That's building that maritime domains, domains, that maritime domain awareness, structure
and habit of working together. And of course that does beg the question,
Yeah, how do you build that C two infrastructure? Yeah, that that's
a that's a complicated one, even just on the P eight piece. If
you're talking about real interoperability or now you know DD looking more at interchangeability,
even just in terms of our link infrastructure, that's that's tough. But you
know, I think navies. Navies have this unique quality which I'm I know
you're both aware of and I'm sure your listeners are too, that we can
kind of do whatever we want when we go out to see right, Like
we're doing these things, and we're we're practicing low level stuff today, but
we can kind of go over the horizon and do what we're gonna do.
It's not an army exercise that happens kind of in full view of everyone.
It's not an air force exercise. You're out on the high seas and you
can just sort of practice whatever you need to practice, and these these things
like exchanging information. Yes they're good for things like piracy, but yes they're
also good they can translate into things like the intelligence support that we gave to
the Indians when they were having their standoff at the line of actual control.
You know, these these skills are they can be built at sea but deployed
anywhere. And so I think we see a lot of this happening without the
QUAD label, but within the QUAD. You know, we've seen Indian aircraft
land at Cocos Keeling and the Australian the Australian Islands. We've seen Urph's landing
at Port Blair and the Andon and Nicobar Islands. The you know, these
things ten years ago wouldn't wouldn't have happened. So I agree we're somewhere in
the middle. We have ways to go in terms of really operationalizing the QUAD,
and I for one, think that we should be looking at it with
at least a bit more seriousness in the security space, not just as a
security assistance clearing house, which I think is also a valid use for it,
but building these capabilities within it, and that that takes, as we've
spelled out the report, you know, mapping out where do we have relationships
and agreements. Where do we need agreements to kind of put more meat on
that bone? And then, like you said, getting into the real nuts
and bolts of Okay, now, how do we do it? How do
we pas as? You know, if you want to pass a contact,
a subsurface contact between pates American to Indian can you do that? If not,
what do you need to do that? Are both parties willing to do
that? So you're dealing with, you know, the tech piece, the
operational piece, and the training as well as the political will to do all
these things. And fortunately, you know, Beishing has been so unfriendly to
its neighbors that they have sort of created the impetus for everyone to do this
stuff. Things that would have been unthinkable and really politically unattractive ten years ago
are suddenly, you know, in bounds because everyone has sort of woken up
to what Beijing has been up to. Russia's invasion of Ukraine hasn't helped Beijing
either, sort of reminding everyone that war happens. And it's kind of a
It's an odd one to me because it's not like we've had a peaceful world
for the last forty years. There have been plenty of wars, but you
know, the invasion of Ukraine somehow has been uniquely galvanizing to a lot of
countries, particularly in the Indo Pacific. And the one piece that I would
touch on here is, you know this the idea or the perception of an
anti China or a or an effort to what's the word I'm looking for,
contain an effort to contain China, which is how Beijing tries to paint the
Quad constantly. And if you look geographically, you know we we bound the
Indo Pacific really the Quad States, you know, the India to you know,
the United States and then India and the Australia to the north and south.
I don't look at it as containment. You can't contain the Chinese against
is not the Cold War. We are in are connected at a level that
we never were with the Soviet Union. China certainly orders of magnitude more powerful
than the Soviet Union was in terms of their economic weight. But what I
do see as an effort to dilute Chinese influence, and that is something that
I definitely agree with. I actually heard it put someone at a conference recently
in Jakarta said, look, we're concerned, you know, things like the
quad and aucust the US talking about security. We're concerned that you're putting too
much chili in the laxa, which is like a soup kind of noodle dish
that several countries in Southeast Asia argue about who you know, who owns it
culturally, but said, look, we're worried that you're putting too much chili
in and you can't take it out. Right, So if you kind of
I guess we would say over egg the pudding, right, if you're if
you put too much in, it's going to be imbalanced and we can't fix
it. You can't take chili out. And I thought that was really interesting.
It's an interesting way to put it. But I thought, you know
what you could do if you have realized there's too much chili and I,
I for one, would look at this situation as you know, Chinese influence
in what we used to call the Asia Pacific or what soun still called the
Asia Pacific it was too much. And so what we've done now is we've
gotten a bigger bowl, right we have. We have expanded our bowl and
deluded PRC influence by adding India, by pulling in other partners, and I
think that's an effective way to look at it. We're not containing, we're
not trying to necessarily constrain. We're just giving other countries options. We're bringing
more players into the game so that it's not just the US standing against China
and creating bilateral friction. You know, India is involved, and we're working
more with a trilateral arrangement with Japan and South Korea. You know, European
states are increasingly present in the Indo Pacific. It's it's multilateralizing this idea that
you know, norms matter, international law matters. You know, the economic
agreements that we've that we have under the WTO, they also matter. Commitment
to human rights. We care about this stuff. And if it was just
the US, people would sort of dismiss it, you know, oh,
that's just Washington doing Washington things. But when it's everyone, you know,
Beijing does have to sort of sit up and listen. And I think that's
kind of where we're driving and that's I think been effective. I think the
Biden administration has done well doing that. I think often China is its own
worst enemy because they because of their paranoia, you know, they reveal Okay,
we got this first island chain problem, and then we wanted to do
this string of pearl saying well, everybody starts looking at that and going,
well, wait a minute, that's you're your your first island chain and your
nine dash line and your string of pearls are directly connected to our own safety.
So uh, China's very unsubtle about this. I mean, they're just
it's like they don't understand the effect of of these rather and like this new
map, you know, these rather bold claims on the on the other players
in the world. Yeah, it's interesting Beijing's can see on issues like this
the self perception piece. You know, you have to assume that they have
sufficient self perception, but it's almost just that they just don't care. And
we've seen that actually in meetings in the region. You know, there's there's
a quote, I believe it is the Chinese foreign minister at the time literally
told a group of Southeast Asian states, Look, you are small states and
China is a big country. You know, basically like this very mellion dialogue,
like we're going to do what we want and you're going to go along
because we're big and you're small. You know, I'm I'm smart, you're
done. I'm big, you're small, and you're just gonna take it.
And and the QUAD, you know, is trying to give those countries options
and MDA is one of those things, you know, understanding what the Chinese
fishing fleet is up to. AMTI has done excellent work in you know,
highlighting to the region how how Beijing's island building campaign has gone, what they've
done, and kind of the impacts that that has had. That's an incredible
program that's really well received out here. You know, we're coming up on
the anniversary of the she Obama Rose Garden statement when shij and Ping pledged not
to militarize the South China Sea, and then shortly shortly after, you know,
we see missiles and bombers and everything else deployed all across their island chain
that they've built through the through the South China Sea. But that that's uh,
the twenty five, So you know, there's in living memory we can
just see time after time China's commitments aren't really worth the paper they're printed on,
particularly where it comes to respect for other people's interests and sovereignty. Yeah,
it is kind of funny, but it's in line with the Chinese imperial
history before they had their issues century and a half ago. That's how they
look at people. So it's kind of returning to the norm in some regards.
And sometimes I try to do the best that I can, at least
geographically or from what you could read on history to see things from the Chinese
perspective. And there's a great map and the project that you worked on that
outlined all the various exercises, and from my point of view, it's exactly
what you wanted to want to see. This forward defense where along China's sea
lines of communications and in the nations that are in here near abroad have a
lot of quad quad minus exercises with those nations at sea that when you look
strong, and the People's Republic China has to do the math in their head
about what they can push and can't push. When you have strong exercises along
with the nations around you together just to announce that they are together, but
also that take place along the sea lines that you rely on for your oil
and food, it's kind of encouraging. So you can see where the quad
and the quad minus and the various bilateral relationships are responding. I would what
I believe is the correct way to China's aggression of the last few years.
I guess that kind of kicked off with the quasi humorous what was it,
the wolf warrior diplomacy field of rakes they jogged across a few years ago.
They kind of woke up a lot of people. So again, I think
that if you're looking forward for non US, but US and like minded nations,
are they they waking up and putting a good posture towards an expansion is
PRC. I think it's there's some room for optimism there if we continue to
nurture these relationships correctly. Yeah, I agree. And the great, the
Great Corey Shaky was the first person I ever heard say this. But you
know, you just you just don't need to foul your opponent when they're already
going out of bounds. Right, we can play this the right way.
We can play a solid game without really even needing to poke Beijing because they're
going to do it themselves. The Communist Party of China cannot help, but
bully and coerce they can't. They just seemingly can't figure out how to do
a charm campaign, it is beyond the reach. Or if they do it,
uh, you know, the next week, they'll punch you in the
face. And they've done it, you know, for the love of Pete,
I mean, you have. You know, one of their most negative
relationships is with Sweet you know, like this whole staged thing about Chinese citizens
being thrown out of hotels and the Chinese ambassador threatening people, and it's just
it's bizarre. But I love it because you know, they're doing our job
for us, and when we have trouble politically or maybe we have trouble finding
a good direction, you know, they're not really doing themselves any favors.
So they've helped us immensely over the last over the last decade to make this
case. And and you know, they have squandered what could have been a
lot of tailwind that they had, you know, in terms of global investment
and being seen as this leader of the global South, and and they've they've
blown it. And now you know, they're just increasingly threatening Taiwan. And
while most countries don't want to get involved in that, everyone can see what's
happening. Right. It's like, guys, they're threatening to invade and kill
millions of people, Like just stop, Like you don't need to do this,
We don't the globe, the world doesn't need this. You know,
we're still trying to recover from COVID, We're trying to recover from kind of
this economic slowdown. China's economy is slowing down, like can you just knock
it off? And they can't, which is, you know, which is
great for anyone trying to make the case for partnerships that don't involve the Chinese.
Yeah, you know, I'm always reminded of when I was a kid
and you get the lant when you're thirteen or fourteen, and suddenly one of
the kids go through a gross spurt and he becomes huge and any and also
you have he has two choices. I mean, he becomes a bully because
he's now bigger than everybody else, or he you know kind of like,
yeah, I'm big, but I'm still your your friend, and you know,
I always you. China right right now is in that growth stage.
I mean, we're we'll be on some of that now because it's been in
a shrink. But you know, they they grew, they're very successful,
They've got money, they're you know, they're billing as tremendous armed forces,
and then they can't just go, well, I'm you know, I've got
all this, but it's you know, there's no big deal. They've got
they've got a bully, and they've got to they've got to send their their
fishing fleets to to the Galapagos. They've got to send their fishing fleets to
you know, steal all the Patagonian toothfish they can get off chili. So
it is it is a remarkable, uh experience, just to watch the way
they've they've acted. And I think you're right. I don't think they know
because they've never they have never been told. They know they've been told they
can't do it this way, but they don't really grasp why if you're big,
you can't just throw your way around, uh, the way they're trying
to do. And I think in some ways it's also highlighted how unique Washington's
trajectory has been as a or the United States really as a global power that
accepted constraints on itself and agreed, you know, after the Second World War
two, limits on its own power for the good of everyone, and entered
into these agreements, even things like arms control. You know, we we
did these things. China doesn't do arms control. Uh. You know,
they refused to even discuss the idea. They don't accept limitations on their power.
They refuse to sign a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea
with with ausion member states. They don't accept limits on their power, and
they well, they want to be able to resort to their to that that
power disparity whenever they can, and and that it doesn't work, and countries
don't like it. It creates negative relationships. But they can't seemingly find another
way. And I guess part of that probably goes to the philosophy of hijimping.
And I think that's also why they're seeing a lot of economic problems at
the moment. You know, you can't you can't fix what's wrong without reforming
the system. Past leaders were able to do that, you know, huge
huge economic leaps under Dung Chaoping, who opened things up and wanted to do
things differently. Chi Jianping wants to take things back and do things from the
center and top down. And you don't drive a competitive economy that way.
It doesn't, it doesn't work. But again, his legitimacy is now tied
to the system that he wants, which is this one that doesn't work.
So you know, they've they've painted themselves into a corner now and I think
we're seeing a lot of those chickens coming home to roost. I you had
a really good piece in or in the Rocks on you know, removing the
uh Sierra Madre and putting something else there. I had a Twitter post on,
just have John Conrad drive a semi submersible oil rig out there. I've
got a halo deck and all the rest. It would be a lot better
off than wouldn't be worrying about sporing these Philippine marines out there, you know.
But but the the Chinese and their efforts to claim that rock, if
maybe it would be submerged rock, I mean, it has has their own
you know, when they when they get caught from all the news media of
the water cannons blasting the Filipino ships. Uh, you know that just looks
I mean, it just looks thuggish. It is it is, and I
don't I don't, you know, and then they try and deny all we
you know, we we really didn't do it. But here you know,
it's all over the internet exactly what they were doing. I just think they're
sometimes incredibly clueless or the people at the lower levels don't don't understand. Well,
you know, they're certainly not getting the message. No, we've got
to back off on this kind of thing. Yeah, and and and it
comes in waves, you know, you see this, the pressure around things
like the Sierra Madre aren't new. Every once in a while they'll pull back
and they'll you know, they'll put on a smiley face, but then it's
right back to this when they want to put the pressure on. And I
think they've done it now for so long that this Miley face doesn't doesn't cool
things off anymore because everyone's just waiting for them to start again. And and
that's kind of where we're at. It's just this relentless push on everyone around
them. And you know, China historically has worried about insecurity and instability on
its borders, and it has had it. You know, they have more
international borders than I think any other country. Are they more shared borders.
A lot of those were contested. You know, they had a huge issue
with the Soviet Union at one point. You know, they almost I mean,
they had people contemplating nuclear exchange. Pushing on on their neighbors is not
new. It was a very maoist thing to do, and and they just
they just seemingly can't stop doing it, you know, is second Thomas shoal
does it matter to Beijing? Like could they just drop it? But but
instead they have, you know, staked legitimacy on this, this contest over
a low tide elevation with a World War two tank landing ship parked on it.
You know, it's they're just the kings of small steaks, right,
like, just every single interaction has to be this, this contest of wills,
and they just can't let anything go. And now we're now we're here
and and it's tents and nobody's enjoying it. And and now we're seeing this
economic slowdown for Beijing, and so I think it's going to be a rough
you know, a rough period for Beijing. Well they kind of they now
have all the attention they didn't want. They don't have the economic cloud that
they did, and it's going to be a hard a hard time, I
think. And you know, we're seeing instability inside inside chij and Ping's government
disappearing, the Foreign Minister and the Defense Minister rearranging the PLA's rocket force.
You know, there's clearly something wrong, something is happening, but it's so
opaque that, you know, I think anyone anyone's saying they know exactly what's
happening. There is probably a bit over their skis. But it's clear that
something's not right. And I think Beijing is straight up not having a good
time right now, after a few decades of more often than not rightfully people
looking at the US and going, you know, you can't stop being your
own worst enemy. It is. It is instructive to see another large nation
start to fit that category on their behavior with the neighbors and especially the water
canon incident. Yes it's provocative, Yes it's quasi violent, but it's not
well. One wouldn't think big enough of a spark to do anything larger.
But it does add another stone in their backpack as they hike around the neighborhood
trying to make friends. That creates opportunities either bilaterally quad minus or the other
quad like we've been talking about today, for nobody really wants and I don't
think anybody's really asking for a new NATO. There are a couple of people,
but whatever. But there's something in between there and the next step that
has a lot of possibility that not only can help us as we learn to
work together in a security relationship, but also can tie the countries together,
which gets broader tension, which is making money, and that is developing some
logistics maintenance and even operate low level operations with these nations where we can do
things with our ships. You start to see a little bit of this,
not just in Australia, but also we do plenty in Japan, maybe doing
a little bit more in India. We're starting to interact more with those nations
not in the quad. When you look at where we were five years ago,
where we are now, and if you just reasonably draw that line forward
another five years, I don't think we're too far from having some significant logistics
and maintenance arrangements with the nations in the area that draw people in both economically
and their security people to work with us more as well. Yeah, I
think, you know, looking at what Beijing has made possible, bowl is
pretty impressive, and I agree if this is a trend that's going to keep
going, you know, we're seeing things now that you wouldn't have imagined ten
years ago, or people that did, you know, should have been buying
lottery tickets. I am very encouraged by us getting some of our MSc ships
into into Indian ports for mid voyage repair opportunities. I'd like to see us
doing more of that in Australia. I know it's kind of it's a bit
far when you start doing the time speed distance, but as you both well
know, we are constrained on our own shippy hard capacity at home, even
more so now that we've we've closed several for the seismic evaluations on the West
Coast. But you know, our partners in India and Australia and Japan,
they do have maritime infrastructure, some with more capacity than others. But we
should be continuing to explore how we do that, and that's actually something I'm
working on now. Have a forthcoming report from the US Studies Center that I
was working on with regard to the US Australia relationship and how we can kind
of expand things like shipbuilding, maritime logistics even down to things like spy maintenance.
We want to get closer with the Australians on doing those things, and
all this can happen within the Quad, not necessarily needing the Quad label on
it. The inverse might be, you know how a Belton Road basically is
everything that China does. You know, anything they want to call Belton Road,
they just call it Belton Road. Oh we got a new infrastructure project,
Yeah it's Belton Road. Hey we we built a you know, a
community center, Yep, Belton Road. We can do whatever we want within
the Quad. It doesn't have to necessarily be called a Quad initiative. But
hey, these are Quad partners and we get our presidents together once a year,
we get there deputies together, we talk about these things, we put
out joint statements, we find areas for cooperation. We can kind of package
whatever we want within that with that within that partnership. Yeah, I think
that's a pretty important point because, you know, not just we we have,
as you said, shipyard issues India. India is a place to work
with that, but we also have Japan and other Remember of the Quad,
we're working with Australia. I guess to to at least develop something we can
do with the nuclear submarines when we kint them in place. But you know
there are other entities out there. South Korea has got a tremendous state,
heavily state supported ship building industry, and I don't you know, we are
so high bound on having stuff done in the US sports we really need to
take advantage and assist our allies out in that area with with some work for
US and you know, get get things done where we're not necessarily trying to
get it all done and insufficient facilities here in the US. And you know,
Suvic Bay is still Suvic Bay, and I don't know what they've got
going there right now, but I thought I read that there were some some
new ship building business and maintenance business going back in there. Yeah, this
is a you know that I guess that that debate rages on. But the
the US Code restrictions on what we can do overseas, I think we could
we would benefit from revisiting some of that or finding some ways to adjust that
legislation and that statute, because you know, we're we're not going to fix
our domestic maritime constraints anytime soon. You know, building a new shipyard doesn't
happen overnight. Trying to catch up on twenty lost years of ship building doesn't
happen overnight. The way that we can do that, the only way that
I see, and i'd be curio is, uh, you know, to
your thoughts on this, but the only way I see is that we start
outsourcing it. That's not a perfect answer because we want, you know,
domestic capacity, But if you want the ships and you want to get rid
of our you know, thousands of thousands of days of maintenance backlog, we've
got to start putting more ships in foreign ports to get it done. And
we've got to start building holes in foreign ports if you ever want to get
them, because we're just we're not getting it done at home. Yeah,
the Europeans already do that with some of their construction. I believe Romania has
a pretty good running business where they they'll do that. So, I mean,
the president has been established. But we have had a really fast hour
that we've used up of your your time today, Blake, thank you very
much for coming on and talking about the quad and overrun the show page.
We'll go ahead and have a link to your to the report that you worked
on with a group that we've referenced a lot during the course of the show.
So if the listeners are interested in that, please go over there and
click the link. It's I think it's like eighty some odd pages. It's
a good read though, because it's big fonts and not too many words on
the page, so it's good for me. But you mentioned briefly you're working
on some stuff. But if people wanted to keep track on you and what
you're working on, where is a good place for them to keep an eye
out and what can we expect from me next? So I usually keep it
to keep it alive on Twitter still or x I suppose, still still holding
out hope that that will continue. I am you mentioned you mentioned my recent
piece on the Sierra Madre from More on the Rocks. I don't keep a
website. I should one of these days I'll be a real person and do
that. Twitter is usually the best. I do have that piece coming out
next, another report length piece from USSC on US Australia maritime cooperation. That's
probably my next big thing coming and then I'm gonna probably take October off because
I am tired and uh and it's my birthday and I'm and I'm just gonna
take October off. So you find me at the pool That's what I'll be
working on purpose. Boys, A pleasure talking to you, Blake and good
luck at the pools. Well, thanks for having me back always always a
treat, and thank you everybody for joining us for another edition of mid Rats
and until hope hopefully next time. I hope you have a great Navy day.
Cheers, wrote Mike Maloney. Want to marry me and all leave this
brand, become really all your being to blame, love to hold me silly,
holding your of the name A long way. It's a long way to
it's a long way to differately to the greenest gun. I love going by
because well left Onwell, it's a long long way to differate. But my life