The Trilateral Security Pact Between Australia, the UK, and the United States and Its Geopolitical Impact on the Indo-Pacific Region

Introduction

In September 2021, Australia, the UK, and the US announced the creation of a new defense pact in the Asia-Pacific region, called “AUKUS” (an acronym consisting of the names of the participating countries - Australia and, the UK and USA) (Chitadze, 2023). This chapter will discuss the purpose of this new tripartite pact, the reasons for the reactions of leading international players to it, and how it reflects the state of the global balance of power and security prospects. The processes taking place in the world today, including the creation of AUKUS, indicate that China's power and influence have grown to such an extent that, without balancing it in the security sphere, the world order, which until now has been more or less stable, can radically change. The main task of the United States (the dominant power of the existing world order) and its allies is to prevent irreversible changes in the world order, in particular those that will accelerate the establishment of Chinese hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle Eastern world. The influence of the balance of power on the world order History does not know that the strengthening or weakening of the power of any major international player did not cause significant geopolitical changes. The strengthening of a separate state, whether as a result of rapid industrial and technological development or after German reunification in the nineteenth century, inevitably leads to the destruction of the pre-existing balance of power as the basis of stability. In this case, the stronger party often tries to use the gained advantage for its purposes, as a result of which the redistribution of territories, spheres of influence, and control of access to resources was burned. This can happen by force, that is, through war, or more or less peacefully - based on some kind of agreement, but changing the balance of power always ends in large-scale geopolitical changes. This also happens when one of the major players is weakened, as happened as a result of defeat in the war (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, etc.) or even due to an economic crisis (the example of the Soviet Union in the 1980s years). In all cases, the power vacuum created by the weakening of one state is almost instantly filled by other powers. Regardless of what causes a change in the existing balance - whether someone is strengthened or weakened, prolonging the transition period created before the establishment of a new order contributes to instability and conflict.

However, the reaction of representatives of the democratic West to fundamental changes was not always consistent. When the Cold War ended thirty years ago with the defeat of the communist bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Western world was euphoric in anticipation of a new, peaceful, democratic, and sustainable world. I recall an article by the famous American scientist Francis Fukuyama with the sensational title “The End of History.” According to him, the West's victory in the Cold War was due to the superiority of liberal democracy and market economics. Indeed, one after another, former communist countries embarked on the path of political and economic reform and soon embraced Western principles of liberal democracy and market economics (Chitadze, 2011). But it is likely that the reason this new historical era has no proper name and is called the “post-Cold War period” is because the New World or even the European order did not spread everywhere. Even in Europe itself, where the main events that brought an end to the old world order were based on the struggle of two superpowers and the balance of power between them, the benefits of the new reality were not equally felt by all peoples. Yes, the countries of Central Europe regained their sovereignty, and the formerly enslaved peoples of the communist regime gained (or regained) their independence from the ruins of the Soviet empire, but only three of the latter were able to benefit from the benefits of the new European empire order. The Baltic countries soon joined NATO and the European Union, that is, they returned to the European family and gained economic prosperity and security guarantees. The rest, especially Georgia, which tried to achieve independence with real sovereignty, became a victim of Russian aggression from the very first days of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has been added to the number of Russian victims in recent years. Most importantly, if previously Russia pretended in various ways and justified behavior towards Georgia caused by its imperial instincts, imitated the implementation of democratic reforms and constructive cooperation with the West, then all this has long changed and today it completely openly contradicts both the collective interests of the West and its values.