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Amid growing concern about the future of the Australia-US alliance off the back of President Donald Trump's indiscriminate tariff regime gaining traction amongst some circles, one senior former ADF officer has warned Australia must avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater, while balancing the creation of our self-reliance.
Australia’s enduring relationship with the United States stands as a testament to a unique and evolving alliance that has spanned decades—a journey that began amidst the uncertainties of the Second World War and continues to shape Australia’s strategic landscape in 2025. Former Prime Minister John Curtin, whose leadership during those turbulent war years marked a pivotal turning point, famously declared that “Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links with Britain.”
His candid words captured the essence of a forward-thinking approach to national security, recognising that in a rapidly changing world, forging a strong bond with a like-minded partner was essential for Australia’s survival and future prosperity.
Curtin’s statement was not merely rhetorical; it was a declaration of intent that set Australia on a course towards a partnership rooted in shared democratic values, mutual respect, and a common vision for a secure world. In the face of an aggressive global threat, Australia was compelled to rethink its historical ties and embrace a new strategic alignment.
This decision laid the foundation for an alliance that, over the ensuing decades, expanded its scope from conventional military cooperation to encompass economic, cultural, and diplomatic dimensions.
In the post-war era, the Australia-US partnership evolved to meet the challenges of a dynamic international order. Entering the 21st century, the alliance has adapted to address new threats and opportunities alike, from counter-terrorism and cyber security to climate change and regional stability in the Indo-Pacific.
By 2025, the relationship stands as a robust framework that underpins Australia’s commitment to global peace and security. It is a modern alliance that balances time-honoured principles with innovative solutions, ensuring that both nations can navigate the complexities of an interconnected world, however the second Trump Administration appears to be stretching the relationship, with the public growing increasingly wary of the partnership.
The evolution of the Australia-US alliance is a story of transformation, resilience, and visionary leadership—a legacy initiated by John Curtin that continues to inform Australia’s strategic direction. Today, as we look to the future, his words remind us that embracing change and nurturing key international partnerships remain essential for overcoming the challenges of our time.
Nevertheless, the relationship has been met with growing discontent amongst elements of Australia's political and strategic policy class, with the broader Australian public finding the abrasive, brash New York style of the US President increasingly grating and disconnected from what many view as the core pillars of the relationship between our two nations, prompting calls for Australia to jettison the alliance and look to others to guarantee our security.
However, retired Lieutenant General and former Chief of Joint Capabilities, John Frewen, in a piece for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute titled 'The US alliance is precious, but Australia should plan for more self-reliance' has called for cooler heads to prevail, while also balancing this with a growing need for Australia to become more "self reliant" in this era of great power competition and multipolarity.
LTGEN Frewen begins his timely analysis, stating, "If our strategic position was already challenging, it just got worse. Reliability of the US as an ally is in question, amid such actions by the Trump administration as calling for annexation of Canada, threating to disband or leave NATO, and suddenly suspending support for Ukraine. This follows the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, which declared Australia’s strategic circumstances the worst since World War II.
"As Australia seeks to urgently enhance its defence capabilities and sovereign capacity—including by acquiring nuclear submarines, long-range strike options, war stocks and emerging and disruptive technologies—our key ally of more than 70 years has become highly unpredictable," LTGEN Frewen explains further.
Enduring partnership, balanced by expanded self-reliance
While it is relatively safe to say that under both of Australia's major political parties the Australia-US alliance isn't going anywhere, the strength of the relationship, combined with the mounting concerns amongst the Australian public make the enduring strength and in some cases legitimacy of the relationship (at least for the time being) in the public consciousness difficult to predict.
As a result of this complexity, LTGEN Frewen has emphasised the growing need for Australia to become more self-reliant in its approach to defence and national security, a concept that has been growing in traction, but one that still confounds the nation's leaders, the Australian public and even elements of the strategic policy community as they grapple with the costs associated with embracing a truly self-reliant defence posture.
This comes despite the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and the supporting 2024 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program all articulating a growing need for Australia to be capable of greater "unilateral" strategic deterrence capability with the implied messaging being, that Australia is now seriously (at least on paper) beginning to pursue a policy and doctrine of greater defence self reliance.
LTGEN Frewen detailing the challenge we now face states, "As the old joke goes, if Australia asked for directions to a self-sufficient defence policy, the reply would be, ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to be starting from here.’ But here we are."
Unpacking the impact of the what this looks like within the confines of a reduced US partnership at best, or an isolationist US at worst, LTGEN Frewen states, "I don’t like to imagine an Australian Defence posture without the US alliance, but I understand the need to consider the possibility. Australia would face an increasingly volatile world without the US as a strategic ally.
"It is wishful thinking to assume that Russia, China, North Korea or Iran would benignly fill any power void left by America. In such a world, deterring the use of force as a policy option would remain paramount. Deterrence is achieved through credible military capabilities, political resolve and, more often than not, alliances that complicate and overwhelm any opportunistic use of force. Deterrence is the starting point for any defensive national strategy," LTGEN Frewen details further.
Such an approach presents two distinct avenues for consideration and discussion, the first being an Australian style "armed neutrality" in a similar vein to that of Switzerland, or a nuclear-armed variant of neutrality, whereby Australia, via a sovereign nuclear capability guarantees its own neutrality in an era of great power competition and multipolarity being driven by the relative decline of the United States compared to the emergence of a web of collaborating, loosely aligned great powers.
Frewen explains, "A self-reliant Australia would have choices in how it achieves deterrence. The spectrum of deterrence options extends from neutrality to nuclear weapons. The most recognised example of neutrality is Switzerland’s armed neutrality. This is supported by more than 90 percent of its people, while defence costs less than 1 per cent of its GDP...
"Nuclear weapons and the policy of mutually assured destruction have helped ensure there have been no global conflicts since 1945. Russian threats to employ nuclear weapons also appear to have restrained further escalation by other nations in Ukraine. The grim reality is that nuclear weapons remain the ultimate deterrent. However, these weapons are expensive to build and maintain, and a decision to acquire nuclear weapons is not straightforward or guaranteed," LTGEN Frewen details further.
While there are many in Australia who would love to see our defence bill below 1 per cent, the reality of our time and geographic place in the world makes this unfeasible, as does the reality of historic ethnic, religious and territorial ambitions, designs and enmities that will equally shape the security, prosperity and stability of the Indo-Pacific and by extension, Australia's place in it.
Public perception and appetite
The success and failure of any policy shift toward greater self reliance ultimately rests with the appetite, pain tolerance and experience of the Australian public, who after all will be asked to bare the burden, both in terms of "blood" and "treasure" of any such shift.
If one was to take a straw poll of the average Australian high street, I suspect that when explained, the costs would seem insurmountable and irreconcilable to the average Australian, after all, why should we do it, someone else has always borne the costs associated without security, so someone will now, surely?
LTGEN Frewen adds, "How a neutral or a nuclear-armed Australia would be accepted in our region is an open question. Whether the Australian public could be convinced to go down either path is doubtful. Domestic opinion will probably remain somewhere on a middle path. Australia would need greater self-sufficiency or a revised alliance framework without American military capability as a backstop. Defence self-sufficiency would not come cheaply and could not be achieved without a defence budget beyond 3 per cent of GDP. It is impossible to determine the precise requirement, but it is sobering to note that Australia’s defence budget in 1942–43 was 34 per cent of GDP."
Such is Australia's engrained strategic anxiety and fear of abandonment, that this status quo approach is playing out before our eyes, as policymakers look to other nations to offset any real or perceived instability in the US relationship, with partnerships with Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, India and a myriad of other nations.
Expanding on this reality, LTGEN Frewen states, "A revised alliance framework could help mitigate costs. It would also bring the advantages of burden-sharing, enhanced mass and breadth, and more significant strategic complications for adversaries...Further afield but closely linked to our region and interest in the status quo is Japan. It has a credible military force, and the national and military relationships with Japan are developing strongly. There is good potential for an alternative alliance here. Our relationship with India is less well developed. India’s strategic worldview is also less aligned with ours than Japan’s is. There is potential with India, but building a trusting relationship with it will likely be slower."
Against that backdrop it is hard to see how outside of the United Kingdom (which itself faces its own immense economic, political, social and strategic challenges) these regional partners would be capable of fulfilling the strategic guarantor role that the United States currently provides Australia as it's security benefactor and "great and powerful friend", bringing us to just how Australia should skin the cat of greater defence "self reliance".
Shield and Strike - the core of Australian self reliance
For LTGEN Frewen, this requires a comprehensive rethink of the way Australia fundamentally does defence, the posture and the capabilities we field, which would see the nation taking on more of a "major power" suite of capabilities and platforms, that would undoubtedly result in a significant increase in the nation's defence spending, but would also undoubtedly require a significant overhaul, modernisation and reindustrialisation of the national economy.
LTGEN Frewen states, "The two key elements of military capability are the ability to shield (defend) and to strike (attack). Each requires a third element, intelligence, to be effective. Australia would need to enhance all three to be more self-sufficient. None would come cheaply in dollars or workforce. Typically, these capabilities take decades to establish. Building them up would require bipartisan agreement through successive government terms of office. In all three, we would be better off maintaining the US alliance through thick and thin."
This will open up a range of possibilities for the Australian Defence Force and will require a balance, as opposed to the "focused force" promoted in the 2023 Defence Strategic Review and the supporting 2024 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program which can once again be best explained as Australia's attempts to once again buy champagne on a beer budget.
And there in lies our enduring problem.
Final thoughts
Australia now faces hard truths that will redefine its role, prosperity and security in the region. The Indo-Pacific is emerging as the world’s most contested region, where China and a host of rising powers are reshaping the strategic balance. It’s no longer an option to rely on short-term fixes or reactive policies.
For decades, Australian policy has often been short-sighted—reacting to immediate economic concerns rather than investing in a visionary, long-term approach. What we need is our own "Rocky montage" moment: a sustained period of investment, reform, and strategic foresight that shields us from being outpaced by our neighbours.
Without this, we risk a future where our economic prosperity dwindles and our national security becomes increasingly vulnerable.
In this rapidly changing landscape, Australia must decide whether to remain a secondary player or step up as an independent power. With our abundant natural resources and untapped potential, the time is ripe to transform these strengths into the foundation of a resilient, forward-thinking strategy.
By modernising our approach and building robust national capabilities, we can deter coercion, secure our prosperity, and stake our claim as a key force in the Indo-Pacific.
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
