Faced with the increasingly assertive behavior of a rising China, several countries in the Indo-Pacific set out to strengthen their security cooperation with the United States in the last decade. But over the same period, U.S. willingness to uphold long-standing alliances became shrouded in uncertainty. The last two weeks have rendered any agreements among the United States and its allies downright tenuous.
Where does that leave the so-called middle powers, especially those with everything to lose from a full-blown Asian conflict—such as Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam? Some of these countries, and especially Singapore, have shown they would prefer to shape a multi-aligned and multinetworked—even a nonpolar—world. That may have been a good bet, because other countries, such as Australia, are wondering if their partnerships with the United States are worth anything anymore.
The 2021 AUKUS security deal was a targeted strategy to blunt China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. It entailed Australia acquiring eight submarines from the United Kingdom and the United States in exchange for multibillion-dollar investments in those countries’ naval shipbuilding industries.
Last week, Elbridge Colby, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, said that he was worried about a key component of that deal: Selling nuclear-powered submarines to Australia could leave U.S. sailors “vulnerable,” Colby said, because the vessels won’t be “in the right place in the right time.” (Trump is yet to state his position on AUKUS, but he was “seemingly puzzled” by a recent reference to it by a reporter.)
Australia’s relationship with the United States may be a decisive issue in the federal election expected to be called by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese no later than mid-May. Perhaps both Albanese and Australia’s opposition leader, Peter Dutton, should take heed of former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo H. Daalder’s bracing words to Europe: “It’s time for a new trans-Atlantic bargain,” Daalder argues, “one where Europe takes primary responsibility for security on the continent and where the United States empowers and enables Europe to do so.” Across the Pacific, new bargains may need to be struck as well.—Amelia Lester, deputy editor