Tuesday 21st of April 2026
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rethinking australia’s foreign policy....

 

P&I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia’s foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. 

 

John Menadue

Plan B: insulating ourselves from the US

 

Trump and Netanyahu are the most dangerous persons on the planet. US policy in the Middle East is not driven by oil. It is driven by Netanyahu. And allies in the Gulf are paying a very heavy price for allowing US bases on their soil. The same fate might be ours with northern Australia becoming a US military colony.

Trump defaces almost everything he touches. His behaviour and language suggest psychological disturbance. Penny Wong speaks of a “much more unpredictable US”. And so does Andrew Hastie, telling us that the Iran war is “a huge miscalculation” by Trump.

Trump’s damage is likely irreversible. The US does not negotiate in good faith any more, as the Iranians have found three times over nuclear issues.

We need regime change in Washington more than Tehran. But in the meantime, we must minimise risk. Appealing or sucking up to Trump will not work. He bullies the weak and confronting him will provoke a dangerous tirade as the Europeans have found.

A change in our relationship with the US should not be couched in terms of our rejection but Asian engagement. Or, as I read recently, countries such as Australia should insulate rather than isolate themselves from the United States. Prudent risk management may be an even better description.

To propose US rejection would immediately lead to predictable attacks from our media which is a platform for Washington’s view of the world. Our intelligence, defence agencies, and think tanks also have a vested interest in the American alliance. They have been on the Washington drip feed for so long – mainly through the Five Eyes – that they cannot envisage Australia as other than a locked-on vassal of the CIA.

There has been a shift in Australian attitudes towards the United States. Recently the US Study Centre found that only 16 per cent of Australians think that Trump’s second term has been good for Australia. In 2025 only 42 per cent of Australians believe that the alliance makes Australian more secure. This is a 13-percentage drop from 2024 and the lowest level since USSC polling began in 2022. Nearly one third of Australians now believe the alliance makes us less secure, a figure that has almost doubled since 2024

The government must lead a public discussion about insulating ourselves from the US. Penny Wong has articulated for us a way forward in her proposal of the four Rs – Region, Relationships, Roles and Resilience – in which the US alliance rather than being a foundational pillar is embedded within a wider web of diversified partnerships with regional relationships elevated to equal importance. What can we do to insulate ourselves from US folly?

We mustn’t waste a good crisis. They provide an opportunity to lay down new markers. We should have rejected Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza quickly, wholeheartedly supported Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech on the role of middle powers, and dissociated ourselves immediately from the folly of the Israeli-inspired US attack on Iran.

US bases

We have a swarm of US bases on our soil. The most significant is Pine Gap, which is currently very active in supporting Israeli attacks in Gaza and US attacks on Iran. As Richard Tanter wrote, in September 2024 one of the key US corporations supplying personnel for NSA operations at Pine Gap advertised for a Farsi speaking US citizen for a top secret role working from Alice Springs with the US military in the Persian Gulf.

No doubt that person and other Farsi speakers were critical in the US attack on Iran.

We should insist that Australians have access to all signal intelligence at Pine Gap. No signal intelligence - no bases.

The ALP platform is clear, “Labor’s defence policy is founded on the principle of self-reliance. Australia’s armed forces need to be able to defend against credible threats without relying on the combat forces and capabilities of other countries”.

Does that policy now guide the Labor government? Will we just get weasel words at the next ALP Conference in Adelaide?

What can be done to minimise the risk of these US bases?

We could, as the Spanish Government has done, bar the use of US bases without our permission. We would need to make that clear in advance, particularly over Taiwan. It would be too late once the shooting starts. There is a good precedent. In Parliament on 3 March, 1981, Malcolm Fraser said “the Australian government has a firm policy that aircraft carrying nuclear weapons will not be allowed to fly over or stage through Australia without its prime knowledge and agreement. Nothing less than this would be consistent with the maintenance of our national sovereignty.”

We could insist that US bases cannot be used for illegal purposes or in breach of our commitments to the UN Charter.

The War Powers Reform group has urged our parliament to legislate, requiring both Houses of Parliament to vote before our troops or bases can be used in hostilities. A poll by Essential Research in April 2023 found that 90 per cent of those surveyed thought parliamentary approval should be required to go to war.

AUKUS

It will be politically difficult, but we must find a way to exit from AUKUS. The cost is horrendous for submarines that will be too late, may never arrive, and are not for the defence of Australia. A comprehensive review of defence including AUKUS would be useful. We had an ANZUS review in 1983.

We cannot fund $360 billion for AUKUS – the equivalent of six times our annual defence expenditure – and develop at the same time a self-reliant defence posture. Trump may even welcome the end of AUKUS to provide relief to US shipyards.

Investing in our region

We need to actively engage with our own region, something we’ve talked about for decades but have never seriously embraced. We are often seen as a western outpost with a British Head of State.

The new alliance with Papua New Guinea and the renewed defence cooperation treaty with Indonesia are very welcome. The latter is a reinstatement of a very similar treaty that Paul Keating negotiated with President Suharto in 1995.

No strategic or defence relationship is more important than our relationship with Indonesia. That relationship must anchor our regional relations.

We need to significantly lift our diplomatic capabilities in Asia. For far too long our intelligence, security and defence personnel have dominated advice to governments. US focused, they have a lot of information but poor judgement. We should not be led by the nose by the Five Eyes.

Our successes in APEC, Cambodia and East Timor show our diplomatic capability when associated with strong ministerial leadership, as we had with Keating and Gareth Evans.

The current fuel crisis points the way for more active collaboration with countries in our region. Too often we wait for a cue from the US.

Unfortunately, we are less Asia-ready then we were 30 years ago. At the time of the Hawke-Keating governments we were making progress in Asian language learning, media interest in Asia and cultural exchanges with Asia. But Asian language learning and education funding at university is collapsing. The national policy on Asian languages has run into the sand. Our legacy media, including the ABC, is still embedded in our historical relationships with the UK and the US.

Our retreat from Asia has become a rout. It requires urgent attention

China

We must develop a more constructive relationship with China, particularly in such fields as renewable energy and regional trade – for example the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which is a major multilateral free trade agreement between 12 countries does not include China. The US has withdrawn.

We ignore China’s Belt and Road initiative which now includes more than 150 partner nations. BRICS was founded by, India, Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia. Other members now include Indonesia and Egypt.

As Chandran Nair has proposed we need to explore other China initiatives. China has proposed a Global Governance Initiativeaimed at reforming global governance to make it more just, inclusive and effective. As part of this, it has established a “Group of Friends of Global Governance” at the UN, comprising 43 founding member states, intended to work within and strengthen the UN-centred system.

This is but one of many recent initiatives that China has proposed.

As Chandran Nair has described our China challenge on P&I, “given China’s size, scale and vast potential, its rise will inevitably generate challenges…. An inter civilisation dialogue between China and the rest of the world is not only an imperative for academics but critical for world leaders and thinkers striving towards a more peaceful world.”

Many countries may not want to be like China. But they know that China shows respect and listens. China has a vision for the future, but the West doesn’t.

At the same time, we must insulate ourselves from the erratic behaviour and decline of our “dangerous ally”

Incrementalism and managerialism won’t cut it. It requires boldness and courage. With a large majority, the Albanese government has a lot of political credit in the bank. Is it prepared to spend it?

Tomorrow in Rethinking Foreign Policy Kym Davey says the upcoming ALP National Conference is the opportunity for the Labor rank and file to demand a fit-for-purpose defence and foreign policy.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/plan-b-insulating-ourselves-from-the-us/

 

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THIS HAS BEEN THE MISSION OF THIS WEBSITE, HERE, SINCE THE BEGINNING, I BELIEVE.... IN REGARD TO THE MASSIVE DECEPTION OF J W BUSH.... BUT AS WE'VE EXPLAINED, EVEN BILL CLINTON WAS ON THE NOSE FOR EXPANDING NATO EASTWARD. WE STILL SUFFER FROM CLINTON'S CRAP...

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new world.....

 

Kym Davey

Labor’s foreign policy no longer matches the world it faces

 

In the second on our Rethinking Foreign Policy series Kym Davey says Labor’s foreign policy platform is out of step with current realities – clinging to US alliance settings while ignoring its own commitment to self-reliance and the opportunities of the Asia-Pacific.

In July the Australian Labor Party will hold its 50th National Conference in Adelaide. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles will be expecting a tame, media friendly and lifeless event. Their objective will be to administer a strong dose of policy futility to Labor’s delegates and supporters.

By contrast, the efforts of delegates will be critical to Australia’s future on an issue that most voters are allowed to ignore – Australia’s foreign policy. Central to those concerns is the absurdity of Labor’s international relations. At Chapter 7, Australia’s Place in a Changing World, three clauses standout in the current 2023 platform. The first describes the United States as Australia’s “enduring partner” and asserts that America is our closest security ally “formalised through the ANZUS Treaty”.

Only fools and the uninformed would consider the US an “enduring partner” in the Trump era. Displaying his malignant narcissism, Trump’s cowardly bombing campaign and his threat to obliterate the entire civilisation of 93 million Iranian people leaves America now accused of waging aggressive war. This is the “supreme international crime” condemned by the judgement of Nazis at Nuremberg in 1946. Those proceedings bequeathed the rules based order that Labor leaders love to cite.

In this age of fickle alliances, Labor continues to emphasise the security of ANZUS. The NZUS component lapsed in 1986 over the issue of non-declared US nuclear armed ships visiting New Zealand ports. It has been reworked as a bilateral defence and security agreement only. But Australia still clings to the 1951 agreement, although it merely requires consultation between the US and Australia in the event of a foreign act of aggression.

As the war in Ukraine and the treatment of NATO and other allies have shown, America no longer sees itself bound by the security commitments it made after 1945. Citing ANZUS as a protective treaty is a distortion promoted to encourage herd think. It’s a fake security blanket for incurious Australians. It should be called out for what it is not and consigned to an exhibit in the National Museum of Australia.

The second commitment in the 2023 ALP National Platform identifies our relationship with China as one “of great importance to Australia, to our region and to the world”. This, of course, is undeniable because our prosperity and the major drivers of our economy depend on China’s status as our largest trading partner. China purchases one-third of all Australian exports, supports some 570,000 Australian jobs and generates bilateral trade worth over $200 billion annually.

Despite its importance, Penny Wong reduces the relationship to a smug slogan, repeated ad nauseam: “We will cooperate with China where we can, disagree when we must, and engage in the national interest.”

If we in Labor see ourselves as realists dealing with the world as it is, we would at least apply the same “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must” principle to all our foreign policy relationships, including the US. We don’t. In 2026 we should. And, as Paul Keating and many eminent Australians have said for years, we know we can forge goodwill in Asia and use diplomacy and statecraft to make our security the region where we live.

The third commitment deserves to be known much more widely by the Australian people. Under the heading, Self-reliant defence and peacemaking, the ALP Platform states, unambiguously:

Labor’s defence policy is founded on the principle of self-reliance. Australia’s armed forces need to be able to defend against credible threats without relying on the combat forces and capabilities of other countries.

That declaration deserves scrutiny in the current climate of muddle and maladministration in Australia’s defence policy. Where, one might ask, does the $368 billion AUKUS nuclear powered submarine project fit within the parameters of armed forces self-reliance? AUKUS thoroughly enmeshes Australia into American military systems via asset procurement, joint training and shared technology platforms. Add to that Pine Gap, the Tindal RAAF base, US Marines in Darwin and the HMAS Stirling naval base. All of this is deep “reliance on the combat forces and capabilities” of another country.

A prominent example of one domestic alternative is Sam Roggeveen’s ‘ _Echidna Strategy_’. It’s a defensive military capability that would utilise technologies to make our maritime approaches inaccessible by deploying advanced underwater sensors, submarines, missiles and cyber defences. The approach proposes a move to a non-aligned foreign policy, working collaboratively in our region to reduce the threat of armed conflict, especially between the US and China. It also involves cultivating closer cultural and security ties with neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region. These are the elements that should underpin urgent foreign policy reform in Australia.

Paradoxically, the failure of the Voice referendum in 2023, again denying justice to First Nations Australians, suggests a reason for our historical reluctance to seriously engage with Asia. Writing about how the Australian nation invented itself after 1788, Dr Peta Stevenson relates the fascinating hidden details of Australia’s Indigenous-Asian history. In The Outsiders Within, she documents the stories we are told and what has been left out of the nation’s official narrative. Her thesis is that “presumed membership of a privileged national community is not self-evidently good”.

Anyone who has travelled extensively or lived in Asia will know how we are still regarded as an island of white privilege walking in the shadow of the United States of America. Stevenson makes a sobering observation about those attitudes, noting that the 21st century “invaders”, the objects of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation racism, are now identified as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Their demonisation is, she says, entirely logical given the refusal of white Australia to confront its original theft of Aboriginal land. That in turn creates anxiety that we might also become the victim of theft by our neighbours. Hence our deep historical paranoia about invasion from Asia.

Ironically, it is those same neighbours we have turned to now when our economy is under direct strain from the effects of Trump’s war in Iran. We have always been wary of our great near neighbour, the mostly Muslim peoples of Indonesia. Yet it is Indonesia that has moved first to offer fertilisers and urea to support our agricultural sector. And that other great historical nemesis, China, is assisting us in keeping supplies of aviation fuel flowing to our transport sector. Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Brunei and Japan have all given us supply assurances for the refined petroleum products we depend on to sustain modern life. In turn, Australia is offering a secure supply of LPG to Singapore and others. Prime Minister Albanese is now lauding the merits of regional cooperation with Asia.

Surely the scales are beginning to fall from Australian eyes. Diminishing US military advantage, geopolitical overreach and a shift in the moral, social and rational behaviour of the declining American empire are now obvious. It is reasonable to conclude that the rampant militarism of America poses manifest risks to our national security. Any Australian who is not seriously sceptical about the “enduring partnership” with the US is in denial.

It’s time Labor recognised the truth and transformed our foreign policy to reflect the new realities of the world. Our future is in the Asia-Pacific. As the Prime Minister said recently, “we won’t find our future security in the past”.

The 2026 ALP National Conference in Adelaide is the opportunity for the Labor rank and file to demand a fit-for-purpose defence and foreign policy. 

Next in Policy Foreign Rethink is Geoff Raby.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/australian-foreign-policy-requires-remaking/

 

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PLEASE VISIT:

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….