Tag Archive for: Donald Trump

As Trump returns, European countries’ first priority must be backing Ukraine

As European leaders wake up to the reality of Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House, they must take care to avoid two big traps: panic and denial. It won’t be easy, but the stakes are too high to fail.

The reasons for panic are obvious. Trump may be unpredictable and mercurial, but there is little doubt that his political instincts and stated plans will shake the pillars of Europe’s security, economic and political order.

On security, Europeans have every reason to fear that Trump’s proposed ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine will deprive that country of its territorial integrity and leave it demilitarised and permanently excluded from NATO. And NATO itself may well go dormant, with the United States radically reducing its participation and handing responsibility for the alliance’s military command and resources over to the Europeans.

In the Middle East, Europeans rightly worry that Trump’s plan to secure peace will mean supporting the expansionist plans of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition, perhaps even including the Palestinians’ expulsion from Gaza and the West Bank and their resettlement in Egypt and Jordan.

The economic scenarios are even scarier. Trump has talked about imposing a universal import tariff of 10 percent to 20 percent and a 60 percent tariff on goods from China. Such a policy risks triggering a global trade war, with governments introducing retaliatory measures against the US. If China is shut out of the US market, Europeans will be even more vulnerable to the supply effects of its manufacturing overcapacity.

Making matters worse, Europe’s response to another Trump presidency may well be hampered by the illiberal international, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

For all these reasons, European leaders are on the verge of panic and feel tempted to rush to Washington to cut bilateral deals, as many did during Trump’s first term. Doing so would come directly at the expense of European unity.

But the second trap is just as dangerous. If European leaders fall into denial about the scale of the threat Trump poses, they will not take steps needed to build resilience. Europeans have known for the past four years that Trump could return, and they have made some progress toward addressing their new geopolitical vulnerability with higher defense spending (collectively, Europeans now spend more than 2 percent of their GDP on defence) and diversification away from Russian gas. But overall, they have been far too slow.

Some are buoyed by false confidence, telling themselves that if they survived one Trump term, they can survive another. But the Trump of 2017 to 2020 was an outsider who had been surprised by his own election and craved establishment recognition. This time, he is dead set on revenge against the establishment that thwarted him before, and he has had plenty of time to prepare for office. European leaders must take him at his word and brace themselves.

Confronted with these scenarios, the most urgent task for European leaders is to use the 70-odd days between now and his inauguration on 20 January 2025 to agree on their common interests and work out how to defend them—with the US if possible but alone if necessary. That means drafting a concrete plan to protect Europe from both security and economic pressures.

The most immediate concern is Ukraine. To prevent a deal that leaves Ukraine demilitarised and shut out of NATO, Europe needs to ensure a steady flow of ammunition and air defence equipment in the short term while providing Ukraine with credible long-term security guarantees. It also must figure out how to spend more efficiently on defence, increase the volume of combat-ready forces available to NATO and the European Union, and, if necessary, strengthen its own nuclear deterrence.

The second most challenging issue will be trade. If Trump keeps his promise of levying across-the-board import tariffs, a trade war between the EU and its biggest export market is inevitable. In a world where geopolitics and geoeconomics are increasingly intertwined, the bloc should prepare countermeasures against the US and seek to expand trade with the rest of the world.

Trump’s victory also completely changes the context for the EU’s relationship with Britain. Since the Labour Party took office in July, cross-channel contacts have increased significantly. But now there should be an accelerated push to make a big, bold offer to Britain to create a new partnership.

For his part, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer should commit to working toward a stronger and more united Europe. He should put everything on the table, including exploring how Britain’s nuclear deterrent can contribute to collective European security. And he should show how Britain can help extend European power and security through cooperation on sanctions, technology controls, supply chains, critical raw materials, energy security, migration and joint action against gangs and human traffickers, among other issues.

To make that happen, the biggest EU member states—France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain —will need to transcend their respective domestic politics to establish a pan-European consensus. German leadership—whether it comes from the current government or from a new Christian Democratic-led coalition after the spring elections—is more important than ever, but the smaller, more exposed northern and eastern European countries will also have an important role to play. Accordingly, they should form a caucus within the EU to work with officials in Brussels to make geopolitical Europe into a reality.

Europe’s response to Trump’s return will require creativity, resilience and an unshakable commitment to defending its own interests. Every crisis offers an opportunity, and Europeans have a chance to craft a stronger, more self-sufficient bloc that can stand up for itself in an age of global disorder.

Trump’s likely foreign policy: selective engagement, and helping those who help themselves

In his second term, Donald Trump will be determined to pursue a foreign policy that more closely resembles how the US engaged with the world for the first 170 years of the republic: pursuing abundance at home and selective engagement abroad.

He will do so not because the US is weak and in decline but because it is powerful. Its power is a function of its economic size, military superiority, cultural influence, energy security, business innovation and productivity, labour flexibility, growing population, deep capital markets and immense private wealth, and the omnipresence of the US dollar and US Treasury bonds. US power will give Trump greater freedom to act, including by asking more of allies and partners who seek to benefit from the application or deterrent effect of that power.

True, US power faces several structural challenges. Compared with the Cold War era, America’s industrial base is weaker, as evidenced by its current inability to build nuclear-powered attack submarines at a fast enough replacement rate, which will likely compromise Australia’s ability to acquire Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s.

There will be a reckoning in relation to US public debt, which will rise to 122 percent of GDP by 2034 and already requires more to be spent on public debt interest than defence. Trump will need to better balance America’s commitments and its power if his foreign policy is to command domestic support.

However, these and other structural problems are reversible. They do not qualify as the great power killers that have led to the decline and fall of more conventional powers throughout history.

By virtue of its power, the US is able to shape world order to an extent no other actor is able to, China included. Trump is a power politician. He understands that foreign relationships and transactions are an unsentimental function of power relativities and not abstract global rules that seek to fetter the exercise of sovereign power by nation-states. (On this, his speeches to the UN General Assembly are worth re-reading.)

Trump will be prepared to continue to extend US security to those who are prepared to do more to defend themselves, so long as doing so is also in the interest of the US. Those who spend less on defence than the US (at least 3 percent of GDP) will have to lift their spending or make commensurate in-kind contributions to their own security.

Australia is well placed to make or extend mutually beneficial deals with the second Trump administration, especially in relation to critical minerals, the production of nuclear-powered attack submarines at a faster rate, advanced military technology and further access to our geographically crucial facilities and infrastructure.

However, our weak levels of defence spending will become a point of contention if it is judged that we are not doing more to ensure the self-reliant defence of Australia.

We should not assume, however, that a return to this older style of US foreign policy will result in a withdrawn and isolated US. The world is today too interconnected and closer than was the case in the early 1940s, when isolationists held significant sway in US politics. On the contrary, the US is likely to remain very active in the world, but under different terms and in pursuit of more focused objectives. When it is in the US national interest, Trump will take resolute action—as he did in his first term against Iran, including by way of imposing oppressive sanctions, withdrawing from the Obama-era nuclear deal and ordering the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.

As a disrupter, Trump may strike a grand bargain between the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others, whereby Israel would be secure, Palestinians would be able to live in peace and Iran would be contained. That deal would be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The US will be a powerful actor under and after Trump. For it to be great again, there is one challenge it will have to meet. Trump will have to intensify efforts to ensure that China does not establish itself as the hegemon of Eurasia.

Were it to do so, across time it would gain dominance over the resources, markets and economic power of the world’s strategic heartland. This would undercut the strategic and commercial interests of the US.

A hegemonic China would grow in strength and eventually threaten the US in its hemispheric citadel. It will be in the interests of the US to prevail in this struggle for mastery in Eurasia.

Trump will prefer to do this by way of aggressive trade, investment, technology decoupling and strategic deterrence, avoiding a military clash if possible. Intrinsic to this approach will be the maintenance of forward-deployed US forces in the western Pacific and the strengthening of the latticework of US-centred regional security partnerships that has emerged across the past decade.

Still, he will need to be convinced to defend Taiwan. The arguments for doing so would have to be framed within this counter-hegemonic strategy. Taiwan will need to show it is willing to do much more to defend itself, including by way of an extensive rearmament program.

There is a prospect of a golden age of American power, where a self-interested US, working with equally self-interested allies and partners, and not embarrassed to wield that power, accomplishes a world-changing quadrella: to thwart China, flip Russia, contain Iran and isolate North Korea. If it can accomplish this sweep of the grand chessboard of Eurasia, the US will be not just powerful but great again. Motivated by America-first instincts that are deeply rooted in US strategic culture, Trump has the opportunity to bring about a transformation of the world order that would rival the earlier achievements of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan at the bookends of the Cold War.

We did well last time. Here’s how Australia should work with Trump again

Australia managed the first presidential term of Donald Trump as well as any nation. Now it can also manage the second term well.

In doing so, we must work with friends in our region to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains the main US strategic focus. That also means stressing to Trump and his team that Ukraine’s survival is an Indo-Pacific priority.

Trump will demand more of allies, and we should revel in doing more to attend to our own security and that of others.

In 2017, Australia quickly understood that invoking its long friendship with the United States was not enough in dealing with the then newly elected Trump. He expected to see ongoing efforts in helping the US with its burdens. And we could show that: we had begun, in the national interest, taking stronger security measures against China and were paying an economic price for them.

It helped, too, that we were increasing our defence budget. Altogether, our relationship with the United States actually strengthened during Trump’s first administration.

In his first term, Trump turned US strategic attention decisively towards China. This was deeply in Australia’s interest. The US focus on the Indo-Pacific has continued through the administration of President Joe Biden, and we want it to continue in the coming Trump term.

It was also in the interests of such friends as India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and still is. So, we should together send the reminder to Trump and his team that the Indo-Pacific is the main game, particularly because China is the captain of the totalitarian Axis.

In the face of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea working together, we should heed Edmund Burke’s clarion call of ‘when bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fail one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle’.

Vitally, Australia and its friends, including other Five Eyes members, should ensure Trump’s team knows that what happens to Ukraine matters for all of us. Trump and his future vice president, JD Vance, have campaigned on quickly stopping the war in Ukraine.

Australia cannot be silent on how damaging a victory for Vladimir Putin would be for Indo-Pacific countries, which would lose trust in the US and its allies and fall into fatalistic acceptance that China will dominate the region.

North Korea’s entry into the fight may have been the turning point needed to ensure the Trump team knows that Ukraine cannot be isolated from Indo-Pacific interests and that a victory for Putin would be a victory for his no-limits partner, Xi Jinping. This victory would be a setback for Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and the US itself.

Trump’s decision in his first term to compete with China included economic action, setting the West on a path away from policies that misjudged trade and financial links with China as proof of stability.

There can be no stability when the Axis regimes’ routine is destabilisation. They sometimes pause their campaigns, not in good faith but to seek compromises from us while they reload for their next phase of attacks on global rules.

So, we should work with the new Trump administration to further reduce economic dependence on China. For that, Trump has the right instincts.

He has the right instincts on China’s exploitation of the information domain, too. Australia should encourage him to continue what he started in applying sanctions and tariffs on the Chinese tech sector.

Australia and the US must strive together to counteract China’s abuse of the information domain to divide our nations, turn them against each other, undermine our democratic institutions and shift the global order. The tech sector and digital world should be high on the Australian list for engagement with the Trump team.

Both AUKUS and NATO are vital and must be strengthened. The US’s partners within those groupings will need to show Trump they are pulling their weight.

AUKUS should thrive, since Britain and especially Australia are already spending on it and will spend more, deepening their cooperation with the US. NATO members will likely start with a lesser goal of just keeping their alliance together. Most will have to prove they will not fall back into military slumber, leaving the US to do everyone’s job.

For them, Australia and other US friends in the Western Pacific, Trump’s expectations will mean, above all, that they must spend more on defence. They should do so willingly.

Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s foreign policy adviser, Takashi Kawakami, said recently that an America that demands more from allies could be an opportunity for Japan to become a ‘truly independent country … and create an environment that allows Japan to defend its sovereignty with its own strategy against foreign forces.’

It’s an argument that Australia should consider. It doesn’t mean isolation and terminating alliances with the US but, rather, strengthening ourselves to strengthen those alliances. We become stronger individually and collectively.

Trump vs China, round two

In August 2019, amid an escalating trade war with China, then-US president Donald Trump fired off a series of tweets directing US companies to ‘immediately start looking for … alternative[s] to China’ and shift their manufacturing back to the United States. The demand sent stock markets into a tailspin and alarmed US businesses with exposure to China.

While Trump ultimately softened his stance, the threat underscored a disturbing reality that the world must face now that he is returning to the White House: the president has the power to sever ties with the world’s second-largest economy and can do so on a whim.

With Trump’s resounding victory over Kamala Harris, the spectre of his impulsive, heavy-handed approach to diplomacy looms large. If his past actions are any indication, corporate America might soon be bracing for another round of erratic, high-stakes manoeuvres—or worse—against China.

The US constitution delegates authority over foreign relations to both the president and congress, a structure designed to temper executive discretion with legislative oversight. But this balance has shifted dramatically in recent decades. Foreign policy is now overwhelmingly concentrated in the executive branch and goes largely unchecked, a trend that political scientists attribute to a rise in partisanship and a decline in congressional expertise. With both parties favouring a hardline approach toward China, Trump will have even more freedom to lash out at the country.

Meanwhile, national security has proven to be remarkably pliable, extending far beyond traditional concerns such as homeland defense and cybersecurity. It now covers everything from cross-border data flows and supply chain vulnerabilities to protecting industries deemed too critical to be dominated by foreign competitors.

This broadened definition has enabled presidential actions that would have been unimaginable only a decade ago. Consider some of the measures taken by Trump and his successor, Joe Biden: sanctioning Huawei and ZTE; banning TikTok; blocking Chinese investment in a dating app; launching the controversial China Initiative, which disproportionately targeted Chinese scientists working in the US; imposing a semiconductor embargo on China; restricting US investment in Chinese artificial intelligence and quantum computers; and, most recently, slapping 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and batteries.

Many of these aggressive policies should be implemented only in emergencies. But what constitutes an emergency has also expanded considerably and now includes curbing China’s rise. And when Trump takes office in 2025, the executive branch’s capacity and willingness to declare an emergency and impose extraordinary measures under the banner of national security could increase substantially.

While US courts have the authority to check presidential powers—as they did in blocking Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok and WeChat—they have limited oversight of foreign policy. On matters of national security in particular, federal courts have historically been very deferential—even more so when congress and the president are aligned. The recent passage of the TikTok legislation illustrates how congress can quickly restore executive power after a judicial ruling constrains it. As a result, TikTok and other Chinese companies are constantly contending with renewed hostility from the executive, like an endless game of whac-a-mole.

Ironically, this concentration of power in the US presidency mirrors the Chinese governance model that US leaders criticise so sharply. As I show in my book, High Wire: How China regulates Big Tech and governs its economy, the consolidation of political power in China over the past decade has often led to dramatic policy swings that undermine investor confidence and dampen entrepreneurship. The Chinese government’s recent missteps—from mismanaging the Covid-19 pandemic to crackdowns on the tech and property sectors and now a sluggish response to mounting deflation risks—should serve as a cautionary tale.

The US is likewise beginning to feel the unintended consequences of its own hostile approach toward China. The China Initiative has led to an exodus of talented Chinese scientists, many of whom have returned home. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of tough US sanctions and export controls is waning. Huawei, which initially struggled under these measures, has grown stronger of late, invigorated by state support and a firm resolve to achieve self-sufficiency. In its efforts to contain China, the US risks creating a more resilient rival—one strengthened by the very pressures meant to suppress it.

But instead of reassessing the efficacy of its hardline tactics, US agencies are doubling down on sanctions and restrictions. Even the notorious China Initiative, despite being ‘discontinued’, persists in a barely concealed form.

So far, much of the discussion about the Sino-American rivalry has framed China’s rise as the primary catalyst for US policy shifts. But this misses a crucial point: the conflict can also be traced back to a democratic deficit in US foreign policymaking. If the US takes increasingly extreme measures to contain China, as it likely will during Trump’s second administration, it risks widening that deficit—and becoming defined by what it opposes.

America under Donald Trump: views from ASPI analysts

Foreign policy

Greg Brown, senior analyst, ASPI DC—If personnel is policy, we have a fair idea of the Trump foreign policy. The voices competing for the president’s ear all emphasise peace through strength and agree that China is the first order of concern. The debate to watch is between advisers arguing that confronting China is an imperative for maintaining US global primacy and others calling for a narrower strategy that prioritises US attention in the Indo-Pacific.

Nishank Motwani, senior analyst, ASPI DC—As president, Trump will likely reinforce foreign policy unpredictability. This could undermine US commitments to NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, including Australia. This in turn could embolden Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to act aggressively. Trump views alliances transactionally, favouring financial returns over strategic interests. This could prompt him to scrutinise AUKUS, perceiving missed financial gains and seeking to renegotiate for greater Australian contributions—a move in line with his art-of-the-deal approach.

Raji Pillai Rajagopalan, resident senior fellow—Trump’s presidency brings uncertainty, as he is unlikely to have a steady policy. It is more likely that each issue will be taken in isolation rather than as part of a strategic whole. Such unpredictability will likely scare adversaries such as China and Iran, as it did in Trump’s first term. But US partners will also be concerned by Trump’s shotgun approach, particularly on issues such as trade and economic security partnerships, if he does not distinguish between friends and foes. For this reason, minilateral groups, especially the Quad, may need to play more of a leading role than bilateral relationships, with Australia, Japan and India working together to ensure Indo-Pacific principles and interests are met.

 

China

Bethany Allen, head of China investigations and analysis—Trump is a wild card on foreign policy, including towards China. On the campaign trail he promised increased tariffs on China but criticised Taiwan. Anti-China sentiment runs deep in the Republican Party, but so does its opposition to US support for Ukraine. A Russian win in Ukraine would be a major foreign policy victory for Xi Jinping, Putin’s top supporter, and would make the world safer for revisionist authoritarians such as Xi.

 

Defence

Alex Bristow, senior analyst—Although Trump will probably abandon the term ‘integrated deterrence’, because of its association with Biden, he could retain and more forcibly assert the expectation that allies must step up and share risk if they want US nuclear protection. Elbridge Colby, who is tipped for a senior national security role in the new Trump administration, has said ‘all options are on the table’ for shoring up the nuclear umbrella in the Indo-Pacific. That may hint at stationing or sharing US nuclear weapons on allied territory, which would test legal barriers in Australia. Trump’s dismissive approach to multilateral non-proliferation regimes could fuel disinformation about AUKUS, but Trump may also help pressure Australia’s Labor government to disavow the counterproductive Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The prospects for nuclear arms control look bleak as long as Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang keep seeking leverage by expanding their nuclear forces.

 

Southeast Asia

Fitriani, senior analyst—Trump’s re-election may diminish US engagement with Southeast Asia, given his transactional engagement with the region during his first term. One point to focus on is whether the US will uphold its commitment under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and stand by with the Philippines when tensions with China over the South China Sea flare. As Southeast Asian countries are small to medium in power and size, Trump will care about them only when he can use them to counter a bigger bully: China.

 

Climate

Mike Copage, head of the Climate and Security Policy Centre—Trump will weaken climate policy and international engagement, with deeper and longer-lasting effect than in his first term. If his administration follows the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 recommendations, US national security institutions will be prevented from addressing climate resilience, and world-leading US agencies may see their climate science programs disrupted. This would damage climate resilience and momentum among key allies and weaken important relationships with Pacific island countries.

However, Trump’s close circle includes major private sector proponents of clean energy technology, such as Elon Musk. Their influence may moderate his effect on climate policy.

 

Space

Malcolm Davis, senior analyst—Trump is likely to take a much bolder approach to space, in part driven by a need for personal prestige. This could see him try to get US astronauts back to the lunar surface before the end of his four-year term. He will also confront the growing risks presented by Chinese and Russian counterspace capabilities by promoting the role of the US Space Force. He’s likely to shrug aside notions of international cooperation on space and de-emphasise international diplomatic efforts to maintain norms of responsible behaviour.

Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, will also prioritise space policy. The administration is likely to demand a greater effort by allies such as Australia to step up and share the burden of military space capability, including space control. It may also encourage Australia to more rapidly open its launch sites for US space launches and returns, potentially including SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship rocket.

Trump’s meaning for America, win or lose

See Donald Trump as a symptom, not a cause.

Trump has a massive ego, the appetites of a supreme narcissist and the language of a fascist. But he has a finely tuned popular antenna that has again taken him to the gates of the White House. He is an extraordinary symptom of tectonic shifts in geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Win or lose on 5 November, Trump as a phenomenon tells us much about where the United States is heading as ‘the dysfunctional superpower’.

If he wins, Trump will have another four years to turn the popular mood into policy. In defeat, though, Trump is still a symptom that signposts the future. The trends he expresses will endure to shape the temperature and tone of US politics and foreign policy.

Trump revolutionised the Republican Party. America’s conservative party is transformed into a more rabid beast. Republican grandees shake their heads in woe and wonder. America’s trade policy is remade, even as US economic influence in Asia declines. The protectionist consensus is at its strongest in American politics since the Great Depression, nine decades ago. The economic instinct feeds an isolationist mood that will push at US strategy and alliances. The one international question that unites Washington is the new cold war with China.

Turn to a couple of Republican grandees to see how this shapes America’s future. The ‘dysfunctional superpower’ label is from Robert Gates, who served as defence secretary in both Republican and Democrat administrations (an unimaginable double in these fevered times).

Gates fears that a divided America has no long-term strategy to prevail in the struggle with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. He judges that ‘dysfunction has made American power erratic and unreliable, practically inviting risk-prone autocrats to place dangerous bets—with potentially catastrophic effects.’

The diagnosis from Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser and secretary of state to president George W Bush, is that the ‘new four horsemen of the apocalypse—populism, nativism, isolationism, and protectionism—tend to ride together, and they are challenging the political centre.’

Rice says the US needs an internationalist president, explaining ‘what the world would be like without an active United States’. Looking beyond Cold War II, Rice sees analogies with today’s dilemmas in

the imperialism of the late nineteenth century and the zero-sum economies of the interwar period. Now, as then, revisionist powers are acquiring territory through force, and the international order is breaking down. But perhaps the most striking and worrying similarity is that today, as in the previous eras, the United States is tempted to turn inward.

Globalisation may not be dead, but the Trump symptom says it’s ailing. The US has given up on free trade. In the region that matters to Australia, the Indo-Pacific, the US has gone AWOL on trade issues since Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership the day he became president in 2017.

Trump’s campaign promise this time is to boost tariffs on all US imports by 10 percent and increase tariffs on China by 60 percent. A Republican candidate who gets his history from television brandishes the beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism of the 1930s.

Asia wants the US to help achieve strategic balance, not deliver trade war. A rich new era of Asian commerce arrives, marked by the decline of US economic influence. As Asia trades with itself, China wins, trumping the US almost by default.

The ‘stark reality’ is that the US ‘will not be a partner in East Asian regionalism or show leadership on trade and global economic governance, for at least the next few presidential terms’, according to Peter Drysdale and Liam Gammon, writing in the East Asia Forum. The Democrats have offered no intellectual response to the slide into protectionism, Drysdale and Gammon observe, so Trump has defined the policy terrain:

The ‘America First’ trade policy has won a strategic victory over the past eight years, shifting the US bipartisan consensus towards the idea that globalisation was a lousy deal for Americans.

The Trump effect has pushed at Washington’s Blob in profound ways. The Blob was an Obama-era description of the settled outlook of the foreign policy establishment. Trumpism points to generational change in the Blob’s operation. This is one of the deep differences between Joe Biden and Trump.

In foreign policy, Biden has repaired alliances and delivered traditional sermons on America’s central role in the world. Yet he will be the last US president whose policy instincts are rooted in Cold War I. In contrast, one of Trump’s few consistent messages is that the US was stupid to spend all its blood and treasure overseas while allies got a free ride. ‘No more lousy deals,’ he proclaims.

The generation that is stepping into the top jobs in Washington was in high school or heading to university when Cold War I toppled with the Berlin wall in 1989. Their understandings are shaped by the 9/11 attacks, America’s longest war in Afghanistan and the Iraq morass. For 20 years, until the last American aircraft left Afghanistan in August 2021, US soldiers were at war.

Trump’s message is that the era of war and global responsibility is over. And that view will weigh on America’s course, even if Trump fails.

Former defence minister and ambassador to the US: ‘If Trump is elected, will Australia need a plan B?’

If you are leader of an Australian political party, prime minister, defence minister, foreign minister or Ambassador to the US, the opening paragraph on a speech on the Alliance will contain a reference to our ‘shared values’. These usually include democracy, the liberal international order, respect for sovereignty and commitment to peace aided by mutual military support.

Donald Trump does not share these values, neither do many of his supporters. When last in office he struggled to free himself from these precepts. He was held to them by people he appointed to office and by the Republican leadership in Congress. If elected this year he has made clear his contempt for the US Constitution, and for democracy.

Trump has made clear his admiration for authoritarian leaders, and his understanding he was hampered by supporters of these values last time. He has expressed an intention to wreak vengeance on those who have hindered or stood against him. He has a team around him he’s determined to place in positions in departments, the military and intelligence who share his contempt for loyalty to the Constitution. His first attack will be on institutions like the Justice Department and the FBI. But those other institutions will also get his and his team’s attention.

What has happened in the Congress foreshadows this. The Republican leadership in the House had been traduced and the majority have been politically emasculated. If he is elected, a Republican majority in the Senate is all but assured. The Western alliance at its core will be rattled. Those reliant on American support will be in a state of confusion. Trump will believe his support for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been vindicated.

It’s difficult to envisage him defending Taiwan. Those around him however and in Congress are very hostile to China and Xi Jinping. Xi will need to be cautious, despite what will appear to be an opportunity. Trump’s supporters may educate him on the critical importance of Taiwan, particularly as its semiconductors are vital to American industry.

President Biden has been particularly aware that, though powerful, the US does not have unilateral primacy in the Indo-Pacific. He believes American interests are advanced by its alliances and its friendship with powers like India, Vietnam and Indonesia which are essential in his view to balance China.

Trump’s advisors don’t share these views though their default response, no matter how unrealistic, will be to seek to restore that primacy. For them the plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarines (SSNs) under Pillar 1 of the AUKUS agreement with Britain and the US is an anathema if it slows American capacity before it reaches a force of over 60 SSN now slated for achievement in the late 2050s.

They recognise that SSNs and ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are at the heart of American military power. They have little ownership of AUKUS though Republicans in majority in Congress support it. They have little ownership of it and Trump would likely see the agreement as Biden writ large.

Most US opinion polls now point to a Trump victory. The only useful thing on the horizon is that the exit polls in the primaries have indicated around 25% of Republicans would not support Trump and would either vote against him or not vote. Were that to transpire, Trump would not win.

A majority of Democrats supported Biden strongly in the primaries but consider him too old and are not particularly enamoured of his vice president. As one friend points out to me the ultimate result will be determined by whichever group of voters is the greater—those who think Biden too old, and those who think Trump too unstable. That is, it seems, a choice between which negative sentiment proves to be the greater.

If it turns out that Trump’s negatives are fewer than Biden’s, we will have a lot to think about. Trump has a proven capacity to direct Republicans in Congress. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, resistant to Trump, has taken himself off the chess board.

The problem for Australia is that the US has not been so critical to Australia’s defence since World War II as it is now. Conversely Australia has not been so important to the US as it is now. One of the aims of the 1987 defence white paper was to have a force able to defend Australia in its area of direct military interest without burdening the US. The US would provide critical equipment and intelligence. This was effectively achieved in the 1990s.

Then we drifted. The force provided for the emergencies we confronted when we handled the Timor crisis and provided useful forces for the Middle East commitments, not just in Afghanistan. We arguably peaked in the third phase of the battles arising from the Iraq war, the struggle with ISIS when we provided for a time the second largest foreign contingent.

We played a role with the Pentagon to add to the ‘training’ and ‘assist’ mission, accompanying the Iraqi force in action. Throughout, the Royal Australian Navy played a useful role in patrolling the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

In the contemporary era and issues involving our direct defence, we find ourselves with a force not adequate for the task. We’ve discovered the consequences of years of underfunding.

At the time of the 1987 white paper, spending was 2.5%-3% of GDP. That was a continuation of levels set in the 1970s after being at 4% during the Vietnam War. The figures were not targets, just reporting what had become normal. In 1994, the objective was set at 2%, effectively an unwarranted peace dividend. However, this figure was seldom achieved and not at all in the new century until the last defence budget.

Though now spending at 2% is the level the US (and Trump) requires of its allies, it does not defend us. The new focus for the government in the defence review and decisions taken by the government on the new surface fleet and the SSNs put in place what appears needed. But its timetable stretches to the late 30s and 40s.

In the meantime, we depend on the US. No one should kid themselves about this. The US will be needed for a long time—and no one has a better idea that does not require unsustainable expenditures.

At the same time the US has discovered the value of Australia to its own defence needs. Pine Gap has developed massively as the capacity of the technologies it serves have increased exponentially. The two more recent joint facilities in Exmouth are important for American space activities. More significantly the northern bases developed from the 1980s and the naval facility in Western Australia are now vital for the US posture in the Western Pacific. They provide another angle on activities involving China. Deft use of them across our vast North gives them a higher survivability than many US bases elsewhere in the zone. As the US has become more important to us, we have something of a character of a Western Pacific last bastion.

Will all this be clear to Trump? Critical for us will be his response to the SSN project. This raises genuinely hard questions for the Americans. Not the deployment of SSN from Stirling but the timetable and perhaps the principle of our acquisition of US SSNs.

While Congress is favourably disposed to AUKUS and the programme there is much unease there. For Australia to acquire the boats and not deplete US numbers requires a production rate of 2.3 Virginia class boats per year. The new bloc V version of the Virginia class (which is too big for us) is required to replace the capability of four SSBNs converted for conventional missiles now being retired from service. Tonnage of submarines produced is not diminished it is increasing substantially, but the numbers to be produced are challenging.

When these 10,000 ton block V vessels end production they’ll be replaced by the SSNX which is more like the weight of the Bloc 4 variant we are acquiring. The SSNX would make a good AUKUS submarine but that is very unlikely to happen. However, when the US reaches that stage, producing  2.3 submarines per year would be easily achievable. The number of workers at construction locations in Connecticut and Newport News needs to keep increasing but some in Congress are asking for a slower pace to ease production pressure.

That would be damaging. The most knowledgeable Congressman on submarines in the US is Joe Courtney and he campaigns against anything that is not full speed. He says ‘AUKUS is in a good place right now but I don’t think we should assume it will last forever. Time and inertia are the enemy’.

The SSNs might be the least of our worries with a Trump administration. The relevant agencies may be caught up in the Trump revenge. The knock-on impact on capability and policy could be considerable. With our new plans, small finances and dependence on the US, we will be challenged. Trump will be a chaos president and we could pass from view. Plan B would be difficult to evolve, and it would be very expensive.

Former defence minister and ambassador to the US: ‘If Trump is elected, will Australia need a plan B?’

If you are leader of an Australian political party, prime minister, defence minister, foreign minister or Ambassador to the US, the opening paragraph on a speech on the Alliance will contain a reference to our ‘shared values’. These usually include democracy, the liberal international order, respect for sovereignty and commitment to peace aided by mutual military support.

Donald Trump does not share these values, neither do many of his supporters. When last in office he struggled to free himself from these precepts. He was held to them by people he appointed to office and by the Republican leadership in Congress. If elected this year he has made clear his contempt for the US Constitution, and for democracy.

Trump has made clear his admiration for authoritarian leaders, and his understanding he was hampered by supporters of these values last time. He has expressed an intention to wreak vengeance on those who have hindered or stood against him. He has a team around him he’s determined to place in positions in departments, the military and intelligence who share his contempt for loyalty to the Constitution. His first attack will be on institutions like the Justice Department and the FBI. But those other institutions will also get his and his team’s attention.

What has happened in the Congress foreshadows this. The Republican leadership in the House had been traduced and the majority have been politically emasculated. If he is elected, a Republican majority in the Senate is all but assured. The Western alliance at its core will be rattled. Those reliant on American support will be in a state of confusion. Trump will believe his support for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has been vindicated.

It’s difficult to envisage him defending Taiwan. Those around him however and in Congress are very hostile to China and Xi Jinping. Xi will need to be cautious, despite what will appear to be an opportunity. Trump’s supporters may educate him on the critical importance of Taiwan, particularly as its semiconductors are vital to American industry.

President Biden has been particularly aware that, though powerful, the US does not have unilateral primacy in the Indo-Pacific. He believes American interests are advanced by its alliances and its friendship with powers like India, Vietnam and Indonesia which are essential in his view to balance China.

Trump’s advisors don’t share these views though their default response, no matter how unrealistic, will be to seek to restore that primacy. For them the plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarines (SSNs) under Pillar 1 of the AUKUS agreement with Britain and the US is an anathema if it slows American capacity before it reaches a force of over 60 SSN now slated for achievement in the late 2050s.

They recognise that SSNs and ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are at the heart of American military power. They have little ownership of AUKUS though Republicans in majority in Congress support it. They have little ownership of it and Trump would likely see the agreement as Biden writ large.

Most US opinion polls now point to a Trump victory. The only useful thing on the horizon is that the exit polls in the primaries have indicated around 25% of Republicans would not support Trump and would either vote against him or not vote. Were that to transpire, Trump would not win.

A majority of Democrats supported Biden strongly in the primaries but consider him too old and are not particularly enamoured of his vice president. As one friend points out to me the ultimate result will be determined by whichever group of voters is the greater—those who think Biden too old, and those who think Trump too unstable. That is, it seems, a choice between which negative sentiment proves to be the greater.

If it turns out that Trump’s negatives are fewer than Biden’s, we will have a lot to think about. Trump has a proven capacity to direct Republicans in Congress. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, resistant to Trump, has taken himself off the chess board.

The problem for Australia is that the US has not been so critical to Australia’s defence since World War II as it is now. Conversely Australia has not been so important to the US as it is now. One of the aims of the 1987 defence white paper was to have a force able to defend Australia in its area of direct military interest without burdening the US. The US would provide critical equipment and intelligence. This was effectively achieved in the 1990s.

Then we drifted. The force provided for the emergencies we confronted when we handled the Timor crisis and provided useful forces for the Middle East commitments, not just in Afghanistan. We arguably peaked in the third phase of the battles arising from the Iraq war, the struggle with ISIS when we provided for a time the second largest foreign contingent.

We played a role with the Pentagon to add to the ‘training’ and ‘assist’ mission, accompanying the Iraqi force in action. Throughout, the Royal Australian Navy played a useful role in patrolling the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

In the contemporary era and issues involving our direct defence, we find ourselves with a force not adequate for the task. We’ve discovered the consequences of years of underfunding.

At the time of the 1987 white paper, spending was 2.5%-3% of GDP. That was a continuation of levels set in the 1970s after being at 4% during the Vietnam War. The figures were not targets, just reporting what had become normal. In 1994, the objective was set at 2%, effectively an unwarranted peace dividend. However, this figure was seldom achieved and not at all in the new century until the last defence budget.

Though now spending at 2% is the level the US (and Trump) requires of its allies, it does not defend us. The new focus for the government in the defence review and decisions taken by the government on the new surface fleet and the SSNs put in place what appears needed. But its timetable stretches to the late 30s and 40s.

In the meantime, we depend on the US. No one should kid themselves about this. The US will be needed for a long time—and no one has a better idea that does not require unsustainable expenditures.

At the same time the US has discovered the value of Australia to its own defence needs. Pine Gap has developed massively as the capacity of the technologies it serves have increased exponentially. The two more recent joint facilities in Exmouth are important for American space activities. More significantly the northern bases developed from the 1980s and the naval facility in Western Australia are now vital for the US posture in the Western Pacific. They provide another angle on activities involving China. Deft use of them across our vast North gives them a higher survivability than many US bases elsewhere in the zone. As the US has become more important to us, we have something of a character of a Western Pacific last bastion.

Will all this be clear to Trump? Critical for us will be his response to the SSN project. This raises genuinely hard questions for the Americans. Not the deployment of SSN from Stirling but the timetable and perhaps the principle of our acquisition of US SSNs.

While Congress is favourably disposed to AUKUS and the programme there is much unease there. For Australia to acquire the boats and not deplete US numbers requires a production rate of 2.3 Virginia class boats per year. The new bloc V version of the Virginia class (which is too big for us) is required to replace the capability of four SSBNs converted for conventional missiles now being retired from service. Tonnage of submarines produced is not diminished it is increasing substantially, but the numbers to be produced are challenging.

When these 10,000 ton block V vessels end production they’ll be replaced by the SSNX which is more like the weight of the Bloc 4 variant we are acquiring. The SSNX would make a good AUKUS submarine but that is very unlikely to happen. However, when the US reaches that stage, producing  2.3 submarines per year would be easily achievable. The number of workers at construction locations in Connecticut and Newport News needs to keep increasing but some in Congress are asking for a slower pace to ease production pressure.

That would be damaging. The most knowledgeable Congressman on submarines in the US is Joe Courtney and he campaigns against anything that is not full speed. He says ‘AUKUS is in a good place right now but I don’t think we should assume it will last forever. Time and inertia are the enemy’.

The SSNs might be the least of our worries with a Trump administration. The relevant agencies may be caught up in the Trump revenge. The knock-on impact on capability and policy could be considerable. With our new plans, small finances and dependence on the US, we will be challenged. Trump will be a chaos president and we could pass from view. Plan B would be difficult to evolve, and it would be very expensive.

Australia is entitled to express its views on US politics and policies

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will soon head to Washington DC for his first bilateral visit. He’ll arrive into a feverish political climate ahead of next year’s presidential election. As that approaches, Australia and other democracies that consider themselves friends to the United States must forgo the timid approach of refusing to comment on other countries’ political campaigns.

While the reticence is well founded and based on principles of sovereignty and avoiding foreign interference, it is not in Australia’s interests to persist with an inflexible view that US elections are a matter only for Americans.

Decisions made in Washington affect the rest of the world, both adversaries and allies. As a close and trusted ally, Australia is entitled to views on policies that affect us. To be clear, we should not look to influence the election outcome or tell Americans for whom they should vote. Rather, we should express frank views on policy ideas—whether on security, trade or the environment—that are contrary to our interests and to principles that underpin an open and stable world, even if that’s read as tacit criticism of particular candidates.

It might carry some diplomatic risk, but that is dwarfed by the prospect of dangerous foreign policy decisions being made in Washington. As John F. Kennedy said, ‘There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.’

What messages need to be delivered? Above all, do not give up American sovereignty and liberty—as some candidates risk doing by taking positions effectively drafted in Moscow and Beijing. Importantly, do not give your enemies and rivals what they want. Do not give up Ukraine and do not cripple NATO—there’s a reason that Russia hasn’t invaded a single NATO country. And definitely do not give up Taiwan against the will of the Taiwanese to the authoritarian will of Beijing and, as Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has simply but accurately said, the ‘Dictator’ Xi Jinping.

American independence doesn’t mean isolation. The US must maintain its international leadership among open and democratic nations and use its unrivalled power to support the international rules-based order. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles was right when he told ASPI’s conference last month that we should all encourage the US to continue upholding the rules whose establishment it led after the horrors of World War II.

We also need to be willing to change our approach when the times change. Information and therefore debates are global. We are in a period of renewed strategic competition in which critical technologies—including in the information domain—are central.

It makes no sense for America’s friends to stay out of the debate when its adversaries are so heavily involved.

We learned with shock in 2016 that it wasn’t only American voices participating in American politics. Russia had been up to its elbows trying covertly to influence the outcome of that year’s election and undermine trust in democracy. America’s friends cannot be silent onlookers while its adversaries meddle. We will always distinguish ourselves by being open and transparent about our involvement—contrasted with Moscow’s and Beijing’s covert interference—but we cannot be absent.

Silence and inaction from the US’s friends would only allow rivals such as Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang to have the playing field to themselves. We would not be a good friend to Americans or serve our own national interest if we merely exclaimed our disbelief and disappointment after US election campaigns.

Therefore, we should remind Washington that it has historically been clear-eyed about the threat of foreign interference. As one of America’s founders, Alexander Hamilton, wrote so aptly in 1788 in Federalist paper 68, the ‘most deadly adversaries of republican government’ come ‘chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our counsels’.

It is ironic that some Republican candidates—from a party with ideological roots in liberty and limited government—fulminate against excessive US government power and influence, only to adopt the extreme and false views of foreign governments, especially Russia’s. Hence vaccine mandates equal tyranny, and NATO provoked Moscow into its illegal war against Ukraine. That is not free will or freedom from government control—it’s being beholden to the will of foreign adversaries.

As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’

It should be telling that Moscow and Beijing want Donald Trump or one of his political descendants such as Vivek Ramaswamy in power. Yes, the Trump administration put in place some strong policies constraining Beijing’s malicious behaviour, but it wasn’t led by Trump himself. It was the tenacity of the officers around him, like National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and his deputies, Nadia Schadlow and Matt Pottinger, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley. Beijing, and Moscow, want Trump without such responsible officials. And most likely that is what they would get: Trump turned savagely on most of these patriots for what he saw as their disloyalty to him.

Authoritarians recognise the benefits of a president who would abandon principle and adopt their transactional approach to foreign policy. As much as Trump fancies himself a dealmaker, international politics is different from business, and historically the Chinese Communist Party has dealt better than most. Beijing thinks Trump might be willing to give up America’s support for the status quo in Taiwan for a trade deal.

But principle matters in foreign and defence policy, which is why the objective should always be the long-term security of the nation as opposed to short-term economic prosperity. As Thomas Jefferson counselled: ‘In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.’

It isn’t just Trump and the Republicans. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a Democrat turned independent challenger to President Joe Biden, is getting almost all of his campaign policies straight out of Moscow’s playbook, claiming that the CIA killed his uncle, that 5G technology and vaccines are bad for you, and that Russia has legitimate security interests in invading Ukraine.

The concerns of allies and friends ought to have some bearing on American thinking. In Australia’s case, we have fought alongside the US in every major conflict for more than a century. We have not only the right but the obligation to speak up when our greatest ally and strategic partner falters. The same goes for the other Five Eyes nations and NATO. Just as the US is entitled to demand that NATO partners invest more responsibly in defence, those partners have the responsibility to speak truthfully to Washington.

A stronger stance also answers those critics who demand a more ‘independent’ Australian foreign policy (usually code for exiting America’s orbit). They are actually raising the wrong objection. No country in the modern world can go it alone, even superpowers, which is why China and Russia have signed their ‘no limits’ partnership. The answer is to involve ourselves more in the political debates that set US direction globally and help shape international outcomes.

Again, we should be open and overt. Our job is not to stop Trump getting elected but to ensure that, if he or one of his political successors does end up in the Oval Office, we have sent a clear signal to the US that its friends internationally—on which even a country as large and powerful as the US relies—will push back when policies and decisions destabilise the world and empower authoritarians.

The US has proudly been the land of the free and the home of the brave. Long may that be true.

Canberra’s man in Washington for ‘Trumpageddon’

When an Australian jumps out of a taxi and prepares to make a dash across New York’s 5th Avenue, the habit of a lifetime is to look the wrong way for the traffic.

Australia drives on the left; America drives on the right. It’s a simple metaphor for the many different ways of looking and moving of the two nations.

Rushing for a late-night drink in the city that never sleeps, Australia’s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, stopped his taxi by Central Park and dashed across the avenue, checking in the Oz direction.

That ‘near-fatal error,’ Hockey observes, was ‘like so many who think they understand America’.

Luck and quick reactions spared the ambassador an obituary about a culture-clash smash on 5th Avenue. Thus, last Wednesday, Hockey could release Diplomatic, a memoir of his time as our man in Washington from January 2016 to January 2020.

He starts with the big truth that shapes the life of any Oz representative in Washington: history has ‘made America fundamentally different from us’.

‘Many demons,’ Hockey writes, lurk ‘in the American psyche’. And that’s where the discussion of ‘inherent differences’ ends. The Hockey emphasis is on the ‘long and friendly history’ between the US and Australia:

It’s a bit like a successful marriage: we like each other a lot, we are not identical and do not always agree; however, we have shared our lives over many years. We are loyal to each other and we really enjoy each other’s company.

Hear the voice of the happy warrior who is Joe Hockey. Even after 19 years as a federal MP, culminating as treasurer from 2013 to 2015, Hockey departed Canberra with few enemies. His broad smile served him well in politics as it did in diplomacy. In both games, half a deal usually beats a duel.

Hockey went to Washington because his dream to become prime minister was dead. His luck deserted him in the series of political car crashes that marked the Liberal Party death struggle between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

The chapter headed ‘Goodbye, Canberra’ has a subhead reference to ‘politics at its worst’, and the smile dims as he lets fly: ‘Within our [Abbott] government, there were too many who were more focused on polls than policy. The sickness of populism afflicts the weak. That didn’t stop them from engaging in duplicity and deceit.’

Ah, politics is a treacherous trade played for the highest stakes. Who knew? Lucky only volunteers enter.

The happy warrior notes that for 17 of his 19 years in the pit he was fortunate to be in the front line (on the government or opposition front bench) and, despite the nastiness, he enjoyed it immensely.

From Washington, Hockey did most of his work with Canberra on a secure phone, talking to the prime minister, ministers and department heads. Others in Australia’s embassy wrote the ‘cables’ that are a central expression of the existence of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (acting as circulatory system and thinking process).

Hockey’s Canberra understandings (‘the sharpest knives always come from your own side’) explain that phone preference—‘given my past life as a politician, if I wrote any cables, I couldn’t rely on all the people reading them not to share them with the media’. A well-directed leak can sink you. As Hockey notes, Britain’s ambassador to the US had to resign in 2019 after a London leak of his cables claiming that President Donald Trump ‘radiates insecurity’ and describing the White House as ‘clumsy and inept’.

Hitting Washington at the start of 2016 for the final year of Barack Obama’s administration, Hockey witnessed the close but not familiar relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Turnbull: ‘Both men had a healthy love of detailed intellectual discourse—especially their own. Like two history professors discussing dialectical materialism, their conversation was eye-watering but hardly warm.’

Then comes the chapter headed simply ‘Trumpageddon’. On the Hockey telling, he read the signs of the presidential campaign and started building bridges to Trump, while Canberra was in denial till the votes came in.

Hockey says Trump ‘was one of the most authentic political candidates I had ever seen’, even though he was ‘confronting, rude and naive’. When he later spent time with the president, even on the golf course, The Donald was constantly questioning, churning through ideas and trying out lines:

Most political leaders are narcissists. They not only need to be the centre of attention, they often think they are the smartest people in the room. They also have fantastic egos. They believe they can charm the leg off a billiard table with their quick wit and nice smile. Enter Donald Trump.

Hockey describes a White House that lacked leadership and leaked like a sieve, with everyone competing for Trump’s attention and approval. The leaking meant the Washington Post quickly got the transcript of the president’s notorious phone conversation with Turnbull on 28 January 2017, a week after the inauguration.

Turnbull needed Trump to commit to the deal struck with Obama for the US to accept refugees Australia had exiled to Nauru and Manus Island. Trump berated Turnbull over a ‘dumb deal’ and the ‘worst deal ever’.

When Hockey answered the phone and spoke with Turnbull ‘straight after the conversation, he was shaken. His voice was quivering and he was clearly upset.’

Hockey says the Trump–Turnbull call was ‘disastrous’. The ambassador put on his politician’s helmet and marched into the White House to argue the dangers of a ‘massive deterioration in the alliance’. The public crisis—‘the madness that followed the leaked phone call’—offered a chance to lock in the deal. The strong foundations of the alliance, Hockey says, ‘can’t be undermined by the whims of a leader’.

Thinking like a politician, Hockey launched a campaign with a strong story: ‘100 years of Mateship’, marking the two countries’ shared military history. ‘Australia is the only country in the world to fight side by side with the United States in every major conflict’ since the Battle of Hamel on the Western Front in 1918.

Mateship is a complicated concept for Australia, and the campaign got plenty of criticism in Oz for being blokey or subservient. For America, though, mateship struck a chord and Hockey says it became a ‘successful touchstone’. Certainly, mateship seemed to work with The Donald. ‘After the disastrous first phone call,’ Hockey writes, ‘Australia went on to have a series of political and economic wins during the Trump presidency.’

Hockey exalts that the mates theme was embraced by President Joe Biden in his address marking the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS alliance: ‘Through the years, Australians and Americans have built an unsurpassed partnership and an easy mateship grounded on shared values and shared vision.’

The Hockey prediction is that Biden will not run for a second term as president. And he links that with a prediction that Trump, too, is unlikely to run: ‘Apart from his age [Trump will be 78 in 2024], and the likelihood the Democrats will seek to legally bar him from running, I don’t think he could bear the prospect of losing again.’

With questions in the air about both Trump and Biden, Hockey judges, ‘America hasn’t been in such a precarious position for a long time.’

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