It’s tempting to assume that Donald Trump is the world’s biggest foreign policy problem. But in Australia’s case, that would be as incomplete as it is dangerous. After a week of consultations with government officials, industry leaders, and regional experts in Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney, I came away with an inescapable sense that the most urgent issues are not the ones screaming across the headlines about Trump’s latest outrage. Rather, they are hard conversations the country needs to have with itself. And leaving them unsaid is no longer viable.
The first inconvenient truth Australia must confront relates to the resources that will be required to contend with China’s growing military and unyielding ambitions. Despite stark phrases in recent strategy documents about Australia’s worsening security environment, the China challenge still feels more conceptual than visceral, more intellectual than mobilising. Distance and geography are still cited as safeguards, even as China’s missiles can reach an Australian mainland that its navy recently circumnavigated. There have also been few clarion calls from leaders in Canberra about the China threat. The result is a defence budget that appears insufficient for the growing number of tasks ahead at the very moment when the security environment demands more from US allies to help keep the peace in Asia.
As someone who has helped manage the US-Australia alliance, I do not raise these questions lightly. More than one Australian interlocutor has warned that America might not like the answer it gets on questions of Australia’s defence budget, the US military presence on Australian soil, and the future of its defence ties with Japan. But these conversations are more necessary than ever. The current trajectory is unlikely to meet the scale of the task, and the costs of inaction will be severe if deterrence fails. As Joe Biden often said, ‘No foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people.’ The same will be true in Australia.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/hard-conversations-australia-s-defence