Australia’s Security Establishment Contemplates Trump’s America

With Donald Trump coming to power last month as the president of the United States, concerns about his unpredictable nature and potential to upend established norms have been the focus of Australia’s security community.

On the day of President Trump’s inauguration, the National Security College, located within the Australian National University, published a new paper titled “The Trump Presidency and Australia’s Security: Don’t Panic, Don’t Relax.” The paper sought to understand and explain the potential changes that the Asia-Pacific region could face, and how Australia should respond to any disruption to Australia’s primary security relationship.

After World War II Australia could no longer rely on the United Kingdom to guarantee its security and instead made the pivot toward the United States as its new “great friend.” In 1951, the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) was signed, indicating that an attack on one of the three countries would be considered a threat to all. While New Zealand was suspended from the treaty in 1986 due to its decision to maintain a nuclear-free zone, the treaty still forms the central plank of Australia’s foreign policy. Due to this Australia has been involved in all of the United States’ military endeavours, from Korea and Vietnam to both Iraq wars and Afghanistan, seeing support for American wars as the price to pay for the United States guaranteeing Australian security.

The recent paper states that due to the election of Donald Trump the direction of U.S. foreign policy has become uncertain, with any changes to established norms potentially leading to security competitors attempting to test U.S. power and resolve. Due to this, U.S. allies will seek to hedge against both U.S. unpredictability as well as threats from security competitors such as China or Russia.

With this in mind Australia’s strategic outlook will need to be more predictable to not alarm other states in its region, and should focus on its interests, avoiding ideological adventures. The paper indicates that Australia will remain well regarded in Washington, but may need to work harder to influence the Trump Administration’s decision-makers and nodes of power.

While there are rumblings within Australia to forge a more independent foreign policy, the author of the paper, Professor Rory Medcalf, sees this as a naïve approach, stating that  “The alliance with the United States remains central to our national security. We have no realistic alternative. Our interests are extensive and our capabilities cannot protect them in full.”

Banking on cultural affinity and ties within the security communities of both countries, Medcalf adds, “The alliance is broad and deep enough to survive a Trump presidency, so we need not panic. But nor can we relax. We will need to reframe our engagement with the United States in plain terms of national interests – theirs and ours.”

Having been a staunch ally of the United States since World War II, Australia will remain well-regarded by the United States’ security community. This should provide a bank of goodwill which will enable doors and ears to remain open in Washington. But Australia’s main leverage with the United States remains the existence of the Joint Defense Facility at Pine Gap in central Australia.

The Pine Gap facility is one of the most important intelligence gathering facilities outside the United States, capable of detecting a wide range of signals intelligence, and able to gather significant data on foreign military capability and weapons development. The facility also provides targeting data for U.S. drone strikes.

Despite this card, the National Security College paper suggests that Australia should start to explore deeper security ties within the Indo-Pacific region to complement the U.S. alliance, and to also hedge against any potential instability that the Trump presidency may cause. The strengthening of ties with with both Japan and India remains the most obvious areas of strategic engagement. Security relations were a major topic of conversation on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Australia in mid-January.

The received wisdom of the U.S. security community should carry enough weight to prevent any drastic foreign policy changes, yet with the norm breaking manner in which Trump came to power there is a concern that this expectation cannot be guaranteed. Australia will need to remain vigilant to the implications of any new foreign policy direction from the Trump administration.