You need to remove your sense of morality from foreign policy calculations made by any government. It’s about power, always about power. You may personally view one nation’s values as better and therefore their ideas of power more moral, but still, it’s about power.
For Australia specifically, they are reliant on the US Naval power projection for their conception of Australian national security, which is why even their new Labor government is still moving ahead with AUKUS. It why Australia has always sent their troops to fight in America’s wars, rightly or wrongly.
Even after Vietnam was so bad for Australia that they revamped their entire military to become a “defensive” force and not an explicitly expeditionary one, they still fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those were all chips put into the American security pot, that they’re hoping to be able to call on when they need it.
Those reasons, and more, are why I’m confident that even with Trump, it would take something so drastic and catastrophic to change their calculations, that I don’t want to even try and imagine what that would be. Even if I’m sure he could manage to cause whatever catalyst that would be necessary. Still, it wouldn’t just be his reelection. It would be something so much worse.
You need to remove your sense of morality from foreign policy calculations made by any government. It’s about power, always about power. You may personally view one nation’s values as better and therefore their ideas of power more moral, but still, it’s about power.
For Australia specifically, they are reliant on the US Naval power projection for their conception of Australian national security, which is why even their new Labor government is still moving ahead with AUKUS. It why Australia has always sent their troops to fight in America’s wars, rightly or wrongly.
Even after Vietnam was so bad for Australia that they revamped their entire military to become a “defensive” force and not an explicitly expeditionary one, they still fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Those were all chips put into the American security pot, that they’re hoping to be able to call on when they need it.
Those reasons, and more, are why I’m confident that even with Trump, it would take something so drastic and catastrophic to change their calculations, that I don’t want to even try and imagine what that would be. Even if I’m sure he could manage to cause whatever catalyst that would be necessary. Still, it wouldn’t just be his reelection. It would be something so much worse.
To more succinctly answer your question: China.