With just 27 million people, Australia is the world’s 13th largest economy. It has the 11th largest GDP per capita. It ranks 10th on the human development index. Its major cities consistently rank amongst the world’s “most liveable,” and the vast majority of its population live in a state of comfort that most of the world could only dream of. By any metric, Australia is an extraordinarily successful country. Yet Australia lacks that confidence you’d expect such success to produce. In an era of increasing global volatility, this lack of confidence is a problem.
The central pillar of Australia’s international relations since the country’s formation at the beginning of the 20th century has been that of the “great and powerful friend.” Initially, this was its colonial forebear, the United Kingdom, and then following World War II, the United States. This need for a great and powerful friend was driven by what the doyen of modern Australian foreign policy, the late-Allan Gyngell, called the “fear of abandonment” – an anxiety that as a European outpost in Asia, its natural allies in the West would not consider Australia part of their essential interests. Australia has felt the need to constantly prove itself worthy to a like-minded great power.
Like a person lacking confidence, this has, at times, come across as a little desperate. Since World War II, Australia has sought to prove itself useful to the U.S., rather than prove itself capable in its own regard. Australia has involved itself in U.S. conflicts from Vietnam to both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, less out of a commitment to the proclaimed ideals of these missions, and more due to the need to demonstrate loyalty to Washington.
Despite it being built off a lack of confidence, as a tactic, this has been successful. Although it has had occasional lapses of judgement, the U.S. has embodied a broad set of principles that have been beneficial to Australia. The U.S. has seen its role as the guarantor of a liberal international order consisting of the rule of law, free trade and freedom of navigation, multilateral institutions, broad respect for human rights, and a belief in democracy. Australia has proved itself useful to the U.S. for this role with facilities like the Pine Gap intelligence facility in central Australia, and more recently, the Marine Rotational Force in Darwin.
Yet the security and prosperity that Australia gained from tying itself to the U.S. is now less certain. Australia’s great and powerful friend is no longer very friendly. Not only has it abandoned the liberal principles that have allowed Australia to flourish and kept the relative global peace, the U.S. is now actively hostile to its friends and allies. Seeing them as weak and dependent, home to democratic values that Washington now disdains, the U.S. is even displaying an aggressive intent to annex their territory.
Australia has made what now looks like a significant strategic error of tying itself to such a state through the AUKUS agreement. AUKUS may be a long-term project that is able to survive the next four years. However, Canberra previously operated on the assumption that Donald Trump’s first term as president was just a blip – something the Americans needed to get out of the system before returning to normalcy.
This proved to be deeply naive. There is a large cohort of Americans who are thrilled by the current administration’s behavior, and the Republican Party houses a great many figures who share in Trump’s worldview and habitual animus. This makes AUKUS an inherently unstable initiative. It also may undermine Australia’s credibility should the Trump administration’s threats toward Greenland and Canada turn to force.
While Australia is less exposed to this aggression than Canada and Europe, it is no less in need of a wake-up call. But rather than a wholesale reassessment of its relationship with Washington, what Australia needs is a good hard look at itself. Canberra needs to understand its own collective psychology and inclinations and how these project up into Australia’s approach to the world.
With an advantageous geography, great wealth, an abundance of natural resources, a highly educated population and a competent state, Australia has no need to be so insecure. Working in concert with other like-minded middle powers, it needs to be confident in its own ability to navigate a more turbulent world without having to rely on a protector state. The biggest question currently facing Australia may not be whether it can trust the U.S., but whether it can have the confidence to trust itself.
