Is Australia a good ally?

Friday 3 February 2017

A nice piece here from David Wroe at Domainfax:

Without an iota of consideration for America’s staunchest of allies, President Donald Trump has reminded us that, friend or foe, he will dump on anyone he likes to please his Twitter audience and bolster his domestic appeal.

That is the reality we are now dealing with and however galling his disgraceful treatment of the Australian government might be, our foreign policy and defence officials will continue the day-to-day work that maintains the relationship. There is a large iceberg beneath the surface that will remain steady despite the mad gale at the surface.

But here’s some reality for Trump: the US needs Australia, not just the other way around. He needs the network of alliances the US has carefully crafted in the post-1945 period because his country’s power stems not just from its military might but its friendships.

Australia is not a freeloader. Our defence spending is now close to 2 per cent of GDP. We have famously fought alongside the Americans in every major conflict of the past 100 years. The US has marines stationed in Darwin and will this year fly F-22 Raptors out of Tindall base. Long range bombers are also likely to rotate through the Northern Territory.

As China and other countries develop their long-range ballistic missile capabilities – one of the most important military advances it has made – Australia’s medium distance from the flashpoints of Asia will grow in importance.

“They’ve got up to 2500 marines in Darwin but it’s more about what they could have in the future. I’m sure the Americans are going to come to us and say we need you to do more so that means having greater access to Australia,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior defence analyst and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
…it is very likely that China’s soft power machine – growing rapidly in sophistication – will be looking to widen the fissures as Australians look across the Pacific and wonder why we should do business with someone like Trump.

Quite right. A couple of points:

We were already hosing the alliance when we used it as a dumping ground for refugees. If that wasn’t designed to bolster Trunbull’s “domestic appeal” then what was it for?
We are a freeloader in defense spending, via the Parliament:

That’s a very long way below the global average:

Trump has every right to feel aggrieved at our alliance efforts. We’ve played the US nicely for some time.Still, a good piece. The US does need Australia. Just as Australia needs the US. Or China will rule us and democracy die. Eventually, too, pushing the US out of the Western Pacific. <p></p> <p>Given our pretensions to middle power status in an uncertain region and advanced economy 2% is pretty low.</p> <ul> <li>Finally, we’ve been happily riding high on the Chinese hog as it gutted the US economy over several decades. Of course one has one’s own national interest to look after but from the US perspective our expensive houses could be seen to rest upon the same steel foundations used to build the Chinese military.</li> </ul>

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.