Why Australia should walk away from AUKUS
Trump’s actions in Venezuela and rhetoric elsewhere confirm that the United States no longer respects international law or allied interests. Australia should rethink its strategic dependence accordingly.
Recent articles in Defence
12 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Ignorance is complicity: Australia must end its arms trade with those committing crimes
Rayana Ajam is one of six talented young Australians who will travel to the UN General Assembly in New York next week as part of the Global Voices project.
9 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate partner betray its democratic principles as a cost of receiving favourable treatment, the time has come to terminate the relationship. Such is now the state of the Australia-US alliance.
8 January 2026
Best of 2025 - What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS
As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be hoping for on the trilateral security deal.
6 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Brave new world
As Australia’s newly elected government seeks to navigate the shoals of President Donald Trump’s new world after the election on 3 May, it will behove us to think beyond our tariff concerns and AUKUS and focus on Southeast Asia.
6 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Sustaining hope when war is normalised
What follows is a link to my talk given on 24 April at the Canberra gathering of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War.
5 January 2026
Best of 2025 - Chasing a chimera: The political dream of AUKUS that consumes reality
For the sake of taxpayers, let's hope that the Audit Office is inspecting the AUKUS books closely.
22 December 2025
2025 in Review: The fading West, a cautious Labor win and an uncertain world
From the erosion of Western authority to Australia’s election result, 2025 exposed deep shifts in global power, alliance politics and the limits of domestic reform.
17 December 2025
AUKUS meets reality – UK ‘all in’ a mess (Part 2)
Australia is betting on a British program plagued by delays, underinvestment and workforce shortages – a gamble that risks leaving the country without any sovereign submarine capability.
16 December 2025
AUKUS meets reality – what's not in the AUSMIN Media Release (Part 1)
Despite official assurances, the US submarine program is falling well short of its own targets, raising serious doubts about whether Australia will ever receive the Virginia class submarines promised under AUKUS.
5 December 2025
A Boyer Lecture that misunderstands Australia’s defence history
The latest Boyer Lecture portrays Australia as trapped by anxiety about the United States. In fact, for decades the country pursued a deliberate, bipartisan strategy of defence self-reliance – abandoned only in recent years.
21 November 2025
US alliance holding us back
Australia's US alliance is preventing the country from signing and ratifying the Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, despite overwhelming public support for the government to do so.
20 November 2025
Australians are markedly more worried about the US, but still wary about China
Australians' concerns and mistrust of China are easing, while doubts about the US are increasing.
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Scarborough collision triggers Beijing’s strategic hardening
16 September 2025
As Europe diversifies its defence, Canberra still clings to AUKUS
