The Prime Minister’s grossly incompetent mishandling of the US alliance – in the name of ‘not being told what to do by a foreign power’ – has (and not particularly ironically) materially increased the chances of Australia losing its sovereignty in the medium-to-longer term. The only reason why Australia (along with other, weaker nations) is still independent is the post-second world war geopolitical order, enforced by the USA, which dictates that strong countries do not invade weaker ones without its consent or at least acquiescence. But that order has been unwinding. At a time when America is beginning to lose patience with being – and its ability to be – the world’s policeman, the Prime Minister is doing all he can to give America an excuse to rid itself of the burden of guaranteeing Australia’s security against foreign aggression.
Exhibit A in the case against the Prime Minister is America’s recent decision to review Australia’s involvement in the Aukus nuclear submarine technology exchange. There is a good likelihood that the review of Aukus is a formality which will lead to the program being scrapped. Exhibit B is President Trump cancelling his scheduled meeting with Mr Albanese at the G7 – itself only hastily and belatedly convened by the Prime Minister after a dim awareness of the contempt he had hitherto shown Australia’s sole protector finally coalesced in his mind.
Trump’s America First doctrine, which involves reducing engagement in foreign conflicts to the bare necessary minimum, is popular across the American political divide. A key plank of that doctrine is reviewing America’s historic alliances to determine whether their original justification still exists. The European members of Nato have been on notice since Trump’s first term, accused of freeloading on America by spending less than their fair share on readiness for war. Trump 2.0 has taken scrutiny of this alliance up a level, focusing on the question of whether its partners remain worthy of American blood and money being spent to protect them.
Nato was, after all, formed to protect the then-democratic nations of Western Europe from the (then) apparently inexorable march of Soviet totalitarianism. Trump has now validly raised the question: ‘What is the point of continuing to guarantee their security now that they are voluntarily adopting a similar creed without a shot being fired?’ Vice President Vance’s first order of business was to warn European nations that they may be expelled from Nato if they do not restore their citizens’ right to freedom of speech.
While the VP’s threat was not explicitly directed at Australia, we clearly fall within its ambit and should pay attention. Section 18C of the Race Discrimination Act still exerts a chilling influence on discussion of issues critical to Australia’s future, such as the government’s efforts to permanently alter voting demographics in its favour through mass immigration by those who support its position. In its previous term the government proposed a law to suppress ‘misinformation’ – including, ‘Internet content we don’t approve.’ Now that Labor has been returned with a proper majority and depends only on the hard-left Greens to get legislation through the Senate, there’s a real risk that this Bill will become law in the current Parliament. And, finally, there’s the latest iteration of the Victorian government’s efforts to emulate that of North Korea, imposing lengthy jail terms for uttering hurty words.
It must also be noted in this that America’s commitment to Australia under Anzus is significantly weaker than its commitment to Nato allies. The Anzus treaty acknowledges that an armed attack on any party would be ‘dangerous to each signatory’s peace and safety’ and provides that its members are ‘required to act to meet a common danger in accordance with their constitutional processes’. In contrast, the Nato treaty declares that: ‘An act of war against one member is an act of war against all.’ It would be much easier for a clever US-government lawyer to find a loophole justifying American inaction in the face of an attack on an Anzus partner than on one from Nato.
Anzus, like Nato, was forged at the height of the Cold War as part of a strong response to explicit Soviet plans for world domination. These alliances were clearly in America’s interests at that time. While these treaties also involved a degree of altruism in protecting weaker nations with similar values to America unable to do so themselves, they involved a strong element of American self-interest as well. If the Russian wolf came right up to America’s door it would be that much harder to keep it out than if it was kept several country lengths away. The thermonuclear political heat of the time when these defence treaties were forged has now cooled to a mild warmth, making their reassessment by America – the party with the most to lose by honouring them – a key strategic imperative.
Trump’s internal reforms of his own military are also of fundamental significance here. A defence treaty is unworkable if its partners have fundamentally different views of what a fighting force is for. The Australian military (along with all Western counterparts outside America) is much more concerned with ensuring that its personnel are Woke than with being the most effective fighting force it can be. An ADF member would be instantly dismissed for saying something politically incorrect, whereas being discharged for genuine misconduct is a much more drawn-out affair, embedded with procedural safeguards to ensure that dismissals only ensue in the most egregious case.
The US military was also burdened with a self-destructive political milieu until Trump’s second term. It was America’s last conservative social institution, so previous Democrat leaders injected it with left-wing ideology from top to bottom. Trump was insufficiently aware of the threat which that posed to his agenda during his first term. His top military brass betrayed him over the summer 2020 BLM riots, for example, stating that it was unacceptable for the military to be used in civilian affairs, despite the fact that ‘law enforcement’ had given the protesters impunity to burn cities. The US military’s prioritisation of critical theory over capability for war resulted in a mass purge of competent officers to be replaced with regime lackeys, filled with contempt for the values that built the civilisation which it was their sworn duty to protect. Trump 2.0 learned a great deal from four years in the wilderness, however. Defence Secretary Hegseth is charged with purging all ideology inimical to military effectiveness from the forces, which he appears to be doing with some aplomb. Logically enough, one would expect America to also have hold concern over the fact that its allies’ forces are still seriously hamstrung by the toxic belief structures of which it is currently ridding itself. If Australia wants to be less of a drag on America’s military beneficence, it should at the least work to rebuild a strong sense of pride in the principles that built our great and free society among those we expect to die for it.
In short, humbling though it may be, the Prime Minister must ‘kiss up’ hard for Australia to have a chance of being allowed to remain under America’s protective umbrella. Instead, he has in effect childishly said: ‘It’s not raining now; we don’t need one.’ Playing up to the cafeteria left who never shed the mindless anti-Americanism of the student days, which forms his core voter base, he gave a thinly veiled middle finger to the only country that can prevent us going the way of most lesser powers throughout history – absorption into some empire. In a petulant show of ingratitude, he rebuffed America in three key areas in which it sought our support, as detailed below.
The Prime Minister rejected Trump’s request to provide support for its mission to interdict Yemeni terrorist attacks on shipping in the Gulf. This was a big mistake. America is, of course, entirely capable of dousing that little conflagration without our help. But the moral value of an Australian contribution to that operation would have been significant, given that most of its allies let it down on that issue, leaving it to take the ensuing political heat largely on its own.
The popularity of Australian involvement in foreign wars is admittedly at a historic low. But the domestic policy problem concerning any Australian engagement in the current Middle Eastern tension runs even deeper. The self-loathing left have become so contemptuous of Western Civilisation that they regard any effort to harm it, no matter how small, as a good thing. The left see Israel as an island of order and prosperity in a broiling sea of chaos. In their neo-Marxist, zero-sum political game, prosperity is won by theft from the poor, therefore they want to see Israel brought down to its neighbours’ level, if not entirely wiped from the map. Any effort directed at achieving that end has their full support.
With some imagination and political will the government could, however, have successfully sold the case to the public that no matter what one thinks of the Gazan war, shipping companies and crews have nothing to do with it; attacks on international trade must be partially suppressed the moment they emerge to avoid them becoming endemic; and seaborne trade is a core part of the world economic system which has raised billions from poverty over the past 50 years. Nations that benefit from that trade must defend it when it’s under attack. But instead of taking a statesmanlike approach and sending (what would have been only token) material support, the Prime Minister was far more concerned to appease his inner-city, Woke voting bloc by ‘standing up to Trump’ and not doing something to harm their obnoxious cause of the day.
The Prime Minister also disdainfully rejected America’s request for Australia to increase its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Yes, that’s a large amount – $60.5 billion to be precise, almost double its current level. But a responsible leader would have opened discussions with our ally over this issue, explaining how he understood the logic behind the request while going on to plead the difficulty of doubling military expenditure overnight, and sought consideration for a compromise target and with the ability to ramp up spending to that level over time. And, in his most recent snub, Australia voted with the UN left in favour of anti-Israel resolutions in furtherance of the Palestinian cause, earning a rebuke from the US Secretary of State for his trouble. America’s so-called friends have left it with almost the entire burden of providing international financial and moral support for Israel’s war on Hamas, with many – including Australia – in fact undermining its efforts in that regard. Why would a rational America protect a country that treats it that way?
The first and foremost function of government is to protect its territory against external threats. Where it is not strong enough to that by itself, that involves endeavouring to forge suitable alliances to assist it to do so. Mr Albanese having put the core mission for which he was elected at serious risk, he should resign.
