Transcript

Do the US and other Western allies still maintain an edge over China in defence industry and innovation? 

How are partnerships between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea reshaping the global balance of power? 

How do Australia and other US partners contribute to strengthening deterrence and industrial resilience? 

What are the key supply chain vulnerabilities we might face in a protracted conflict, and how can Australia and its partners mitigate them? 

In this episode, Seth Jones joins David Andrews to discuss the importance of alliances, defence industry coordination, and readiness to build deterrence across multiple theatres. 

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

Seth Jones

I think one of big challenges is that the US industrial base more broadly would have major challenges fighting a protracted war and if you can't fight a protracted war it becomes much more difficult to deter one.

National Security Podcast

You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific produced by the ANU National Security College.

David Andrews

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm David Andrews, Senior Manager for Policy and Engagement at the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people and I pay my respects to their elders past and present.

I'm joined this week by Dr. Seth G. Jones, President of the Defence and Security Department and Harold Brown Chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. Seth also currently serves as Commissioner on the Congressionally Established Afghanistan War Commission and teaches at the Centre for Homeland Defence and Security at the US Naval Postgraduate School. Seth, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being with us.

Seth Jones

It's great to be on. Thanks for having me.

David Andrews

Well, Seth, you recently visited us in person out here at NSC. And so I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to speak with you further about some of the burning strategic challenges that both our nations face. to that end, just to kick things off with a nice, nice, big and broad open question. What are you most worried about at present? What stands out to you as the biggest threats to manage in the defence and national security domain for countries like the United States and Australia?

Seth Jones

Well, I think one of the most significant is the relationships we're seeing develop and strengthen between Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, and Tehran. There had been some questions about what degree and where that relationship was headed, whether we were going to see a weakening of those relations. There had been some questions in particular after the 12 day war between Israel and Iran that the Chinese and the Russians did not really publicly come to the aid of Iran. But I think when one looks at the likely development of the relationship, I think we're seeing what I would call deepening bilateral relations.

That is an increase in imports and exports of military and dual use items between those countries with China really sitting at the core of it and the China Russia axis as being, you know, the probably the most significant pairing of growth in the scale and scope of joint exercises and military training among those groups, industrial based cooperation, rising industrial based cooperation, including

 

co-production, co-sustainment of weapons components.

We certainly see that, for example, with Russians building Shaheed's in drones, including 136s in Russia itself. These are Iranian drones. Some deepening of bilateral treaties committing to collective assistance in case of an external attack. And then one of the more interesting developments has been the deepening of deployment of soldiers to fight in wars of other members. So North Koreans, for example, deployed to the Russia, Ukraine battlefield to conduct fighting and actually improve in tactics, techniques, procedures, and then just general operational capability. So one of the things that definitely concerns me is the cooperation we're seeing among those you may call them access countries in part because, think what we have seen is a lot of this cooperation from countries in the, Indo-Pacific like the North North Koreans and the Chinese aiding the Russians, with tensions in the Indo-Pacific Taiwan, straight South China sea, even on the Korean peninsula. we certainly could see a number of those countries aiding what was going on there. I think that that is at the top of my worries about the direction of what the US deals trying is and others are going to have to deal with is some competitors that are increasingly cooperating.

David Andrews

Absolutely, and I think as you say, we're seeing those relationships building and deepening in lots of different areas and some of I think in very overtly concerning domains, particularly those deployment of forces and co-development of munitions and things of that nature. One point that I think has been raised a lot in debates and conversations around Canberra is almost...maybe in broad terms, let's call it a two front situation where you have, like talking about North Koreans being involved in Russia with the war against Ukraine, Russia and Iran sort of co-developing unitions, as you say. But then we're also looking at scenarios around, say, Taiwan or the South China Sea and the potential for complications or actions taken by Russia, say, like these recent overflight tests in Poland and Romania and Estonia to sort of Europe and NATO, and I guess by extension the United States, to be focused more on Europe despite the US's desire to sort of maybe pull back a little bit from there, which allows less support or room to assist in a sort of East Asian contingency. Are you seeing those kinds of strategies or plans at play at all, or do think that's maybe a little bit overblown?

Seth Jones

Well, I think there's a significant potential for, conflict to develop on multiple fronts. The, the US overall force planning construct is, essentially to try to, either fighter or deter on one and a half fronts, really the ability to sort of fight on one front and then to hold off another country on a second front. So for example, if it had to fight in the Pacific against China, whether it was in the Taiwan Straits or the South China Sea, to then hold off the Russians in an area like the Baltic States or Poland or Finland. I think what we're seeing, or you could bring in the Korean Peninsula here or even the Middle East.

I think what we're seeing in a range of areas as a concern that the US for example, has to worry on about at least a two front, the potential for two-front conflict. has to be prepared to deter and if deterrence fails to be able to fight on two fronts. That is not something that the US Department of Defense has planned for since the Obama administration in the, in the, you know, well, number of years ago. And, and I think what we are seeing is, you know, is a lot of pushing on multiple fronts. The North Koreans are getting better at conducting combat operations. They continue to build their nuclear arsenal, including with mobile launch sites. the Russians, as you noted, taking advantage of, tensions in other areas and a war in Ukraine by flying drones over Polish airspace and then flying fighter jets over the Baltic States, that NATO needs to scramble fighter jets to move them out of NATO's territory. And so I think what all of these things do show is we are starting to see interconnectedness across big theatres in ways that I think for planning purposes, I don't think one can plan anymore that a conflict that erupts in one theatre is ipso facto going to stay in that theatre. That's not the way militaries I think should be planning right now. It's it is the possibility of multi theatre conflict. There's part of that multi theatre deterrence. And that is just the reality of I think the international landscape we live in.

David Andrews

I suppose, you know, as you've identified, there's, if the current plans are for a 1.5 sort of front or adversary conflict, and as you've identified, as we're talking about, it looks like we need to plan more actively for a two party or two front conflict. There's clearly a gap there of 0.5. And I imagine that part of that, the intent is that that gap would be filled by allies and partners. So countries like Australia by NATO, South Korea, Japan, etc. Are you seeing the kind of response that you'd want or expect from, I guess, both the US and those allies to address those challenges?

Seth Jones

Well, let me take them by theatre. So I think what we've seen in Europe, for example, is a willingness to commit verbally to increases of defence spending. Now, NATO countries have generally committed to a 5 % increase in defence spending over the next several years, but it's really only a 3.5 % increase in defence spending with a 1.5 % percent component that is is improving things like, bridges and, railroads that could transport tanks or, you know, heavy material, to, to a battle space area. So there's a little bit of fiction involved in a 5 % number. addition, as we've talked to sort of a number of European countries, that is still an open question about whether some of them are going to get to those promised numbers. certainly if, if you're in NATO's Eastern flank, they're already moving in that direction. So, Poland is, spending a growing percentage of its GDP, its gross domestic product on defence. So are the Baltic States. So was Finland. but that is because they are frontline States.

They border Russia and they're in a much more vulnerable spot. but you know, at the end of the day, there are still some big concerns with NATO countries able to fight at the high end of combat. mean, what we've actually seen is a number of countries, including the UK shrink the size of their army. they don't have a lot of airlift. they they're running low on munitions, whether they're for a long-range fires or for air defence.

So it is not clear that when you look at Europe, they are prepared right now for a protracted high end fight, nor in many ways is the US. I think if you look at countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, even Taiwan, to some degree, what we are seeing is a recognition of the concerns about the security environment including, quite frankly, the Chinese build-up in all of the major domains of warfare, from air to land systems to the massive shipbuilding, both commercial and military, to space-based assets, to the Chinese push for 1,000 plus warheads, to offensive cyber capabilities. And the Australians, the Japanese, the South Koreans actually starting to take much more seriously.

So I think there's a lot of positive talk about the current environment. It depends on which countries one is talking about, sometimes more words than action. But I do think there's a lot more work that needs to go if, if one wants to deter what we've seen coming out of Ukraine, which is now three and half years into a protracted war is that one needs stockpiles of things that most countries just do not have right now. So I think we're still far ways away from effective deterrence. But I think we've seen some of the right verbal signals from countries in particular in Europe and Indonesia.

David Andrews

Well, just to pick up on one of those areas you mentioned, Seth, that I think is probably worth us expanding on a lot more. And I think in every way, you said there's some positive developments, which is the vital role of defence industry and the state of the broader defence industrial base, both in the US and amongst allies. So it seems to me anyway that over the past century, let's say that a key US strength has been its position as an industrial, technological and innovation powerhouse.

We think back to the huge production lines from the Second World War and following, for example. And this is something that you've written about at length, and you've actually just published a book on this topic. So we'll, of course, link that in the show notes for listeners who might want to pick up a copy. But would you say that the US still retains that edge in defense industrial production capability and innovation? Does it still hold that edge when it comes to this era of strategic competition with China? What more do we need to do to regain or retain that advantage?

Seth Jones

Yeah. So I think the, US Australian, broader Western companies do have significant innovative capabilities. And I'm talking about not just defence firms, but also, also, a range of technology companies whose work in artificial intelligence, quantum, and other areas are so important to the broader defence sector.

So I do think there is an edge and a competence that a number of companies have. know, it's the, it's been the traditional big ones like Lockheed and Northrop Grumman, still Boeing with some aircraft and some missiles like Harpoon. We've got, we've got some, some air defence companies like Raytheon or RTX, got some big up and comers that either build hardware or software, like, Palantir and Anduril, and then a number of, of technology companies, Google, Nvidia, and others that are really cutting edge when it comes to technology. I think the problem though, is that there are several problems, and we can, we can dig into these more broadly.

But I think one of the big challenges is that the US industrial base more broadly would have major challenges, fighting a protracted war. And if you can't fight a protracted war, it becomes much more difficult to deter one. So, a couple of examples, just to highlight it. the, in many of our war games, the U S. We'll run out of its long-range anti-ship missiles or El Rasmus after roughly a week of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The US struggles with air defence munitions. Turns out that was pretty accurate from the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. The Israelis used THAAD as well as other US systems like Patriot and the US munitions stockpiles for those air defence systems ran relatively low.

Same thing for a number of other anti-ship cruise missiles, and then even the joint anti-ship missiles, Jazzom, Extended Range. Those numbers get depleted pretty quickly in a protracted war. So, mean, one big challenge is the industrial base is not being given sufficient funding to produce and then stockpile a range of these systems for a protracted conflict, makes it difficult to deter. There are also a range of other challenges. There are workforce challenges in US shipbuilding, for example.

 I think that's pretty consistent across a number of countries. There are some supply chain issues that end up being a problem. are also, this, sort of basic contracting and acquisition challenges. The US, for example, has a really an anachronous and that anachronistic, what I would call peacetime mindset, just the sheer length of time it can take to produce, defense systems is long, way too long. you, mentioned earlier the, world war two timeline shrank dramatically because the US was focused on certain mass production. there's really a focus on cost saving right now.

So, I mean, there are number of areas. And then just one last one. If one looks at defence spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, which gives one a sort of a relative sense.

The US is spending about 3 % of its GDP on defence spending. And a big chunk of that goes into things like, the, the, the sort of broader welfare, program for soldiers, not in procurement and a development production of systems, but on other things, again, know, the broad social welfare service for its soldiers over the long run. The during the Cold War, those percentages of GDP were anywhere from about 15 percent during the Korean War to six percent during the Reagan buildup. Again, by the end of the Trump administration, unless something changes, they'll be in the high 2 % of GDP. So the US has been underfunding Défense as a percentage of GDP. that's a final, I think, challenge is just not having sufficient money on basic defence development and production. there are a number of issues that I think have to be grappled with front and centre.

The new Department of War, as they're calling it, is tackling some of these, but I just don't think enough at this point.

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David Andrews

So just for those who are maybe used to thinking of deterrence in quite sort of kinetic terms, shall we say. I think when we often talk about deterrence, it's sort of how many aircraft and ships and tanks you have as well as we're talking about now munitions and stockpiles. And I think that's maybe an element that across the board would be a bit underdone on is this focus on stockpiling and on munitions. And I think those examples you provided are really sort of cut to the core of it is that there's no point having all the systems if they can only fight for such a short space of time. Is there more that needs to be done between allies to sort of expand those defence industrial based capabilities and to sort of to support each other?

So I guess I think of Australia has our guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise that we're building up and one thing that we've done with that is to strike a deal with Kongsberg, the Norwegian munitions manufacturer to build naval strike missile in Australia, which I think is their first factory outside of Norway. And so that's just one small example and I we need to do a lot more. But is that the kind of approach we need to be doing a lot more of to ensure that we can collectively deter any threats in this part of the world?

Seth Jones

I think there is no question that those kinds of, they could be co-production, co-development, co-sustainment efforts are absolutely essential. As you just noted, there is a problem right now, even in munitions stockpiles. And if you look at the timelines for building some of these types of systems, it's generally in the neighbourhood of two years or so for, you know, lot of the air defence munitions, for long range or medium range, missiles. And that's just to get the first ones, not the last ones off the production line. So the lead times for some of these systems, you know, everything from a Rasm to, a jazz them the prism Naval strike missile, Tomahawk like block five pack two pack three, they're pretty long, timelines for producing them. So, so I think because of all of that, there is a major need for, companies, including Australian companies to, be partnering for production. of these systems and it actually it's beneficial because it, it, increases the capabilities of the workforce in Australia, in Japan and in South Korea that can build these kinds of systems.

I mean, one interesting area where the, you know, Australians have, for example, pushed forward with notable success is on directed energy weapons, including lasers, for air defence systems. mean, the trade-offs as we've seen both in Israel, but also in Red Sea operations, incoming drones and cruise missiles or even ballistic missiles, whether it's been from Iran or from the Houthis operating in Yemen, particularly for drones, which can be relatively cheaply produced and using a very expensive weapon system to shoot that down. Having a laser, for example, being able to shoot relatively inexpensively direct an energy at an incoming drone or missile starts to balance that trade-off. that's an area where we've seen Australia, for example, push ahead on the production of some of these advanced technologies and systems that are really importantly seen. Israeli companies do that as well as some US systems and that partnership across countries is critical.

David Andrews

I think we're also seeing those questions around broadening the production base even in more sort of substantial assets, whether it's the surface fleet or aircraft and things of that nature. As you're well aware, the AUKUS conversation is a very active one in Australia and sometimes you have people saying, if we don't have...Virginia class submarines, we can just go and buy something else. Well, actually, the truth of matter is there isn't just sort of a ready production line. You can sort of tick a box and out comes a submarine a year later. And if it's taking that long, you know, a couple of years or months at a time to produce a single missile, producing a submarine or a ship or an aircraft is a much more drawn out and complicated process. So I think we're seeing the need to expand production lines on all kinds of things. But munitions being very high on that list.

Seth Jones

I mean, on that point, if I can just double down on that, mean, the AUKUS, particularly Pillar 1, is a very good example of this, where one of the things that's interesting for deterrence purposes and war fighting for that matter is undersea is incredibly important. And it's an area where, frankly, the People's Liberation Army is vulnerable. Their capabilities are not great in anti-submarine warfare. And it turns out...that submarines are important. So that's why pillar one of Locus is, so important. the US has had some challenges with the workforce in Groton, Connecticut and in Quonset point, Rhode Island, and also down in Virginia, where those Virginia class submarines are being built.

Timelines aren't quick, but even just selling a few of them to Australia before, the next class of Australian nuclear-powered submarines gets built, I think would be helpful, but that's a really good example of an important system submarine, which has extraordinary value for war fighting and perhaps even more importantly for deterrence. And where that partnership between Australia, the UK and the US is so, so critical.

David Andrews

I think we're seeing similar sort of in pillar two, for example, there's very active cooperation on how to build sort of trilateral models of technological innovation. But I suppose one question that comes to mind for me, not just prompted by the AUKUS example, but broadly the sense of cooperation between allies and partners is how we balance the, whether efficiencies are being created or we're just replicating things. So lots of countries want to be more self-sufficient and that sense of national resilience, national preparedness. And so there are certain things which you sort of need to produce like munitions, pretty much everywhere, but you don't necessarily want to have every country developing a new submarine or a new aircraft or a frigate or something like that because there could be other efficiency to be generated, but by doing that in a partnership model. Do you have a sense of whether there are particular...aspects of this wider defence industrial base that should be taken in a multilateral model? Are there ones that we really have to be keeping sort of in every country or are there others that we could share on? guess there's, AUKUS is one example, maybe some of the combat aircraft development between European countries and Japan as wellbeing another one. Is that a model which tracks across the board or are there...certain points that we need to focus on purely domestic interests in production.

Seth Jones

Well, I think one area that where there is a clear need to maximize efficiencies is in shipbuilding. If one looks at global commercial shipbuilding, the U.S. produces about 0.1 % of global shipbuilding. This is in 2024. The Japanese produce about 13 % or so South Koreans just under 30%. And the vast majority of the rest is over 50 % is China with about 4 % of others. And I think what that says to me is it makes very little sense for a lot of other countries to be building surface ships.

That percentage doesn't include submarines, which I can understand a number of countries may get a little sensitive in having other countries build their submarines, but Corvettes, frigates, maybe even destroyers, I think is a great need for figuring out, which are the countries that have a comparative advantage and, and companies in surface ships.

Cause it is an important component of the broader Indo-Pacific and start to get politics out of the way. One of the challenges in the US for shipbuilding is the Jones act, no relation to me, but a congressional act that makes it very difficult for military ships to be built outside of the United States. And I think we're getting to a point where it just doesn't make sense for the US for example, to core a lot of money into shipbuilding because the Koreans and the Japanese have such significant capabilities. So for me, that's an area where not everybody needs to be able to large numbers of ships. There are already some countries that are well ahead of others. They've got the robotics. They've got many, additive manufacturing integrated into the system that got a lot of efficiencies automation. and I think, we need to figure out, getting the politics right so that we can buy from those countries. And I think sometimes the political environment gets in the way of these efficiencies. I'd like to see some of that, some, some progress in that area.

David Andrews

I'd just like to focus on two different dimensions of supply chain as it pertains to sort of, I guess, defence industrial capabilities as well as broader deterrence questions. One being the challenges we face in the Indo-Pacific because of the of the geographic distribution of the states that, you know, these different allied partners. We don't have the density of a NATO where you share that same physical continent and often borders with your principal threat or concern.

We've got Japan and Korea close together, but still separated by a body of water and just proximate to China. The United States across the other side of Pacific, Australia right down the bottom, we're very spread out. And so there's that question to me of when it comes to it, well, not when, hopefully never does, but should there be a conflict in which we're involved in the region, how we stay in the fight effectively. If a lot of what's happening in Europe is NATO states working together to support Ukraine, for example. It's not just Ukraine by themselves, it's these suppliers coming through NATO states and EU states. How we achieve that when we're so disaggregated and there's a much more difficult environment to fight in, in that sense, and both in protecting those supply chains but moving those bits of equipment between countries. But I guess on a related sense also, the question of inputs into those supply chains, if we're talking about...critical minerals and rare earths and semiconductors and all those sort of things, which some areas, there's a US or Japanese or Korean dominance, other areas, or Taiwanese, other areas are very strong China focus. And so how, given the necessity of those components for designing all these new pieces of equipment, how we square that circle. So only two small questions for you.

Seth Jones

Yeah, I mean, I think as we as we've seen in past conflicts, frankly, even the Ukraine conflict, where there is a challenge and a threat, there is often a way and a will. So when Ukraine needs various types of assistance, the South Koreans, the Australians, even the Japanese provided it and were able to get that material into Ukraine. When Poland wanted to buy tanks, they bought some from General Dynamics land systems based in the US they also bought them from Korea.

 So I think if we're able to see in a couple of those examples, Pacific countries providing systems and then exporting them, including the supply components for them to Europe that I think in the case of a future hypothetical conflict, I'm confident that there would be a way to move past some of the supply chain challenges and the distance we see between countries. I will say they're going to have to be creative ways of doing it. For example, one of the things we've seen in Ukraine with, frontline forces in a contested environment where the Russians are conducting strikes against, logistics targets is the Ukrainians increasingly moving to drones for the dropping of a range of different types of logistics could be fuel could be, food could be medical supplies, using drones to transport them. One certain certainly, area of concern, in and around whether it's Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan is, in a contested environment.

China certainly got a range of, short, medium and long-range missile capabilities is, how do you get logistics in into places where it needs to go in that kind of environment. And that's where you may see innovation. So maybe there are, there are advances in undersea logistics movement. there are advances in unmanned aircraft systems or drones or unmanned surface ships that are able to move that kind of material over long distance distances.

I'm pretty confident where there's a will to get some of those logistics and supplies, even in contested environments, there'll be a way to do it. Now you also asked about, supply chains and, I'll just, just to serve you blunt, in particular cases where we see countries like China dominating.

So if we look at, China, dominating the advanced battery supply chain across the globe. That's lithium, hydroxide, electrolyte, lithium carbonate, anodes, cathodes. China also controls or partially controls the global market for several types of raw materials, which are important in the defence sector. So think for example, iron and ferroalloy metals, that's vanadium, some non-ferrous metals like gallium, germanium, Antimony, arsenic, and then some big industrial minerals like graphite. And we've all already seen last year, the Chinese put export curves to a number of Western countries on gallium, germanium, and antimony, citing national security concerns. Well, I think in general, we've also seen export restrictions on several rare earth metals like samarium, for example.

I think what that does mean is, is two things. One is, is both sides can play that game. So China is vulnerable on, you know, cobalt, chromium, lithium, rhodium, platinum, boron. So, you know, if the Chinese want to play this game, then, then I think, all sides can play because they are also vulnerable, in importing some rare earth minerals and others for their systems. They're also vulnerable because they're going to want to sell ships, for example, to a range of countries. I think, you know, the Chinese are not the only ones that have both vulnerabilities and some advantages.

The second is I do think it what it means is Australia, Japan, Korea, the US and others do need to find alternative sources for some of the particularly vulnerable supplies that they have. Because if there was a conflict and if there was a need to get access in a sustained conflict, having some countries have an ability to shut down key supply chains would be a potential problem. So I do think there's a need to find alternative sources.

And to start stockpiling now some of those, some of those rare earth minerals or, or other, other, other types of capabilities. So that that's just like planning now for the future of a potential conflict. And again, one hopes that that doesn't happen, but I think the ultimate goal is, is a deterrence one is that you're showing the other side that you're, you are prepared if it goes down that road for a protracted conflict. And I think that ideally strengthens deterrence.

David Andrews

Well, Seth, just as we're coming to our last question here, just as we're coming up close to time, I just thought I'd bring it maybe into a bit of future speculation or unique insights you might be able to share for us in Australia from on the ground in Washington. I think there's been a lot of conversation recently around the forthcoming US national security strategy and national defence strategy. I think we're anticipating them to be released maybe later this year or in the near future, they're often in the first 12 months of the administration. We've seen a few conflicting reports in the last couple of weeks around what they might say and some placing maybe a greater emphasis on homeland defence and the Western Hemisphere and others then still listing other reports having China still as quite a strong sort of priority there. What's your read on what might be included in these strategies? Should we be bracing ourselves for major changes?

Seth Jones

Yeah. So, I think if one backs up to 2018, both the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy in the United States, this is under the first Trump administration, but really engineered in terms of the national security strategy by HR McMaster. And then on the National Defense Strategy by, secretary Mattis that they were both were pivotal documents in shifting the US away from a focus on counterterrorism, which is where the US really had been in the two decades prior to that. And really focusing on state-based threats, particularly China and Russia, but also to some degree, some concerns about Iran, North Korea, and others.

The Biden administration, it's...National security strategy and national defense strategy largely stuck with that, although really did prioritize China. And I think the early versions of the national defense strategy, particularly 2021, really pushed Russia significantly down the, priority level, distanced it from China.

That changed somewhat with a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in In February of 2022. so China was the, was the priority pacing threat and Russia became the acute threat, which I think was a little bit different by 2022 from where it was in 2021. But so there's still had been some consistency from the first Trump administration to the Biden administration on state-based actors. I think what, what is likely to surface when the national defense strategy and the national security strategy are released. Again, we'll have to wait and see the specifics is two things. One is I do think there will likely be a focus on China as the U.S.' most significant competitor, global competitor, economic, technological, and defence related.

But then second is…and I think it's pretty obvious with a deployment of US military forces along the US Mexican border to deal with border security and immigration issues, with the deployment of US military forces to cities like Washington, for example, to deal with crime issues and immigration, and then also to conduct military actions in the Western Hemisphere.

For example, strikes against drug trafficking organizations, including ones that are connected to Venezuela in the Caribbean. What all of this suggests is that a major priority is highly likely to be US interest in its own backyard, which, really means immigration and drug trafficking concerns. I would say, you know, there's, probably is a third element as well, which I think the the threat that we had seen even from Russia in the national defense strategy with the Biden administration, I suspect will get pushed down much further down the sort of area priorities. what we'll probably see is something like China and homeland security.

 I mean, in my view briefly, that's a mistake because I think that the deployment of US forces for those missions that I outlined cities the border, and frankly, even drug trafficking organizations, in my view, is not a military mission. First and foremost, it's probably a coast guard mission. It's a department of Homeland security mission. It's a law enforcement mission. It's a misuse. I think of the US military probably is not going to be helpful for readiness.

It's going to take focus and attention and resources away from what I think the priority focus should be, which is China and the broader way we discuss this, some of the cooperation we're seeing among countries like China, Russia, even North Korea and Iran. So I'm not sure that development is in the best interest of the U.S., but I do think that's the direction that the administration is likely to go in its national defense strategy and national security strategy.

David Andrews

There's a lot there for us to be mindful of and of course with Australia's second National Defence Strategy coming out sometime early next year as well. It's big six months for Strategy Watchers but Seth it's been a great pleasure having you on the podcast and thank you for sharing your insights but again thanks for being with us on the National Security Podcast.

Seth Jones

Thank you very much for having me. You guys do great work and I look forward to continuing to listen in the future. Cheers.

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