I feel like this article centers the interests of the UK and US over that of Australia and ignores the more pragmatic stance that Australia has taken towards the pacific of late.
Not to mention various factors that make the brunt of AUKUS fall of Australia:
-The economic entanglement that Australia has with China, Japan, ASEAN, all of which have a larger two-way trade volume than the US.
-The geographical location of Australia to Russia and China relative to the US and UK (I don’t really count Alaska here as it’s merely a portion of the US compared to the entire country of Australia).
-The uncertainty of the political situation due to Trump’s election.
All of these factors make AUKUS particularly difficult for Australia to stomach in contrast to the other two partners, who have less exposure to the change in diplomacy that AUKUS would entail in the pacific.
The last point about Trump shouldn’t need to be said but apparently Foreign Affairs hasn’t gotten the memo. Like the last time I commented on a Foreign Affairs article, this is just wishcasting for smaller actors to line up with the US as they are getting threatened by it.
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I feel like this article centers the interests of the UK and US over that of Australia and ignores the more pragmatic stance that Australia has taken towards the pacific of late.
Not to mention various factors that make the brunt of AUKUS fall of Australia:
-The economic entanglement that Australia has with China, Japan, ASEAN, all of which have a larger two-way trade volume than the US.
-The geographical location of Australia to Russia and China relative to the US and UK (I don’t really count Alaska here as it’s merely a portion of the US compared to the entire country of Australia).
-The uncertainty of the political situation due to Trump’s election.
All of these factors make AUKUS particularly difficult for Australia to stomach in contrast to the other two partners, who have less exposure to the change in diplomacy that AUKUS would entail in the pacific.
The last point about Trump shouldn’t need to be said but apparently Foreign Affairs hasn’t gotten the memo. Like the last time I commented on a Foreign Affairs article, this is just wishcasting for smaller actors to line up with the US as they are getting threatened by it.