Published daily by the Lowy Institute. Australia should have a treaty as strong as the NATO treaty. Good in that US support in extremis might be forthcoming, but bad news given that after three years Ukraine is still at war and US support remains conditional and appears wavering. The stakes for Australia are now too high to simply be receiving US orders in a time of another great war. The war, hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, and catastrophic damage to their nation would probably have been avoided.
NATO treaty allies have long enjoyed nuclear sharing and have more confidence. But nuclear sharing is actually a misnomer. In recent years , others have signed this collective defence treaty including Sweden, Finland, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Croatia. Such arrangements should be possible for Australia also. The Trump administration offers an opportunity to advance such ambitions. It is expected to be transactional and maybe demand higher Australian defence spending.
However, transactions cut both ways. Australia is not just spending big on US defence equipment but is also hosting ever-increasing short and long-term deployments of US forces across northern Australia. Moreover, significant infrastructure is now being built south of Perth to support US Navy nuclear attack submarines. Australia is now as important to American military strategy in the Indo-Pacific as it has been ever since the Second World War and certainly much more so than in Moreover, the Trump administration aims to also counter China geo-economically.
This is likely to involve tariff wars, trade restrictions and ever-widening sanctions being placed on Chinese companies.
American actions and requests will adversely impact Australian households and living standards. There is talk of a downturn in NZ-China relations. But in reality, the two have never had a perfect relationship. Peter Layton. Related Content. The deadly consequences of disinformation in the Pacific. Previous Article Military trends to watch in Next Article Abandoning the rules-based order is no solution. You may also be interested in. Liam Finnigan, Stephen Noakes 6 Mar In New Zealand, much ado about China.
