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Modi’s Visit: Australia, India Seek to Gain Strength From Each Other

Australia and India are framing new minilateral coalitions to maximize their strategic options. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Australia last week delivered substantial outcomes, especially in the defense and security sector.

Amid growing unease about relying on the United States to resist China, Australia and India are keen to see how they can gain strength from each other, much as Japan and Australia are increasingly working together. Examples of this appeared during Modi’s visit.

Australia and India are framing new minilateral coalitions to maximize their strategic options. Where the two will land is not entirely certain because of the limitations of their material power, but they stand a better chance if they work in unison with other Asian partners, such as Indonesia and New Zealand. Unsurprisingly, these were the other two countries that Modi visited last week.

The Australia-India bilateral relationship is one of the pillars of such an effort. A Joint Declaration on Defense signed during Modi’s visit is particularly notable in this regard because despite substantial growth there is still a lot of room for improvement. Thus, the push “to build interoperability and information sharing between defense forces” and to strengthen the complexity of defense exercises should be very welcome.

The other notable aspect of the declaration is its focus on strengthening regional security. It calls for resolving disputes through peaceful means without resorting to threat of force in line with international law, which is particularly welcome on the 10th anniversary of the U.N. Tribunal award favoring the Philippines. India missed an opportunity here to join its partners in remembering this. Such efforts, as well as the focus on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, may appear somewhat unsatisfactory in the face of constant threats, but these have their uses. Even if aggressive powers such as China ignore them, they still have a normative value that should not be dismissed entirely.

Probably the most striking part is the undertaking “to consult on defense-related developments in the Indo-Pacific that affect shared interests.” This would have been unthinkable between Australia and India even a few years ago. As Griffith University professor Ian Hall noted, this is language that is almost alliance-like, similar to the language used in the ANZUS Treaty (Article 3), which reads, “The Parties will consult together whenever in the opinion of any of them the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened in the Pacific.” This is notable because India has for decades avoided being confined to alliances, fearing this........

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