A new report from the think tank Strategic Analysis Australia examines how Australia must reassess its defense policies due to an increasingly demanding United States, a key ally.
Titled “Defence 2025: Dollars and Decisions,” the five-chapter report, released Thursday, analyzes Canberra’s $38 billion annual defense budget. It begins by questioning how Australia can operate strategically when its primary ally has become unpredictable and concludes with guidance for the incoming defense minister after the May election. The report includes sections detailing the defense budget’s scale and allocations, the rapid growth of Australia’s submarine program under the AUKUS trilateral partnership and the Australian Defence Forces’ dependence on U.S. military technology.
Marcus Hellyer, SAA’s head of research and a co-author of the report, asserts that America is no longer committed to defending the rules-based order or reliably supporting allies in the Indo-Pacific. “Now, American military power isn’t reliably available to partners and allies such as Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea, or Japan,” Hellyer writes. “Instead, any U.S. military presence is likely to come with an increasingly large bill attached and without a solid commitment from the U.S. government to act in common interests in times of crisis or conflict.”
In response to these challenges, the report recommends that Australia proactively increase its defense spending from 2.3 percent to at least 3 percent of GDP in the near term. This increase is deemed necessary to fund existing plans and to avoid being pressured into higher spending in the future. The report also advises diversifying suppliers and boosting local production by partnering with other allies, such as Japan and South Korea, to reduce overdependence on American military tech.
“A more demanding and less reliable America is part of our new reality,” Hellyer points out. “Therefore, it’s time to change our own thinking, policies and behavior to deal with and thrive in this new reality.”