Australia and European countries are separated by geography but aligned in strategic interests. This principle is guiding a growing network of security partnerships built around countering hybrid threats.
In the week of 8 June, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong engaged in the Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN), meetings with their German counterparts, and separate visits to Paris and Helsinki. This demonstrated Canberra’s determination to maintain European engagement in Indo-Pacific security while also providing avenues to articulate Australia’s security interests related to the war in Ukraine, the Strait of Hormuz and the future of NATO.
To some extent this burst of diplomatic activity has offset the disappointing decision of G7 host and French President Emmanuel Macron not to invite Australia to a meeting of that group this week.
Australia’s security and defence relationships across Europe are wide-ranging. France is a fellow Pacific power; Britain is an AUKUS country and a partner in high-end defence integration; and Germany is Australia’s largest European trading partner, including in defence material. Canberra sees eye-to-eye with smaller nations such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Estonia on issues of foreign interference and economic coercion. Australia also maintains strategic partnership arrangements the European Union and NATO.
What binds these relationships together is the global impact of the Russia–China ‘no-limits’ partnership and the increasingly coordinated hybrid threats it enables. In all four meetings, ministers acknowledged they were convening in the face of acute global instability and a deteriorating security environment. Joint statements highlighted China’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and urged Beijing to halt the flow of dual-use components sustaining Russia’s defence industrial base.
In Berlin, Marles and Wong announced negotiations for a status-of-forces agreement that would enhance the ability of the Australian and German armed forces to exercise jointly and collaborate in other ways. While Germany is neither a major nor particularly visible security actor in the Indo-Pacific, Berlin’s language on Taiwan, South China Sea arbitration and freedom of navigation has become notably firmer. Canberra’s extension of the foreign and defence ministers meeting format to Germany signals its intent to build a more substantive security and defence relationship with Berlin.
In Helsinki, Marles visited civil defence preparedness infrastructure and confirmed Finland’s participation in the Royal Australian Air Force’s Pitch Black multinational air exercise, to be held in July and August in Darwin. Reports have indicated Australia’s interest in engaging with Finnish defence companies ICEYE, which operates the world’s largest constellation of small active remote sensing satellites, and Helsing, a firm at the frontier of AI-powered drone and counter-drone technologies that are currently employed on the battlefield in Ukraine.
In Paris, Wong upgraded the Australia–France strategic roadmap. The joint Indo-Pacific Centre for Energy Transition, hosted by Swinburne University, will continue, while cooperation in national security and policing, counter-cybercrime and combatting drug trafficking will be enhanced. The latter will undoubtedly involve a strong Pacific component.
In London, besides reaffirming their commitment to AUKUS, Britain and Australia confirmed active joint projects in developing detection and counter-strike capabilities in space, drone and hypersonic technologies.
While British defence secretary John Healey’s resignation just after AUKMIN was untimely and unfortunate, the meeting was the most consequential of the four European engagements. Expressing shared concern ‘over the persistent and evolving threat of malicious hybrid activity’, London and Canberra named two Russian threat actors and attributed escalating cyber activity to China-based ‘security companies’. This strengthened and specific language coincided with former MI6 chief Richard Moore saying that ‘without China, Russia would have lost’ the war in Ukraine.
What stands out across these meetings is the emphasis on practical preparedness and readiness. Specifically, joint projects designed to deal with hybrid threats and strengthen mutual counter hybrid warfare capabilities were a common theme.
In the Indo-Pacific, many countries have been experiencing prolonged campaigns of hybrid threats, to the extent of becoming too accustomed to them. Paramilitary pressure at sea, cyber intrusions, foreign interference, economic coercion and information operations occur on a weekly basis. They’re often treated as isolated incidents. In fact, they form a sustained and coordinated campaign that seeks to erode regional resilience and exploit gaps in coordination among states.
The key to confronting hybrid threats lies in the ability of regional groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Quad to withstand information disruption, coordinate responses and share the costs and risks of collective action. Because state-sponsored hybrid threats undermine security and stability in Europe and the Indo-Pacific in similar ways, maintaining unity is essential. This unity is the first line of defence and where Australia’s partnerships with the EU, NATO and individual European states can serve as the foundation for a broader coalition against hybrid coercion.
Geography no longer separates Europe’s and the Indo-Pacific’s security challenges. Hybrid threats demand a unified Europe–Indo-Pacific response. The challenge for Australia and its European partners now is to build a cooperative security architecture that meaningfully incorporates the Indo-Pacific and generates enduring mechanisms for coordination, preparedness and collective action for years to come.
