Anthony Albanese leaves Australia on the outer as Donald Trump proves he’s a true world leader | Caleb Bond

How refereshing to see a world leader actually displaying some leadership, writes Caleb Bond.

It has been a rather strange feeling this week to witness a genuine world leader at work.

We often refer to presidents, prime ministers and premiers as leaders but many of them are just managers.

To be a leader you have to, well, lead – and that’s what Donald Trump has done this week.

The difference between him and his predecessor has never been more obvious.

His decision to bomb Iran’s underground nuclear sites was a considered and decisive measure to prevent an extended war with Israel.

It was not, as some have posited, the start of another western war in the Middle East.

It was designed to prevent exactly that situation, hence the brokering of a ceasefire.

When Iran momentarily broke that ceasefire and Israel threatened to disproportionately respond, Trump led Benjamin Netanyahu to sense.

His style may be unorthodox – we’ve never seen a US president try pulling an ally into line by saying they don’t know what the f**k they’re doing – but you can’t argue with the results.

US President Donald Trump addresses a press conference during a NATO Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague on June 25. Picture: Nicolas Tucat/AFP

Then he was straight on Air Force One to the Hague where all NATO nations agreed to his request that they increase their military budgets to five per cent of GDP and British PM Sir Keir Starmer said the UK would buy a fleet of F-35 stealth jets that could carry nuclear warheads.

All the way back to his first term, people derided Trump as trying to blow up NATO for threatening to withdraw from the alliance.

He has, in fact, made it stronger.

One man impervious to Trump’s leadership and seemingly allergic to the concept, though, is Anthony Albanese.

That may be a tad unfair – he could lead us to failure.

While the rest of the western world heeds the message that military spending must increase because your sole preservation plan cannot be to hope the US will sort you out, Australia is standing idly by hoping Xi Jinping doesn’t like the look of us too much.

The Prime Minister’s strategy seems to be to appease China – he will have his fourth meeting with Xi next month despite having none with Trump.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Senate Leader and Foreign Minister, Penny Wong hold a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

While NATO countries aim for military spending to be five per cent of GDP in the next decade, we’re aiming to lift from two percent to – wait for it – 2.3 per cent.

Every strategic review and update of defence of this country in the past five years has said we no longer have a 10-year warning time in which to prepare for conflict and yet we keep dawdling along, waiting for some submarines to turn up in 15 years.

Meanwhile China floats warships and spy subs along our coastline.

What Trump demonstrated in his spat with Netanyahu this week – as he has done previously in his dealings with NATO – is that he is more than willing to assist allies but he does not take kindly to ingrates.

The defence of the west cannot rest solely on the shoulders of the US and it will not be dictated to about how to conduct business.

Albanese is, dangerously, leaving us on the outer.

We are dudding ourselves by not shoring up more military self sufficiency but also risking our relationship with the one country that could rescue us.

Originally published as Anthony Albanese leaves Australia on the outer as Donald Trump proves he’s a true world leader | Caleb Bond