This opinion piece by Georgina Downer was originally published in the AFR on Feb 10th 2025.

The Chinese live-fire fiasco showed the government’s short-term domestic political considerations are hampering our ability to deter and damaging our credibility as an alliance partner.

There are two main theories in international relations. The realist school sees the world ruled by power and self-interest, or in more Trumpian terms, might and money. The other dominant school is liberal internationalism.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the United States led by president Harry Truman engaged in a liberal international foreign policy that promoted democracy, state sovereignty and global peace. It was in this era that the United Nations and other global institutions were born, as well as security alliances such as NATO and, importantly for Australia, ANZUS.

Undignified and humiliating it might have been, but it took just 40 minutes for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to show the world we are once again in the era of realism, not liberal internationalism. In the face of Trump pausing all military aid to Ukraine, even Zelensky has accepted that reality. The Australian government needs to catch up to this new paradigm, fast.

Australian governments have generally managed the US alliance well. Our first alliance prime minister, Robert Menzies, was a realist at the apogee of liberal internationalism. In 1950, Menzies is reported to have said privately that an alliance with the US would be “a superstructure built on a foundation of jelly”. Any US commitment to the defence of Australia, according to Menzies, would be determined by the political and strategic concerns of the administration at the time, rather than the clauses of the treaty commitment. Shared values and sentiments alone were not enough.

So what is the US under realist Trump to make of Australia’s pusillanimous reaction to Chinese intimidation over the past few weeks?

Although it’s depressing to watch Trump dump Ukraine on the ash heap of state sovereignty, he does not see Russia as a real threat to the US and its interests. According to Trump, the war in Ukraine is futile. There is no pathway back for Ukraine to reclaim Crimea or the Donbas.

Zelensky’s backdown demonstrates that he too is beginning to accept this reality. While Russia is a devastating threat to Ukrainian sovereignty and the liberal international order more broadly, Trump sees it as an anaemic economy, led by a thug in Vladimir Putin. For Trump and the US, Xi Jinping’s China is the main game, with Moscow a mere puppet of Beijing.

If China is the main threat to US interests and power, what message does Australia send to its ally when it fails to stand up to even a small amount of Chinese military braggadocio in our near waters? What message does a meek Australian response to such naval activities send to the US when it looks for support to defend our shared interests in the Indo-Pacific, not least the building threats against Taiwan? But the more pertinent question is: What is Albanese’s position on Xi’s commitment to “reunify” Taiwan in the near term?

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Australia consistently cut its defence budget to reduce government expenditure. This might have been fiscally prudent, but from a strategic perspective, it meant we were left with little choice but to support the appeasement of Germany and continue to trade with Japan. The incident that led Menzies to earn the nickname Pig Iron Bob came down to the economic necessity for Australia of keeping up scrap iron exports to Japan in 1938 despite its aggressive war in China and our deepening strategic tensions.

We have seen how Trump deals with countries he views as free riders on the US’ military might. As the White House was melting down over Zelensky, Australia was meekly observing three Chinese war ships circumnavigating our continent.

For Trump, nothing in the Albanese government’s response to the Chinese live-fire exercise of last week demonstrates deterrence. If it wasn’t for Virgin, would we have had any surveillance of the PLA’s war games?

Treasurer Jim Chalmers might have had strong words with Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock over interest rates, but where was the strongly worded message from the prime minister or the treasurer to the Chinese about their naval activities in our near waters? If we can’t even deter Chinese intimidation in our own neighbourhood, don’t be surprised if Trump deals with Australia as he has other alliance partners who fail to appreciate the realist paradigm we are now in.

In the aftermath of the Oval Office press conference, Albanese said it was an “easy choice” to support Ukraine. But it should have been an even easier choice to stand up for Australia’s interests.

The government’s short-term domestic political considerations are hampering our ability to deter and defend, and further damaging our credibility as an alliance partner. We hear of promises to spend another $8.5 billion on Medicare (and no doubt there will be more for the NDIS and others in the pre-election bonanza), but where is the commitment to defence spending?

And what is our plan for the next time a Chinese warship scrambles a domestic airline? It’s time for the government to get real.