It’s not every day your security guarantor detonates the global order. Welcome to Australia under Trump 2.0. Boredom is dead; “interesting times” have landed, literally with a crash.

That it coincides with a federal election only heightens the intensity. Here, however, both political sides conduct elaborate rituals of reality-denial. They agree with the security experts that our strategic outlook is the worst it has been since the 1930s, yet immediate defence commitments are either feeble (ALP) or not even specified until the final stages of the official campaign (Coalition). Our leaders are having a lend of either themselves or us.