Some US military stakeholders have “very serious concerns” about the Aukus arrangement but the Pentagon wants “to make this thing work”, a senior American defence official says. While they say a review of the nuclear submarine pact is being undertaken in good faith, it will not be completed within 30 days, as initially anticipated. Still, Washington is sticking to its request for Australia to give “a clear sense” of how it would respond militarily, including with the Aukus submarines, to future conflicts. While Anthony Albanese declares the Australian government wants…
Tag: Aukus
Australia won’t commit in advance to joining hypothetical US-China conflict, Pat Conroy says
Australia will refuse any US request to join a “hypothetical” conflict with China over Taiwan and won’t make any advance commitment, the defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, has said, amid reports Washington is seeking such promises in discussions over the Aukus submarines. Conroy called on China to be more transparent about its military buildup, but said any commitment to war would be the sole power of the Australian government of the day. It came after multiple reports this week that the Pentagon was seeking guarantees from Australia and other allies…
Albanese heads to China as Trump upends the global order. The PM may wish he lived in less interesting times | Tom McIlroy
Anthony Albanese watched on from the opposition benches when Xi Jinping addressed a joint sitting of federal parliament back in 2014. In Australia for the G20 summit, and hosted by Tony Abbott, China’s president told MPs he had visited the country five times over 30 years, spending time in every state and territory. Xi said the friendship between Australia and China would be as “strong and everlasting” as Uluru and the Great Wall of China. As he prepares to meet Xi later this month, Albanese may be forgiven for wishing…
The Australia-US alliance is facing a decisive test, and not just over the Middle East | Hugh White
Would Australia go to war to support the United States in conflict with China over Taiwan – or elsewhere? The government avoids discussing the question, let alone answering it, by dismissing it as hypothetical. But it will not go away, for two reasons. First, the possibility of us going to war over Taiwan looms over the whole debate about our military preparedness and defence spending, and gives it urgency. That is because choosing to fight China alongside the US is a scenario in which Australia would find itself drawn into…
Majority of Australians think China will be world’s most powerful country by 2035, poll finds
A majority of Australians expect China will be the most powerful country in the world by 2035 as trust in the US tumbles, new research has found. Just over one in three Australians (36%) trusted the US to act responsibly on the world stage, representing a 20-point fall from 2024 and the smallest proportion since the Lowy Institute began polling in 2005. The thinktank’s 2025 report found only one in four respondents had any confidence in president Donald Trump’s approach to world affairs – less than half of the 46%…
Hedging our bets: the existential questions facing Australia’s next government in unpredictable times
The world is a more dangerous place. Global conflicts have doubled over the past five years, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled). In 2024 alone, one person in eight across the world was exposed to conflict: political violence increased by a quarter, by factors worse in countries that held elections. Australian political leaders of all stripes couch it in shared aphorism: the most “challenging strategic circumstances since WWII”. Violence, of course, never went away. It ebbed in some periods, but the myth of the triumph of liberal…
Australia plans for a ‘less certain’ future in Asia — one where the US may not remain the dominant force
Australia’s defence overhaul has accelerated some projects and cut others and has already prompted a plea from China to abandon a “cold war mentality”. But as the dust settles on a plan to increase overall military spending, the Albanese government has also sent some significant signals on how it sees the future of the Indo-Pacific region – and these aren’t exactly how Australia’s top security ally, the US, might see things. The defence minister, Richard Marles, also has a new answer to a persistent question about claims from some western…
Australia politics live: Brandis says Rudd must have bipartisan support as ambassador despite Trump comments; Joyce says Rudd is ‘cooked’
From 23m ago Brandis says Rudd must have bipartisan support as ambassador despite Trump’s ‘wild’ comments The former UK ambassador and Coalition minister George Brandis is speaking to ABC radio and he is being very critical of his former colleagues over the Kevin Rudd mini storm, sparked by Donald Trump’s comments. Brandis says the resulting storm has all been a bit much: I think this has been rather overinterpreted. Donald Trump is infamous for making rather wild and off-the-cuff claims that don’t in the end amount to very much, so…
Prominent Australians urge Albanese government to adopt activist middle power role to head off war between US and China
Australia must step up diplomatic efforts to “avert the horror of great power conflict” and reduce the risk of being dragged into a war between the US and China, according to 50 prominent Australians. The group, which includes the former foreign ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, is urging the Albanese government to play an “activist middle power” role to reduce tensions between Australia’s top security ally and its biggest trading partner. In a statement published on Wednesday, the prominent Australians said they were “apprehensive these tensions may lead to…
Australia says AI will be used to help track Chinese submarines under new Aukus plan
Artificial intelligence, drones, and deep space radar are among the technologies that will be used by Australia and its Aukus allies to counter China’s aggression in the Pacific. Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, met with his counterparts from the United States and United Kingdom – Lloyd J Austin and Grant Shapps – in California on Saturday to announce the second “pillar” of the Aukus deal. It came after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last month accused a Chinese naval ship of “dangerous, unsafe and unprofessional” behaviour after Australian naval divers…