The United States’ presidential campaign, already long and tumultuous, will no doubt become even more so in the coming months, as the two parties’ nominees, now officially selected, face off ahead of November’s election. But voters will have a clear choice before them, especially with regard to foreign policy.

The Democratic Party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, promises continuity. A Clinton administration would remain a willing partner to America’s friends and allies, and it would make clear to America’s adversaries that the broad tenets of US foreign policy will not change. Current US policy, rooted in strength and guided by pragmatism, has been generally successful in ensuring peace and stability for decades.

Quite a different vision has emerged on the Republican side, with the nomination of Donald Trump. And yet the candidate is a secondary issue—a symptom of the rapid transformation of the Grand Old Party itself, which has been a bewildering spectacle for American and foreign audiences alike.

The GOP establishment spent the primary season wringing its hands, asking how something like the Trump candidacy could happen. For example, in March 2016, hundreds of Republican advisers, representing a broad spectrum of foreign-policy views, signed an open letter expressing their opposition to Trump. While some of these advisers may come to support him this fall, having been ‘reassured’ of his commitment to their views, most will not.

The GOP has produced a presidential candidate with such a dim view of America’s prospects that he thinks the country has entered an abyss from which it may never emerge. While much of the world still looks to the US for wise international leadership, the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where Trump was formally nominated, projected nothing but fear and loathing.

One of the more striking elements of Trump’s speech at the convention was his attack on the last Republican administration. He characterized George W. Bush as a co-conspirator with Hillary Clinton in various foreign entanglements, such as wars and, worse, trade deals.

Throughout his entire address, however, Trump made no reference to the rest of the GOP’s 162-year legacy. Abraham Lincoln? Forget him. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a war hero and president who built the interstate highway system that Trump tells us is dangerously dilapidated? Never heard of him. And the delegates seemed to have no problem with these omissions, roaring in approval at every aggressive jab and apocalyptic warning.

Few took Trump, a reality-television star who has never held public office, seriously until he started winning primaries. Now he is the Republican Party’s nominal head and presidential standard-bearer. How did this happen?

Ronald Reagan, the modern-day GOP’s patron saint, once said that government is the problem, not the solution, a dictum that embodied the anti-government animus that has defined the party ever since. It is now a baked-in irony that any Republican running for office would just as soon do away with the government than actually serve in it. Small wonder, then, that Republican voters would nominate someone who had never served in government.

National defense has always been the sole exception to this anti-government view. But even on that issue, the GOP has changed. Trump has indicated that he would flout America’s NATO obligations, disregard institutions of global governance, and treat negotiations with other countries as ceremonies of surrender to US positions, rather than two-way deliberations.

And yet, if the GOP foreign-policy establishment wants to understand where a candidate like Trump came from, its members would do well to look at the behavior of some within their own ranks. Those, like Max Boot, who have often called for the unilateral use of force in global trouble spots, paved the way for him, even if they do not today support him. And others have helped him during his barroom-brawl campaign, as he turns civil policy disagreements into ad hominem attacks.

According to pollsters and pundits, Trump will most likely lose in November. If the last eight years wasn’t enough for Republicans to fix their party, perhaps another four or eight will suffice. One hopes they succeed. American democracy—and US foreign policy—needs at least two major parties, not one in the mainstream and the other on the extreme fringe.

The US Department of Defense’s third offset strategy has prompted much discussion since it was first announced in November 2014. The strategy, which has been allocated a US$18 billion budget, aims to ‘offset’ growing Chinese and Russian military capability by investing in game-changing technologies, such as artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. Although much of that funding will no doubt end up in the hands of US government research agencies, private research institutes and tech companies, there are still significant opportunities for US allies and partners, including Australia.

In January 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Bob Work, spoke of the importance of interdependence with US allies to achieve the objectives of the third offset strategy. Work argued that, ‘It’s important that we look at this as an alliance. Each of our alliance members have certain key advantages or certain key things that they really, really are good at.’ Australian industry and research institutes offer a number of key advantages, something that has only become clearer in the period since the third offset was announced.

Recently, the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) announced a partnership with Agent Oriented Software, Insitu and Deakin University to develop a prototype robotic teaming system that can autonomously monitor base perimeters. Capabilities such as this align with the third offset strategy’s goal of achieving a new era of human-machine collaboration. The emphasis here isn’t on the exclusion of humans from military operations, but rather the teaming of humans with new autonomous machine capabilities.

There are many examples of Australian researchers and companies developing machines, platforms and IT systems that fit into the broad category of game-changing technologies. At the DSTG Emerging Disruptive Technologies Assessment Symposium last year, a wide range of new capabilities currently in development were showcased. From autonomous unmanned surface vessels to cognitive sensor fusion, and swarm intelligence, there was a diverse array of Australian expertise and knowledge on display. Technological developments in those areas could make a valuable contribution to the third offset strategy and benefit from the significant funding channels that may become available through its large budget.

The third offset strategy could provide significant opportunities for Australian industry and research institutes, but how funding may be accessed is less clear. The Defense Department has already begun engaging industry within the US. Outreach offices are being established in Silicon Valley and Boston to encourage the development of capabilities with a defence application. Much of the funding will also be allocated internally to the Pentagon’s secretive research agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). One of the most promising funding opportunities may come from the Office of Naval Research, which funds scientific research and industry internationally.

Despite the large amount of funding and a science fiction inspired vision of the future, the third offset isn’t without its critics. Writing for the National Interest, Dan Goure has argued that the third offset is something of a smokescreen to hide the fact that the Obama administration is shrinking the size of the armed forces. The third offset has also been criticised for generating activity without an actual strategy to guide it. Then there’s the issue of the upcoming US presidential election in November, which adds some uncertainty to the ongoing implementation of the strategy. Those are all valid concerns but they don’t undermine the potential impact the third offset may have for defence industry and research institutes, both in the US and abroad.

The impact of the third offset on Australian defence industry and research institutes hinges on effective engagement across the Pacific. Fortunately, Australia already plays host to a number of large US defence companies including Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Likewise, Australian defence companies and research institutes are expanding their presence in the American market and increasing cooperation with research partners.

To maximise Australia’s involvement in the third offset, engagement must also take place at a higher, government-directed level. That raises strategic questions about the nature of Australia’s alliance with the US, but cooperation in the development of new defence technologies would fit with the existing pattern of close military partnership. It may also enhance Australia’s access to emerging autonomous capabilities that would otherwise not be available. Cooperation with the US may result in technological and economic benefits that would be hard to reach if those capabilities were developed in isolation.

Whatever the future holds for the implementation of the third offset strategy, there’s little doubt that the Australian defence industry and research institutes have plenty to offer in the way of game-changing technological capabilities.

When President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton after she clinched the required number of delegates to become the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, he stated that he thought there had never been ‘someone so qualified to hold this office [of President]’ as her. That was a big call, and I suspect a few people may disagree with the President’s assessment.

Notwithstanding this presidential hyperbole, Hillary Clinton has had many years of public service, including as Secretary of State from 2009–2013 during President Obama’s first term. Accordingly, let’s examine (as best as one can) what we could expect in the foreign policy sphere under a possible Clinton administration.

Surprisingly for someone with her foreign policy credentials and who boasts the one million miles travelled and 112 countries visited as Secretary of State, Clinton hasn’t made many statements on that role during her campaign. Of course, that may well be because she wants to distance herself from Obama’s poor standing in foreign policy—according to a recent poll, the president has a disapproval rating of almost 50% on that policy area.

Another reason why Clinton has been downplaying her foreign policy experience during the campaign is because there were no notable achievements under her watch at Foggy Bottom. She confirmed that as much herself when she was unable to identify her major accomplishments in a 2014 interview. And when one does think of Clinton’s tenure at the helm of the State Department, one tends to remember the failed ‘reset’ button with President Putin, her suggestion that Syrian President al-Assad may be a reformer, and the disaster of Benghazi—occasions Clinton would probably rather forget.

A majority of the statements Clinton has made since hitting the campaign trail have been disappointingly lacklustre, with little policy content. The most notable address to date was the ‘major’ foreign policy speech given by Clinton in San Diego earlier this month. It was meant to confirm her national security credentials and demonstrate her superiority vis-à-vis Trump in that domain. Instead, it was a missed opportunity and really a faux foreign policy speech attacking Trump’s confused and confusing thinking on foreign affairs. It was a speech all about Trump—not Clinton.

It was expected that Clinton would deliver a thoughtful and considered foreign policy framework for her first term as president. Instead the speech had virtually no concrete ideas about how she would approach the big issues that would be waiting for her on the first day in the Oval Office. Even Trump had offered more specific policy suggestions during his own speech in April, albeit many were contradictory and erratic.

Still, Clinton did stress in her speech the importance ‘of strong alliances; clarity in dealing with our rivals; and a rock-solid commitment to the values that have always made America great’. While that’s very much a motherhood statement, it’s nevertheless good news for Australia and our region which is becoming increasingly tense. It also dovetails nicely with Clinton’s known interest in Asia and the Indo–Pacific. Her first trip overseas as Secretary of State was to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China—four countries which will be key players in the resolution of two of the thorniest unresolved regional issues, notably the construction of heavily-armed man-made islands by the Chinese in the South China Sea and the continued nuclearisation of North Korea. Based on some of Clinton’s past statements, there’s a sense that she would be tougher on China than Obama has been in the last seven years.

A greater assertiveness vis-à-vis China would fit with the Obama administration’s Asia ‘pivot’ or rebalance for which, to most observers, Clinton is considered the main architect. But while the security pillar of the ‘pivot‘ has been more or less on track, the trade pillar, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), hasn’t been doing so well. Back in November 2012, Clinton had referred to the TPP as the ‘gold standard in trade agreements’ in a speech in Australia. Since then the TPP has fallen victim to the presidential campaign. Pressure from the unions and Bernie Sanders’ pull to the left have forced Clinton to back away from support for the TPP. Not only has she barely referred to it, but when she does it’s to criticise it for failing to ‘raise wages and create more good jobs at home‘. So don’t expect Washington to sign the TPP too soon, if at all, under a Clinton administration. And that would pretty much mean the end of the TPP.

So would the world, and specifically the Indo–Pacific region, be a safer place with Clinton as president? Not necessarily so. She has repeatedly reminded everyone that she would have been tougher than Obama on Syria by arming rebels earlier in the civil war and would have taken tougher measures on Russia following the annexation of Crimea. She’s naturally more hawkish than Obama, who is desperate to be remembered as the president who ended America’s campaigns in two wars (or at least tried to). Moreover, as the first woman president she would want to dispel any (mis)perception that she would be softer than a male president. Some observers believe that this desire to over-compensate could be Clinton’s greatest weakness. So while the world, especially the Indo–Pacific region, would indeed not necessarily be more peaceful under a President Clinton than under Obama, it certainly would be more predictable than under a President Trump.

The US has been involved in Southeast Asia for a long time. During the Cold War, the region assumed considerable importance as a theatre for countering the strategic threat emanating from the USSR.  However, American interest in this part of the world waned after the collapse of the Soviet Union as more pressing hotspots emerged in Western Europe, the Middle East and Northeast Asia.

All that began to change with the election of President Barack Obama, who entered office committed to winding down US military engagements against the Taliban and Sunni jihadists in the Middle East. Early in his administration, he announced the so-called ‘Asia rebalance’—a reorientation, that became official policy in January 2012 with the release of a new Defense Strategic Guidance.

This so-called ‘pivot’ explicitly recognises the need for America to re-embrace partner nations in Asia, leveraging their significant and growing capabilities to build a network of states that nurtures, strengthens and sustains a rules-based order that’s capable of effectively addressing regional challenges.

In this context, the US has pursued four main areas of cooperation as part of its bilateral and multilateral engagement with Southeast Asia:

• supporting the development of the ASEAN Community, which was formally launched at the end of 2015
• buttressing defence reform and restructuring
• facilitating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations
• providing assistance to address transnational terrorist and criminal threat contingencies.

To be sure, this functional and programmatic engagement is indicative of ASEAN’s increasing importance as a unified collective bloc, the frequency at which large-scale natural disasters affect this part of the world and the existence of a wide range of mutually concerning trans-regional security challenges. However, it’s also very much related to Beijing’s growing power in the wider Asia–Pacific and, more specifically, to heightened Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea (SCS) and the concomitant threat that this is seen to pose to freedom of navigation in a critically vital maritime trading and energy corridor.

Has the rebalance worked? In one sense it has, by providing the US with both institutional (ASEAN) and geostrategic/ geographical (invested partner nations, basing options) opportunities to balance and offset the rising regional influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

However, a case could also be made that growing American involvement in Southeast Asia (and the Asia–Pacific as a whole) might merely serve to encourage an already paranoid Beijing to adopt increasingly aggressive policies for protecting its self-defined national interests. Moreover, it could be argued that the rebalance has lacked substance, at least in terms of balancing the PRC. While Washington has engaged in a multitude of activities in Southeast Asia, how much these strands have deterred aggression and mitigated attempts at coercion by Beijing is questionable—particularly in regard to the SCS disputes. Here there doesn’t appear to have been any genuine effort on the part of Beijing to resolve ongoing territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam and other claimants. By contrast, the PRC has taken an increasingly belligerent stance, undertaking highly contentious unilateral actions to consolidate and solidify control over all the territories behind its so-called nine-dash line. In this light, a tenable charge could be made that the pivot has largely failed to ensure the emergence of a China that acts as a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in underwriting and buttressing the existing regional order.

Issues of effectiveness aside, perhaps an even more fundamental question is whether the US will continue with its current ASEAN-centric policy as part of a broader program of Asian engagement. Indeed, in an election year that might see a non-Democratic president returned to office, Washington’s priorities may well change and return to a concerted focus on contingencies in Europe and the Middle East. Even if partisan politics doesn’t ‘unbalance’ the pivot to Southeast Asia, fiscal constraints could. Cuts to the defence budget could make the type of large-scale investment needed for underwriting a robust forward presence in Southeast Asia simply untenable.

Assuming that the rebalance survives, it’s clear that a central challenge will be convincing China that the return to Southeast Asia isn’t a thinly veiled strategy of Sino-containment but, rather, an effort to revitalise and strengthen partnerships in a key part of the world. To achieve such an outcome, it would seem that there’s a realistic potential to cooperate with China in the areas of HADR and transnational security as a means of providing the necessary level of confidence to deal with the more sensitive issue of claims in the SCS. More specifically, Washington should impress on Beijing that the two governments share a common need for cooperation to deal with an array of global threats—including many of the cross-border challenges that are manifest in Southeast Asia—and that this would be harder to effect (with deleterious consequences for both parties) in an environment of sustained regional power competition.

Achieving such an outcome will require a nuanced and agile strategy that couples engagement with balancing. The optimal and most sustainable outcome will be the emergence of a regional order that promotes risk-averse behaviour by Beijing and insulates against the type of unilateral action that could quickly escalate out of control to threaten American and local allied interests.

This piece is drawn from ASPI’s forthcoming publication, Agenda for Change 2016: strategic choices for the next government.

Australia’s defence strategy is a topic much loved by academics, and there’s a rich literature about its various evolutions. In the 1960s the posture du jour was ‘forward defence’. Australia was exercised about communist insurgencies throughout Southeast Asia and the ADF was deployed in Malaya, Indonesia and Vietnam. After Vietnam, we got ‘defence of Australia’—effectively a locally focussed strategy gifted to us by President Nixon’s Guam Doctrine. The last few defence white papers have been couched in terms of geographic ‘concentric circles’ with Australia’s security interests and defence posture being defined by distance from our shores.

Not that any of those had much effect on the ADF’s force structure. Regardless of the story being told, the ADF has continued to bear a remarkable resemblance to that assembled by the Menzies government in the 1960s. Budgets have been less resilient to changes of strategic circumstance; the ADF’s size and readiness slowly dwindled during the lean times of the defence of Australia era. Nonetheless, the centrepiece force elements—except for the aircraft carriers—continued on, as Mirages were replaced by Hornets, the Navy’s six Oberon submarines became six Collins boats, and Army moved from Centurion tanks to Leopards. Similarly, the ADF tends to expand when there’s more money. The Howard government’s mining boom fuelled largesse saw defence acquire a slew of capable new platforms, though with no radical departures in the force structure.

So we shouldn’t put much store in the narrative description of Australia’s strategic circumstance and the declaratory defence strategy at the front of white papers—the money and what it’s spent on counts for more. DWP2016 is in many ways more of the same—there’s extra money, so we’ll get more of what we already have. But there’s also a significant difference: this time around there’s a lot more said about Australia’s alliance with the United States and the importance of other partners. That’s in response to the strategic outlook section, which identifies as our major challenge the growing competition between major powers in ‘our region’ (somewhat expansively used to describe pretty much the whole of the western Pacific and half the Indian Ocean).

While not explicit, the strategy that underpins this White Paper is to keep the US regionally engaged to help balance the baleful influence of China (spoken sotto voice). We want the American rebalance to Asia to be real and enduring, and to help make it so we’ll step up our spending to be more like a capable partner than a freeloader. The technologically refreshed and expanded ADF, developed with interoperability in mind, should work well in an alliance framework.

But there’s one other thing we could do that’s technically easy and will cost only a fraction of the promised $195 billion of spending on defence capability over the next decade. Simply, we need to be better hosts to US force elements. We should stop arguing about who pays for the facilities they use in Australia and encourage them to come on down and settle in. We should stump up the cash and be grateful for the strategic bargain we’re getting—a strong local American presence is far better value than an extra submarine or two.