Albanese’s ‘small alliance’ strategy risks Australia’s critical relationship with the US
Amid all the speculation about who might be Australia’s next ambassador in Washington DC, the more important question to ask is what sort of relationship does Anthony Albanese want to have with President Donald Trump.
Our record of defence and intelligence co-operation in alliance with the US is what gives us, a distant middle power, more relevance and influence in Washington. The alliance also lends Australia more authority in our own region. The step-up in military capability we get from the alliance makes us a worthwhile partner to countries such as Japan and complicates China’s ambition to treat us dismissively as a third-tier supplier of commodities.
All that should make strengthening the US alliance a top Australian priority, but the Prime Minister is not interested in a close and comprehensive relationship. Instead, he wants a more distanced, light-touch connection with the US. This “small alliance” strategy is partly a reaction to Trump’s unpredictability, but more deeply it comes from the Labor Left’s public aversion to defence engagement with the US.
Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have made it clear their foreign policy priority is Australia’s nearer region. This reflects a bizarre narrowing of strategic interests, but the evidence of Albanese’s approach is clear: Trump had been President for 10 months before Albanese’s first substantive meeting in October 2025.
All previous Australian prime ministers going back to John Curtin invested time and energy in building personal relationships with their American counterparts. Not Albanese. One White House visit, a handful of short “pull asides” at multilateral meetings and four phone calls is the sum of his engagement with Trump.
The lack of substantive engagement has its consequences. In December last year Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met their US counterparts, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, for the annual AUSMIN consultations. For 40 years this meeting has driven Australia’s strategic relationship with the US. Invariably a substantive communique reporting on outcomes was issued and a press conference of the four ministers held.
Not in December. No joint statement was issued. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website published instead a US State Department fact sheet on AUSMIN, nothing more than a background for American media.
Marles and Wong fronted the press without Rubio and Hegseth. It’s hard to imagine a more publicly embarrassing put-down, suggesting a lowering of American priority for the Australian relationship. This distancing of alliance relations suits Albanese’s agenda to keep Australia out of an increasingly difficult competition for dominance between the US and China.
But what about AUKUS, the agreement to deliver nuclear-powered submarines and an array of exotic military technologies to Australia? Shouldn’t this be delivering a closer and more active alliance relationship?
In reality, AUKUS outcomes are years away from realisation. On current planning, in 2027 a US-flagged and commanded Virginia-class submarine will operate out of HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. The Royal Australian Navy plans to receive its first Virginia-class submarine from the US in 2032. It is not until the early 2040s that the first Australian-built AUKUS-class submarine will be delivered.
At best this outcome is six to seven federal elections away, more if plans slip, as they always do. The first AUKUS-class sub will be at sea long after the US-China strategic competition for Asia-Pacific military dominance has been won or lost.
AUKUS has given Albanese the opportunity to sound strong on national security, but he will be long retired before anything is delivered.
Ironically, important alliance activity is happening in northern Australia as the US expands its presence there. It was once possible to track this in AUSMIN annual statements, until the non-appearance of a communique last December. Albanese has left explaining this northern activity up to the faltering language of Richard Marles. It seems the Prime Minister does not want to be personally tied to any work that increases an American strategic presence in the north.
Why is Kevin Rudd leaving his appointment a year early? He may judge he has done the best he can in delivering a moderately successful meeting between Albanese and Trump. At that meeting Trump made clear he would not give Rudd more access and influence in the White House.
Rudd does not need the ambassadorial position to maintain his own contacts with others in Washington. He will have greater freedom of action in his think tank role in New York. His 2009 defence white paper proposed doubling the size of Australia’s submarine fleet and put forward an activist alliance agenda. He understands the threat China presents to Australian interests and must surely feel frustrated with the limits Albanese is putting on alliance co-operation.
Albanese’s record shows he will want the next ambassador in Washington to pursue a “small alliance” strategy, keep a measured distance from the Trump administration and keep Australia out of near-term defence commitments.
Of contenders for the position, Stephen Conroy has ruled himself out. It is likely that he would not secure White House agreement to the posting, having referred to Trump as having a “moronically stupid approach to international diplomacy”. Peter Dutton has as much chance of being made ambassador in Washington as I do – which is to say no chance at all.
Scott Morrison would be a good choice, but his instinct would be to pursue more high-profile and deeper alliance co-operation. That would cut across Albanese’s “small alliance” agenda.
Department of Defence secretary Greg Moriarty would be a steady, low-visibility choice. He was an excellent ambassador in Jakarta and he would understand the remit he was getting from Albanese. Although made Defence secretary by Malcolm Turnbull, Moriarty has built a successful relationship with Albanese. Senior officials must play the hand dealt them by government and it has fallen to Moriarty to manage disastrous cuts to Defence readiness and capability.
Former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has some of the right credentials for the position but he has been a measured public critic of the government’s defence policy settings. The Albanese government does not welcome public criticism or independent thinking. This may exclude Fitzgibbon.
In my view the best choice for the position would be Andrew Shearer, who has recently stepped down as head of the Office of National Intelligence and is being posted to Tokyo as ambassador.
Note that Shearer has not yet been formally accredited in his ambassadorial role in Japan. Had Rudd stepped down a few months earlier Shearer would surely have been in contention for Washington. Shearer has the right defence and intelligence credentials, is well respected in the US and he built a trusting relationship with Wong and Albanese. Like any good public servant Shearer would work to the direction the government sets on alliance policy.
Changing Shearer’s posting would require management with Tokyo which, outside of the US, is our most important defence and security partner. This could be managed on the basis that Australia simply must get AUKUS policy settings right and Shearer is best placed to deliver that outcome.
There is little that needs urgent fixing in our Japan relationship, but the US relationship could go horribly wrong if it is mishandled.
Whoever is made ambassador, the next few years will be difficult pursuing Australia’s interests in Washington because of Albanese’s insistence on a “small alliance” posture when the US is asking its allies to do more.
We may get the right ambassador but, unfortunately, Albanese is backing the wrong strategy. We need closer engagement with the US, not more distance, and an honest public explanation about northern defence co-operation rather than Albanese’s evasive language about the sovereignty of Australian decision-making.
