This week Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles was in Washington, D.C. for what should have been a routine series of meetings – or would have been routine prior to the second administration of Donald Trump. But now, traveling to Washington comes with the potential for any number of surprises, as well as an almost guaranteed weirdness.
After meeting with both United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President J.D. Vance, in what photos clearly indicate was Vance’s office, a U.S. defense official issued a statement claiming, “We can confirm there was not a meeting. It was a happenstance encounter.” The Pentagon later walked back the remarks, but the strangeness of the statement – and what it represents about the Trump administration – was already out in the public.
The Trump administration loves the cheap thrills of petty domination. It delights in being able to embarrass an international counterpart. Representatives from other nations make their way to Washington to pay tribute to the king, only to have their pants pulled down as they lay gifts at his feet. These representatives then stand bemused as the administration high fives and chest bumps each other.
The Trump administration believes the purpose of U.S. power is to establish relationships based on dominance and submission. It rejects the notion of partnership, and has no interest in the ideals of friendship. It has a particular disdain for traditional U.S. allies. It does not believe anything could possibly be mutually beneficial, and therefore its conviction is that unless the United States is overtly exerting dominance it is “getting screwed.” It pursues this dominance with the puerile spite of the internet’s dankest swamps.
This makes Australia’s attempts at a “business-as-usual” relationship with its primary security partner difficult. This week Marles was simply doing what is expected of him in his role as defense minister – meeting with his counterpart to discuss the massively consequential AUKUS program, which includes a considerable Australian investment in U.S. shipbuilding capabilities. This was dismissed as a mere “happenstance” – an opportunity to take a little dignity from Australia, while also taking its money.
Australia now finds itself in a strategic dilemma, which it is not entirely blameless for. The Australian government pursued the AUKUS agreement despite the political convulsions that the United Staes is currently experiencing. It mistakenly believed that the first Trump administration was a blip, a short spasm of the American electorate that would be out of the country’s system after Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020. This was a fundamental misreading of the U.S. political landscape and a failure of the due diligence necessary for entering into such a momentous security project as AUKUS.
The current approach to this problem by the Australian government appears to be: just ride it out, suffer the indignities, take three more years of wedgies, and hope that the U.S. graduates back into adulthood at the end of the Trump administration’s term. The problem with this is that it is not just the bilateral relationship that is affected. This passivity makes Australia look weak to the rest of the world, and opens Australia up to being treated in similar ways by other countries looking for advantage, or amusement.
Australia’s reserved approach overlooks the reality that both the United States and the world have fundamentally changed. The global environment is now far more of an antagonistic place; it simmers with resentment and eschews the diplomatic niceties of the past. Australia must adjust. It need not adopt these resentments itself, but must find a way to win respect in the face of them.
This requires a confidence in itself that Australian foreign policy has previously not held: an ability to see itself as a serious player on the international stage, with the capabilities to shape its own strategic environment. It also requires a recognition that foreign policy is now far more of a psychological game than it has been in the past.
Previously the psychology of state behavior assumed a certain amount of sophistication and maturity in counterparts when seeking to interpret behavior and make calculations. But now the opposite may be true. When it comes to the U.S., state behavior is now driven by a deep – exasperating – immaturity. It is guided by a group of boys egging each other on to escalate “the lulz” as a demonstration of their power. It may seem absurd, but the most valuable analysts the Australian government may now need to draw upon are psychologists who specialize in adolescent male behavior.