Arms Control in the Western Pacific

In light of suggestions that the AUKUS deal might spur an arms race in the Western Pacific, I revisit some thoughts on the potential for arms control:

Finally, the Washington Naval Treaty conceded Japanese superiority in its sphere of influence; either the US Navy or the Royal Navy would have been hard-pressed to win in Japan’s neighborhood, even if they had formal superiority.  The United States appears to have little interest in making such concessions to China.

The way that AUKUS will affect arms race dynamics isn’t really through an expansion of Chinese shipbuilding; the Chinese probably can accelerate a bit but they’re already building at a breakneck pace. The impact will be felt in Seoul and Tokyo, which are both already very, very good at building submarines. The Japanese are already on record as being interested in making the jump to SSNs and there’s a clear operational logic for them (Japan isn’t quite as far away from likely areas of conflict as Australia but it can still benefit from fast boats that can remain on station for a long time). Both the Koreans and the Japanese are also on their way to building out carrier battle groups, and SSNs do a big part of the ASW that such groups require.