This is an important story from The Australian.
The US Defence Department is aiming to integrate Australia and other Asian allies into a stronger collective defence framework focused on deterring Beijing and safeguarding Taiwan, warning that partners in the Indo-Pacific must not “sit back while the Europeans are stepping up.”
As Canberra and Washington prepare to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on Friday, the Pentagon has made clear its plans to strengthen collective defence as an urgent priority in the lead-up to 2027, when it is thought China will be capable of seizing Taiwan.
It can also be revealed that Anthony Albanese’s Curtin Oration last month raised questions among senior figures in the Trump administration.
…“Our allies have to do their part,” a US Defence official told The Australian. “We’re coming up to the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The lesson to take in commemorating the end of the war in the Pacific is the need for real efforts and readiness for collective defence.
…The broader US strategy in the Indo-Pacific is geared around the construction of a more credible and robust deterrent against Beijing along the first island chain of the western Pacific. Yet the strong sentiment in the US Defence Department is that, to be effective, both Japan and Australia need to do more.
The outcome at The Hague summit in June, where NATO members agreed to lift defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP is being used as leverage to push the case harder with both Tokyo and Canberra.
These are the consequences of Albo’s pivot to Palestine writ large. Focusing on the irrelevant should not come at the expense of the relevant.
Australia should lift defence spending urgently to 3.5% of GDP and slash whatever it needs to do so.
It gets worse. Albo’s pivot to China is pissing Washington right off.
Australia must speak more clearly about the threats posed by China, including how it would respond to a regional conflict, or risk the AUKUS submarine agreement, Indo-Pacific experts in the United States are warning.
John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser in his first term, and held senior roles in other Republican administrations, said policymakers in Washington had noted the Albanese government was “less vocal about what the problem is” compared with its predecessors.
“It is a little hard to get used to,” Bolton said in an interview. “In the Cold War days, Labour governments in Great Britain were just as anti-communist as the Conservatives. When you see a leftist government that’s not willing to talk as openly about what the real threat is, it does make some people nervous.
…Naval operations expert Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute with close links to the administration, said the AUKUS review was about putting Australia on notice that the US expected Australia to use the submarines it bought.
“The Australians have been a little reticent to explicitly call out that they might use them against China,” he told this masthead. “If you’re not willing to say it in public, then you’re not going to put the Chinese on notice. It has been privately conveyed in the past, but the US would like Australia to make it more public.”
“That’s the concern in the US – that you’re spending 10 to 20 per cent of your procurement budget on this one system, yet you’re not talking about how you might use it,” he said.
I can’t remember a time when Washington felt the need to so publicly pressure an Australian government.
But, let’s face it, with the Rudd sinophile keeping us on the outer and Albo the groveller turning into a CCP propaganda vessel, why wouldn’t trust in the US be fraying?
We have gone from the tip of the spear in US calculations to the coward Down Under under Albo.
Your country is edging towards making a major strategic blunder.
Cancelling words will not save your children from Beijing’s Pilbara gulags.
