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AllAfrica
12-06-2025
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Goodbye to all that? Trump's America and Australia's choice
Even the most ardent supporters of the alliance with the United States – the notional foundation of Australian security for more than 70 years – must be having some misgivings about the second coming of Donald Trump. If they're not, they ought to read the two essays under review here. They offer a host of compelling reasons why a reassessment of the costs, benefits and possible future trajectory of the alliance is long overdue. And yet, notwithstanding the cogency and timeliness of the critiques offered by Emma Shortis and Hugh White, it seems unlikely either of these will be read, much less acted upon, by those Shortis describes as the 'mostly men in suits or uniforms, with no democratic accountability' who make security policy on our behalf. White, emeritus professor of strategic studies at the ANU, was the principal author of Australia's Defense White Paper in 2000. Despite having been a prominent member of the defence establishment, it is unlikely even his observations will prove any more palatable to its current incumbents. Shortis, an historian and writer, is director of the Australia Institute's International & Security Affairs Program. She is also a young woman, and while this shouldn't matter, I suspect it does; at least to the 'mostly men' who guard the nation from a host of improbable threats while ignoring what is arguably the most likely and important one: climate change. To Shortis's great credit, she begins her essay with a discussion of a 'world on fire' in which the Trump administration is 'locking in a bleaker future.' This matters for both generational and geographical reasons. While we live in what is arguably the safest place on the planet, the country has the rare distinction of regularly experiencing once-in-100-year floods and droughts, sometimes simultaneously. If that's not a threat to security, especially of the young, it's hard to know what is. It's not one the current government or any other in this country has ever taken seriously enough. White gives a rather perfunctory acknowledgement of this reality, reflecting an essentially traditional understanding of security – even if some of his conclusions will induce conniptions in Canberra. While suggesting Trump is 'the most prodigious liar in history', White thinks he's done Australia a favor by 'puncturing the complacency' surrounding the alliance and our unwillingness to contemplate a world in which the US is not the reliable bedrock of security. Shortis doubts the US ever was a trustworthy or reliable ally. This helps explain what she calls the 'strategy of pre-emptive capitulation', in which Australian policymakers fall over themselves to appear useful and supportive to their 'great and powerful friend.' Former prime minister John Howard's activation of the ANZUS alliance in the wake of September 11 and the disastrous decision to take part in the war in Iraq is perhaps the most egregious example of this unfortunate national proclivity. White reminds us that all alliances are always transactional. Despite talk of a 'history of mateship', it's vital to recognize if the great power doesn't think something is in its 'national interest', it won't be doing favors for allies. No matter how ingratiating and obliging they may be. While such observations may be unwelcome in Canberra, hopefully they won't come as a revelation. Although White is one of Australia's most astute critics of the conventional wisdom, sceptics and aspiring peace-builders will find little to cheer in his analysis. A good deal of his essay is taken up with the strategic situations in Europe and Asia. The discussion offers a penetrating, but rather despair-inducing insight into humanity's collective predicament: only by credibly threatening our notional foes with nuclear Armageddon can we hope to keep the peace. The problem we now face, White argues, is the likes of Russia and China are beginning to doubt America's part in the 'balance of resolve.' During the Cold War, both sides were confident about the other side's ability and willingness to blow them to pieces. Now mutual destruction is less assured. While some of us might think this was a cause for cautious celebration, White suggests it fatally undermines the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons. Even before Trump reappeared, this was a source of angst and/or uncertainty for strategists around the world. The principle underpinning international order in a world in which nuclear weapons exist, according to White, is that a nuclear power can be stopped, but only by an unambiguous demonstration of willingness to fight a nuclear war to stop it. Trump represents a suitably existential threat to this cheery doctrine. Europeans have belatedly recognised the US is no longer reliable and they are responsible for their own security. Likewise, an ageing Xi Jinping may want to assure his position in China's pantheon of great leaders by forcibly returning Taiwan to the motherland. It would be an enormous gamble, of course, but given Trump's admiration for Xi, and Trump's apparent willingness to see the world carved up into 19th-century-style spheres of influence, it can't be ruled out. If there's one thing both authors agree on it's that the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, the notional centrepiece of Australia's future security is vastly overrated. It's either a 'disaster' (Shortis) or 'insignificant' (White). Likewise, they agree the US is only going to help Australia if it's judged to be in America's interest to do so. Recognizing quite what an ill-conceived, ludicrously expensive, uncertain project AUKUS is, and just how unreliable a partner the US has become under Trump, might be a useful step on the path to national strategic self-awareness. Shortis thinks some members of the Trump administration appear to be 'aligned with Russia.' Tying ourselves closer to the US, she writes, 'does not make us safer.' A major rethink of, and debate about, Australia's security policy is clearly necessary. Policymakers also ought to take seriously White's arguments about the need to reconfigure the armed forces to defend Australia independently in an increasingly uncertain international environment. Perhaps the hardest idea for Australia's unimaginative strategic elites to grasp is that, as White points out, Asia's future, and Australia's, will not be decided in Washington. It will be decided in Asia. Former prime minister Paul Keating's famous remark, 'Australia needs to seek its security in Asia rather than from Asia' remains largely unheeded. Despite plausible suggestions about developing closer strategic ties with Indonesia and even cooperating with China to offer leadership on climate change, some ideas remain sacrosanct and alternatives remain literally inconceivable. Even if we take a narrow view of the nature of security – one revolving around possible military threats to Australia – US Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth's demands for greater defence spending on our part confirm White's point that, it is classic Trump to expect more and more from allies while he offers them less and less. This is the dead end into which our 'America First' defence policy has led us. Quite so. Australia's strategic elites have locked us into the foreign and strategic policies of an increasingly polarised, authoritarian and unpredictable regime. But as Shortis observes, we cannot be confident about our ability, or the world's for that matter, to 'just ride Trump out', and hope everything will return to normal afterwards. It is entirely possible the international situation may get worse – possibly much worse – with or without Trump in the White House. The reality is American democracy may not survive another four years of Trump and the coterie of startlingly ill-qualified, inhumane, self-promoting chancers who make up much of his administration. Both authors think attempts to 'smother' a serious national debate about defence policy in Australia (White), and the security establishment's obsession with secrecy (Shortis), are the exact opposite of what this country needs at this historical juncture. They're right. Several senior members of Australia's security community have assured me if I only knew what they did I'd feel very differently about our strategic circumstances. Really? One thing I do know is that we're spending far too much time – and money! – acting on what Shortis describes as a 'shallow and ungenerous understanding of what 'security' really is.' We really could stop the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza if Xi had a word with Putin and the US stopped supplying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the weapons and money to slaughter women and children. But climate change would still be coming to get us. A bushfire in the Grampians National Park, Victoria. Photo: State Control Centre / AAP via The Conversation More importantly, global warming will get worse before it gets better, even in the unlikely event that the 'international community' (whoever that may be) agrees on meaningful collective action tomorrow. You may not agree with all of the ideas and suggestions contained in these essays, but in their different ways they are vital contributions to a much-needed national debate. An informed and engaged public is a potential asset, not something to be frightened of, after all. Who knows, it may be possible to come up with some genuinely progressive, innovative ideas about what sort of domestic and international policies might be appropriate for an astonishingly fortunate country with no enemies. Perhaps Australia could even offer an example of the sort of creative, independent middle power diplomacy a troubled world might appreciate and even emulate. But given our political and strategic elites can't free themselves from the past, it is difficult to see them dealing imaginatively with the threat of what Shortis calls the looming 'environmental catastrophe.' No wonder so many of the young despair and have little confidence in democracy's ability to fix what ails us. Mark Beeson is adjunct professor, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The new reality dawning in Australia: it can no longer rely on the US
It's not really about the tariffs. Not for Australia the brutal humiliation meted out on camera to Ukraine in the Oval Office. Nor Canada's escalating war of invective and retaliatory sanctions. Australia, instead, got a desultory dismissal in the corridors of the White House – from a staffer: Canberra's plea to be exempted from the punitive new regime disregarded. '[President Trump] considered it, and considered against it.' That was all. But it's not really about the tariffs. It's what the tariff decision says about Australia's relationship with the US, and the weight a historical alliance carries with a muscular new administration that cares little for history, even less for convention. From the Australian side, the US relationship remains one cast consistently as 'special', almost familial. It is abiding and reciprocal, cloaked in the semi-sacred rhetoric of Anzus, of 'mateship', of 'shared values'. But from Washington's end the relationship, always asymmetrical, is looking increasingly immaterial. Perhaps that is the alliance under Trump: unremarkable, transactional, even disposable. Director of the International & Security Affairs program at the Australia Institute, Dr Emma Shortis, argues that, in the broad sweep of Australia's economic relations with the US, specific tariffs on steel and aluminium will not be hugely impactful. But she argues 'politically and symbolically, it's incredibly important because it is Trump demonstrating once again that he has absolutely no care for how his actions affect the United States' traditional allies'. Australia, she contends, tends still to think it can get special treatment from the US because of its longstanding relationship 'and because of how much we've given the United States in the past'. 'But with this refusal to even engage in the idea of a carveout, Trump has thrown all of that out the window.' Shortis, author of Our Exceptional Friend: Australia's Fatal Alliance with the United States, argues that, for all of the fraternal rhetoric, the alliance between the US and Australia has always been asymmetric. She contends this is no criticism, rather a realistic reflection of the dramatic power imbalance between the two countries. At its best, the US-Australia relationship aspires to uphold and promote those values shared – and so often espoused – by the two countries: belief in democratic institutions, in the rule of law, and in the international, rules-based order. Too often though, it has focused narrowly on immediate national interest. 'And with the Trump administration, things are changing rapidly because even the pretence, I think, of caring about allies and their welfare is gone.' Trump sees his own interests and those of the United States as indistinguishable, Shortis says. Shades of the Sun King, Louis XIV: L'état, c'est moi. But a changed America is producing a changed Australian opinion of it. An Australia Institute poll released this month found three in 10 Australians (31%) think Donald Trump is the greatest threat to world peace (more than chose Vladimir Putin (27%) or Xi Jinping (27%)). It found nearly half of all Australians (48%) were not confident the Trump administration would defend Australia's interests if Australia were threatened, compared with only 16% who were very confident that it would do so. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'I think that's a pretty significant shift in how people think about the alliance itself and more broadly what actually makes us safer,' Shortis says. 'The question really becomes: does tying ourselves so irrevocably to Donald Trump's version of America through Aukus actually make us safer or does that make things more dangerous for us and more dangerous for our region and the world?' Long after he had left the Lodge, former prime minister Malcolm Fraser echoed that thought, writing – at age 83 – that America had transmogrified into Australia's most 'dangerous ally'. The emerging centrepiece of Australia's security alliance with the US is the Aukus agreement, which – if it proceeds as promised – will see US nuclear-powered submarines sold to Australia. The deal is a 'step-change' in Australian dependence on the US, Shortis argues. While historically Australia's position has been to follow the US into conflicts, it has always had the choice to do so or not. 'Aukus makes Australian participation in US wars the default setting.' Trump's America is a changed land, Arthur Sinodinos says. The former ambassador to the US – in the post during Trump's first term in office – Sinodinos has witnessed America's evolution over decades, stretching back to his days as chief of staff to former prime minister John Howard and the administration of George W Bush. The Trump administration, especially in its sharpened, second iteration, is categorically different from those that came before it. But Sinodinos says: 'There's no point mourning the passing of [the US's] role in underwriting the global rules-based order. This is the new world we're in. Australia has to act accordingly. 'We just have to be very clear-eyed about what is our national interest in dealing with the US and act accordingly.' From Washington DC, Sinodinos tells the Guardian that Australia remains, and will remain, an ally to the US, but it must accept 'this is the new world Australia is in: we need a new mindset in this world'. 'The defence and security relationship remains very important to us. It would be hard for us to replicate this if we didn't have the US and therefore we need to put effort into maintaining the commitment of the US to the alliance by showing how essential it is to the US's own security.' Australia, in its dealings with its larger partner, needs to consistently demonstrate why the alliance is of benefit to America – in security terms (such as joint bases on Australian soil), in economic relationships, and in new areas of potential cooperation such as critical minerals. 'Ask not what America can do for you, but what you can do for America,' Sinodinos says. 'It's 'America first', we want to try to make sure it's not 'America only'.' Sinodinos argues, while the decision not to exempt Australia from steel and aluminium tariffs may have felt targeted, it was anything but individualised. He cautions against reading too much into it. 'It was a generic decision. The Trump administration has determined to have higher tariffs. They want to make money out of tariffs,' Sinodinos says. Dr Allan Patience believes Trump's second administration, rather than change the nature of America's alliance with Australia, has simply exposed the deep structural flaws that have always existed. 'Australians have been living in a fool's paradise about America since 1951,' argues the associate professor at the University of Melbourne, referring to the year the Anzus treaty was signed. 'The belief, for generations now, has been that America is our most trustworthy, reliable ally, that it loves Australia, and that they'll come over the Pacific Ocean … should we ever be in any sort of trouble. That's not what the Anzus treaty has ever said.' Besides, alliances have never been eternal and immutable, Patience argues. They are – to quote John Mearsheimer – always 'marriages of convenience' built on the shifting sands of fickle self-interest. But a steadfast US alliance has been a useful placatory myth in domestic Australian politics, used by leaders of all stripes. Patience argues that Australia's deep sense of insecurity, fanned by a distrust in its geopolitical location in the Asia-Pacific, has caused it to depend too heavily on the US as its 'great and powerful friend'. Australia needs to understand and accept the limitations of the US alliance – 'it hasn't worked and doesn't work' – and look to build a new diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1980s, Bob Hawke spoke of Australia becoming 'enmeshed' in Asia. In the decade that followed, Paul Keating urged Australia 'to seek its security in Asia rather than from Asia'. Patience advocates building new alliances in the region, forging stronger ties with other liberal democracies, in particular South Korea and Japan, and developing a 'sophisticated diplomacy' with China. 'I think Australia is in very serious trouble because of this naive belief in America. We've been such fools living in this imagined American paradise for so long.'
