How to Defend Australia

by Hugh White

While members of his administration, up to and including the Vice President Mike Pence, have talked up America’s determination to prevail in a new Cold War with China, Donald Trump himself has remained silent. He talks about China’s threat to American jobs, but not about its challenge to US leadership in Asia, and that comes as no surprise. For decades Trump has argued that America should drop the burden of global leadership and abandon the alliances that underpin it. He has not criticised China’s strategic conduct and ambitions, and often goes out of his way to praise President Xi Jinping.

A well-armed Australia would be both a more formidable adversary and a more valued ally for Indonesia, which is probably how we want it to see us.

History may well judge that the most important long-term consequence of 9/11 was the way the attacks that day distracted America from the biggest strategic shift of our time. They stopped America recognising China’s rise, made it easier for China to challenge US leadership, and harder for America to remain a significant power in Asia.