No free ride in defence of free world, Pentagon tells Indo-Pacific
US Defence chiefs demand Australia match European NATO spending levels of 5pc of GDP as China threat looms ahead of critical 2027 deadline.
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.
In the address, the Prime Minister praised Labor’s wartime leader John Curtin for standing up to UK prime minister Winston Churchill and US president Franklin Roosevelt during World War II – a jarring message in Washington, given its reassessment of AUKUS and the push for Australia to lift defence spending.
Defence officials in Washington said they did not believe Australia was spending enough “even for Pillar 1” of the AUKUS deal, under which the US has agreed to provide at least three nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines to Canberra from the early 2030s.
“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.
“All countries have political difficulties. All countries have fiscal difficulties. All countries have constitutional restrictions. Yet we have to be able to defend ourselves in ways that are realistic, equitable and sustainable.”
The key priorities of the US Defence Department were given as defending the homeland, deterring China, revitalising the defence industrial base and “getting the allies to do more in order to pick up slack”.
The Australian was told that the ongoing AUKUS review was “designed to be fact-based, rigorous, and empirical”.
It will include Pillar 1, which relates to provision of the Virginia-class – and later the AUKUS-class – nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, as well as Pillar 2, which relates to the sharing of advanced defence technologies.
“I think the main thrust of the review is to give people a real brass-tacks, clear-eyed understanding of where things stand,” a US Defence official said.
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, 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 Tokyo and Canberra.
There is no sign the pressure campaign will stop, with a US Defence official telling The Australian: “We need our allies to step up. And this is where the reason for the focus on the Asian allies really becomes very clear: how does it make sense for our Asian allies to sit back while the Europeans are stepping up and committing to 5 per cent of GDP to deal with Russia, which is one-tenth the GDP of China?
“On defence spending – the objective analysis is that the Australian government is not spending enough on defence, even for Pillar 1. And, of course, the implications of that deficit for the rest of the Australian Defence Force and its ability to meet Australia’s own collective defence strategy are very significant. Those are facts that we must address, given the gravity of the strategic situation. This is a very real near-term problem. We have essentially no time in defence terms before 2027.”
South Korea is being held up by Washington as the model US ally in the region, given its greater defence spending and larger standing military are seen to provide a stronger contribution to collective defence efforts.
The Albanese government has argued strongly that the AUKUS agreement is firmly in the interests of both Australia and the US. So far, it has funnelled $1.6bn towards the US shipbuilding industry under the terms of the agreement.
While the Pentagon policy chief leading the AUKUS review, Elbridge Colby, has raised issues with the agreement – including whether the US would be able to spare Virginia-class submarines and if Australia would commit them to support the US in a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait – Australia remains confident the agreement will proceed. Defence Minister Richard Marles told the ABC on the weekend that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was a key backer of AUKUS.
“I have spoken to Elbridge Colby’s boss on a number of occasions, and that’s the Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth,” he said. “I speak to my counterpart and we have an ongoing dialogue, and there is support in the United States for AUKUS.
“You can see that in all the comments that have been made. It’s fundamentally in the strategic interests of the United States. Pete Hegseth is on the record in relation to AUKUS. And I made it clear that the review is something that we welcome.”
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