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Like a skilled chef carving up a Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey, President Donald Trump is slowly and methodically paring Beijing and Moscow’s allies away from their spheres of influence, but it remains to be seen just how this impacts allies like Australia.
Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has functioned as the central architect, guarantor and balancer of the global alliance system.
Emerging from the conflict with unmatched industrial capacity, military strength and strategic reach, Washington assumed a deliberate leadership role in constructing a network of formal alliances, economic institutions and security guarantees designed to prevent the re-emergence of great power war and contain ideological and geopolitical rivals.
This system was anchored by institutions such as the United Nations and the transatlantic military alliance NATO, as well as bilateral treaty networks spanning Europe, east Asia and the Pacific, including ANZUS with Australia and New Zealand.
Collectively, these arrangements institutionalised American power while simultaneously legitimising it, presenting Washington not merely as a hegemon but as the indispensable guarantor of a stable international order.
Throughout the Cold War, this alliance architecture served as the principal counterweight to the Russia-led Soviet bloc, enabling the United States to contain expansionist pressures without direct great power confrontation.
Crucially, America’s economic strength underpinned its strategic influence. Initiatives such as the Marshall Plan rebuilt western Europe and cemented long-term political alignment, while security guarantees in Asia enabled the economic rise of Japan, South Korea and other regional partners under the umbrella of American protection.
This combination of military primacy, economic leadership and alliance cohesion created what has often been described as a unipolar or US-centred global system following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
However, the durability of this model has always depended on consistent American political commitment to alliance leadership. Over the past decade, and particularly under the second administration of Donald Trump, there have been growing signals that Washington’s approach is shifting.
Trump’s longstanding scepticism of alliance burden-sharing, multilateral institutions, and open-ended security guarantees reflects a more transactional view of international relationships. While the United States remains militarily dominant, its political willingness to serve as the unquestioned linchpin of the global alliance system has become less certain.
This has introduced not only ambiguity but also fear, uncertainty and doubt into the strategic calculations of both allies and adversaries.
At the same time, America’s principal competitors – China under Xi Jinping and Russia under Vladimir Putin – have increasingly sought to construct their own parallel networks of influence, partnerships and quasi-alliances.
Beijing has pursued this through economic integration, infrastructure financing and security cooperation across Eurasia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific, while Moscow has deepened strategic alignment with revisionist or non-aligned states, leveraging energy, arms exports and political coordination.
Although these emerging networks lack the institutional cohesion and global legitimacy of the American-led alliance system, they represent a concerted effort to dilute US primacy and reshape regional balances of power.
The result is not the immediate collapse of the American alliance system, but its gradual evolution into a more contested and multipolar environment.
As Washington recalibrates its strategic posture and rivals expand their own spheres of influence, the post-1945 model of the United States as the singular and unquestioned global balancer is increasingly under strain.
The coming decade will likely determine whether the American-centred alliance system adapts and endures, or whether it fragments into competing blocs reflective of a more divided and unstable international order.
As Donald Trump’s second administration seeks to rapidly isolate Beijing and Moscow from its web of alliances and international networks in his trademark disruptive and chaotic manner, questions about the impact on America’s allies, Australia included, have never been more important.
Highlighting this is Ross Babbage, writing for The Lowy Institute’s Interpreter in a piece titled Trump’s international strategy is becoming clearer, in which he articulated the strategy behind Trump’s ambition to carve off Beijing and Moscow’s alliance networks as the global hegemon grapples with a competitor-rich environment and multipolar world.
Babbage began his analysis by stating, “Donald Trump’s behaviour during this presidential term reveals a surprisingly deep strategic logic. The core goal remains to restore absolute American superiority over China and Russia. But Trump wants to avoid confronting these major rivals directly. He is rather working to isolate Beijing and Moscow from their international partners and deprive them of any major means of external support.”
Restoring American dominance
At the core of President Trump’s unorthodox strategy is the goal of restoring and ensuring American primacy over its pacing challenge in China and near-peer competitor in Russia through an effort to not only undermine but also dismember the various alliance and pseudo-alliance organs being built by the two nations.
Babbage highlighted this departure from traditional American statecraft, saying, “The core goal remains to restore absolute American superiority over China and Russia. But Trump wants to avoid confronting these major rivals directly. He is rather working to isolate Beijing and Moscow from their international partners and deprive them of any major means of external support.”
He explained further, saying, “At the same time, Trump is building a program of sustained economic, technology and other sanctions to markedly weaken the Chinese and Russian economies over the longer term. The evidence for this strategic approach is fairly clear from the patterns of the administration’s behaviour.”
In particular, it is the direct willingness of the US under President Trump to sow chaos among the smaller partner nations of the two major nations, largely through unpredictable and swift, violent action (in the case of Venezuela) and the rapid application of diplomatic and strategic pressure with the potential for military action (in the case of Iran), disrupting the burgeoning partnerships.
The third and arguably most important mechanism for the US strategy is the use of tariffs and other economic measures to isolate the economies of these nations, posing a significant challenge to Beijing, in particular, given its dependence on raw resources, energy and other key inputs.
Citing the Venezuelan example, Babbage stated, “The arrest of Maduro has also halted cut-price and ‘gifted’ oil being supplied to China, Russia and other authoritarian states. And, as US Secretary of State Rubio recently emphasised, the US operation has removed the risk of China or Russia gaining control of the Venezuela’s oil reserves – the world’s largest.”
“An immediate consequence is that with Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba now stopped, the long-running economic crisis in Havana is coming to a head with transport, electricity, some foods and even water being rationed. The Communist regime may soon collapse,” Babbage added.
Regarding Iran and the ongoing diplomatic back and forth shaping the potential for kinetic action in the region, Babbage stated, “A pro-Western Iran would probably abandon ‘special deal’ oil exports to China, Russia and other authoritarian states. When combined with Venezuela’s redirected oil trade, about half of China’s oil imports would no longer be supplied by close partners and, in the event of a Taiwan crisis, deliveries from most of its suppliers may cease.”
A method to the madness?
For a media and political commentariat that have, in many ways, been romanticised into believing that the nature of foreign affairs and geopolitics is an extension of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, President Trump’s approach to power politics and geopolitics writ large are jarring, confronting and uncomfortable.
In many ways it is a peek behind the curtain of a butcher’s shop, where you get a look at how sausages are actually made; for some, it would undoubtedly turn them off eating sausages forever, for others it just makes them really want a sausage (now yes, that largely depends on the butcher, but the analogy holds).
It is important to highlight that it isn’t just potential adversaries that are in the crosshairs, with Trump’s sight firmly trained on American allies who have long failed to deliver their commitments under NATO membership, and more broadly in support of the post-Second World War economic, political and strategic order built and largely maintained by the United States.
Babbage articulated this, saying, “Trump has also taken extraordinary steps to end the defence and security foot-dragging of the NATO and Asian allies, including by threatening the territorial integrity of Denmark and Canada. Steep rises in the defence budgets of most allies have now been announced.
“The Europeans have also agreed to carry the primary burden for their own security and for reinforcing the defence of Ukraine. Trump’s unpredictable wielding of US power has certainly gained the attention of the NATO allies. Xi and Putin have also learnt that Trump is not to be trifled with.”
Not to be constrained and fully aware that he is operating within an increasingly contested geopolitical environment, one where the adversaries also get a say in how things unfold, Babbage articulated this reality, uncomfortable as it is, saying, “Meanwhile, Trump has gone out of his way to maintain positive lines of communication with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Trump senses that there may be scope for deals to buy time to strengthen American and allied military capabilities, rebuild the alliance’s industrial base and allow tightening economic and technology sanctions to further weaken Russia’s and China’s strategic power.”
Based on all of this, it appears that there is indeed a method to Trump’s madness and the way in which he is navigating the newly emerging world order, however, for some, it still remains a mystery.
In Australia’s context, this is definitely still the case as many struggle to understand the strategy behind Trump’s approach to international relations and the global balance of power, but what this really looks like for Australia leaves significant questions, once we have to pre-empt before we land firmly in President Trump’s sights.
Final thoughts
For Australia, the subtext of Washington’s message is becoming harder to ignore. The United States is not walking away from the Indo-Pacific nor is it abandoning allies.
But it is unmistakably recalibrating expectations and Canberra is firmly in the firing line. Indeed, the National Security Strategy articulated this, saying, “We will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific, while in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defence spending.”
Over recent months, pressure from US officials, legislators and strategic commentators has steadily increased for Australia to lift defence spending beyond its current trajectory.
This is not the theatrical burden-sharing rhetoric of Trump’s first term but a more structural demand rooted in a changing balance of power and a United States that is consciously narrowing its strategic bandwidth.
The logic from Washington is brutally simple. The Indo-Pacific is now the primary theatre of great-power competition, yet the United States faces finite resources, mounting domestic pressures and competing priorities closer to home.
If allies want continued access to US technology, intelligence, deterrence and, in extremis, American blood and treasure, they must be prepared to shoulder far more of the conventional load themselves.
From a US perspective, Australia is now very much a front-line contributor whose force posture must be credible, resilient and capable of sustained combat operations, not just niche deployments.
This helps explain why Washington’s expectations increasingly extend beyond submarines and long-range strike announcements. The quiet message is about mass, readiness, logistics, stockpiles and the unglamorous foundations of warfighting.
It is about whether Australia can deny access to its approaches, defend its northern bases, protect critical infrastructure and operate independently in the early phases of a conflict rather than immediately defaulting to US reinforcement.
For Canberra, this creates an uncomfortable collision between strategic necessity and political reality. Defence spending remains constrained by fiscal pressures, demographic change and a public debate that still oscillates between complacency and sticker shock.
All of this requires – no, demands – a fundamental rethink of how we see ourselves and our place in the region.
As the United States recalibrates its expectations and China continues to press its advantage, Australia faces a stark choice. We can remain a passive beneficiary of decisions made elsewhere or we can invest in the capability, resilience and confidence needed to shape our own strategic environment.
The decisions taken this decade will echo for generations. The question is whether Australia chooses to meet the moment or allows it to pass us by.
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
