Prioritise defence, security in dangerous, changing era

Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong travel to Washington this week for the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) at a crucial time. Their meeting with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio marks 40 years of the consultations. The Australian ministers will come under renewed pressure to boost the nation’s defence budget. The White House’s new national security strategy notes it will keep up the pressure on Canberra to spend “far more” of GDP on defence, stating “in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defence spending”. The reorganisation of defence procurement announced last week, which Mr Marles billed as the “biggest reform to the defence organisation in 50 years”, is unlikely to cut much ice at AUSMIN without extra money for military hardware, despite Donald Trump giving Anthony Albanese a leave pass on the issue at the White House in August. Spending just over 2 per cent of GDP on defence falls far short of what is needed to implement AUKUS and maintain and build the Australian Defence Force.

As Ben Packham writes, the government has been given prudent advice by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute to develop a “drone wall” across northern Australia incorporating lasers and electronic jammers to protect critical infrastructure from attack by autonomous aircraft swarms. Defence’s rollout of counter-drone systems is too slow, the report says, urging the government to emulate Ukraine’s “drone wall” that aims to destroy incoming uncrewed Russian aircraft as cheaply as possible. It sounds like a good investment. The paper says China has an advantage in lethal autonomous technologies because it is less constrained by legal and ethical provisions than the West.

On the plus side for Australia, the Pentagon’s completed AUKUS review reflects Mr Trump’s “full-steam ahead” commitment to the program, identifying “opportunities to put AUKUS on the strongest possible footing”. Mr Marles will meet Mr Hegseth and their British counterpart, John Healey, this week – the first three-way AUKUS ministers meeting under the Trump administration.

But the US national security strategy also explores disturbing themes, expressing ambivalence towards Europe and NATO, Joe Kelly writes. The foundations of the post-World War II trans-Atlantic partnership are under pressure: “It is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the US, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” The strategy reserves the right of the US to intervene in European politics, declaring “our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory”. It is a core interest of the US, it says, to negotiate “an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine in order to stabilise European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war and re-establish strategic stability with Russia” and enable reconstruction of Ukraine as a viable state.

It stops short of arguing for more help to ensure the Russian invasion fails, which is crucial for eastern Europe, especially Poland and the Baltic states.

In looking inward to the safety of the US, insisting “the days of the US propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over”, Washington is shifting attention to its own neighbourhood, which includes Australia. The strategy’s objectives – to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific and “preserving freedom of navigation in all crucial sea lanes, and maintaining secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials” – align with our national interest. Fostering our alliance through AUSMIN has never mattered more.