Networked: techno-democratic statecraft for Australia and the Quad
Adobe Image
This paper provides detailed policy recommendations that apply techno-democratic statecraft principles. These recommendations come in two categories: (1) opportunities for Australian leadership in the Quad Tech Network, and (2) opportunities to build Australia’s tech capacity.
Executive Summary
A new era looms. The fallout of the COVID-19 crisis is the accelerant for an array of trends causing remarkable volatility in geopolitics. An increasingly assertive and revisionist China and inconsistent leadership on the global stage by the United States are leading countries around to the world to reconsider and recalibrate their stances. Concerns over trade, supply chains, and economic dependencies have taken on new meaning and urgency. The tension between liberal democratic values and authoritarian priorities is growing as illiberal values proliferate more readily. Handwringing over the erosion of the rules-based order is more acute as Beijing and Moscow continue to chip away at the integrity of multilateral institutions.
World leaders recognize that a strategic competition is underway and that the geopolitical context in which it will play out is morphing. Many of these leaders also understand that technology is at the core of this competition. Technology-leading countries will drive the digital economy, gaining political power and military strength, and shaping the rules for technology use. Illiberal states see both a pathway to cementing their rule and opportunities to discredit democracies. Liberal democracies see a means to shore up the rules-based order and to hold creeping authoritarianism at bay.
Australia’s leaders are updating the country’s strategic posture in response. The new Australian defense strategy is a major reorientation within the Indo-Pacific; the updated national cyber strategy recognizes the rapidly evolving threats and the fundamental importance of ensuring the security and resilience of the country’s networks. Meanwhile, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is pursuing novel international avenues to secure its technological future by establishing the Quad Tech Network, a Track 2 initiative between think tanks and academic institutions to foster technology policy collaboration among the member countries of the Quad: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. This initiative is part of a broader effort to support and complement the forthcoming Cyber and Critical Technology International Engagement Strategy. This multilateral approach is key: the alliances and partnerships among the world’s democracies are a strategic advantage that illiberal states come nowhere close to matching.
This report lays out a blueprint for Quad technology policy. After setting the scene of the current technological and geopolitical landscape and the context in which the group would operate, the report presents a policymaking framework called techno-democratic statecraft. This framework entails seven qualities that should guide Australia’s 21st-century technology policy. The document further details values and principles Australia should promote and how Australia should pursue its interests internationally, via the Quad and beyond.
Much of this document is devoted to detailed policy recommendations that apply techno-democratic statecraft principles. These recommendations come in two categories: (1) opportunities for Australian leadership in the Quad Tech Network, and (2) opportunities to build Australia’s tech capacity. Together, the framework and recommendations constitute an actionable plan for an affirmative and proactive multilateral technology pact rooted in shared democratic values.
Summary of Recommendations
Australia, with its strong bilateral ties to other Quad member states and as the smallest Quad economy, is well positioned to lead the Quad to achieve important technology policy objectives and simultaneously promote collaborative efforts that would boost its technological capabilities. These recommendations are crafted in the context of techno-democratic statecraft, a comprehensive approach to technology policy with proactive and practical multilateralism as a central feature. The specific technology policy areas capitalize on collective Quad strengths and consider capabilities most relevant for the technology competition that will play out over the next decades.
To create and lead a burgeoning Quad Tech Network, Australia’s leaders should advocate for collaborative approaches that:
- Bolster cybersecurity. Focus in the near term on pursuing multilateral engagement for setting norms that promote a free and open cyberspace; crafting multilateral responses to nefarious cyber activity in accordance with international law; and spearheading a shared monitoring and cyber- intrusion remediation capability.
- Secure supply chains. Take a broader approach by including the United States in the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative and expanding diversification efforts by drawing in other countries and groups such as ASEAN.
- Pursue 5G and Beyond 5G technologies. Lay the foundation for a secure communications infrastructure future by partnering with Japan to promote open interfaces and modular architecture as the best way forward on 5G architecture for the Quad and its allies and partners, and by leading the Quad to execute a strategic plan for collaborative research and development (R&D) and deployment of beyond-5G technologies.
- Close the digital divide. Provide a positive alternative to Chinese digital entanglements in the Indo-Pacific by creating a standing multilateral mechanism to fund secure and fair digital infrastructure development in middle powers and emerging countries.
To boost Australia’s technological capabilities, Australia’s leaders should advocate that the Quad Tech Network:
- Pursue joint research, development, testing, and evaluation programs. Gain know-how and first-hand experience to broaden Australian expertise by pursuing collaboration in areas such as clean-energy technologies, rare-earth elements processing and recycling, information and communications technology, and space technologies, and creating a Quad-wide real-world technology testing and evaluation coalition to take advantage of the wide range of climates and topographies within the group.
- Create a Quad human capital network. Draw on the diverse scientific and technical capabilities of the Quad by pursuing new initiatives to foster cross-border collaboration within the Quad, such as an arrangement where qualified scientists, technologists, and engineers can readily work and live in the four countries.
- Set up shared compute and data resources. Facilitate broad-based and collaborative artificial intelligence (AI) research and address AI readiness shortfalls by directing the effort to create a Quad research cloud to offer wide-spread access to computational resources and datasets.
- Organize Quad innovation competitions. Tackle difficult science and engineering problems by initiating multinational tech challenges.
About the series
This paper has been written for the Quad Tech Network Dialogue, as part of the Quad Tech Network (QTN) initiative. QTN is an initiative of the NSC, delivered with support from the Australian Government. It aims to establish and deepen academic and official networks linking the Quad nations – Australia, India, Japan, and the United States – in relation to the most pressing technology issues affecting the future security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.
