Time for more than a Plan B? Debate swirls around how Australia should respond to Trump’s unpredictability

The post-World War II order – shaped by the fallout and victors of the war, formalised a “global rules-based order” based upon multilateral organisations conceptualised at the Bretton Woods Conference, ultimately leading to the establishment of the United Nations and supporting international organs – ushering in decades of stability, growth and the dismantling of old imperial rivalries.

This era was dominated by the United States’ ability to ensure freedom of the seas, foster free trade and offer a “strategic umbrella” under which America’s allies such as Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Western Europe, and parts of north Asia flourished, and by extension, opening up the developing world to the opportunities currently transforming them.

As the old saying goes, “all good things must come to an end” and while it seemed that this period of time that came to be known as the Pax Americana or the “American Peace” would endure forever, growing multipolarity and great power competition, coupled with the allure of foreign adventurism and costly decades of conflict in the Middle East, have served to exhaust the United States and its investment in the world it built.

Recent shifts have unsettled this long-standing framework, with the Trump administration’s “America First” policies challenging the very foundations of established alliance networks and multilateral institutions, sowing uncertainty among traditional partners. These moves not only strained relationships built over decades but also signalled a departure from the unwavering American commitment that had underpinned the post-war global order.

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For Australia and similar nations that have relied heavily on US benevolence and, as many forget, largely voluntary support for global security and economic stability, this evolving dynamic calls for a reassessment of their strategic dependencies and a rethinking of their role in an increasingly unpredictable world.

This has prompted a growing debate, with a number of experts to advocate Australia developing a “Plan B”, whereas others have sought to reframe the conversation for fear of such an approach becoming “self-defeating” at a time when Australia, like many other comparable nations, need to step up their efforts to provide a more “sovereign” solution for their own national security.

Spearheading both sides of this debate are strategist Dr Alan Dupont, in a LinkedIn piece titled We need a Plan B just in case ‘King Donald’ betrays our alliance, on the one side and arguing the counterpoint is Lowy Institute’s director of the Southeast Asia Program, Susannah Patton, in a piece titled Time to retire the term “Plan B”.

Point

Australia has, almost since Federation in 1901, societally and politically grappled with a cultural “fear of abandonment” when it came to our relationship with the Indo-Pacific and more broadly, the global environment and the power dynamics between the world’s great and emerging powers.

This has, as a result, often caused Australia to frequently seek to develop a “Plan B” in order to guarantee its own security, seeking the benevolent protection of a “great and powerful friend”, beginning with the British Empire, and following the fall of Singapore in early 1942, the United States, which has served Australia well to this day.

However, we have never truly overcome this national-level insecurity, yet for Dr Alan Dupont, we may have to overcome this and rather quickly given the pace at which US President Donald Trump has set about disrupting the post-Second World War order.

Dupont said, “Barely five weeks into his second coming, Trump has stunned the Arab world by promising to turn a devastated Gaza Strip into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’; urged Canadians to become America’s 51st state; offered to buy Greenland from Denmark in what would be the biggest real estate deal since the US purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and; pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into trading off part of his country’s rich minerals endowment as a down payment for US support in the ongoing war against Russia.”

While these examples have now been well-documented, this shocking departure from the post-war status quo has only been further disrupted as a result of President Trump’s open animosity towards key multilateral strategic organs, namely NATO, and the long-standing US guarantees of security for Europe, with significant downstream impacts on the broader, global US alliance networks.

Dupont detailed this, saying, “Not content with these gobsmacking initiatives, Trump has also cast doubt on his willingness to support NATO – the foundational pillar of Europe’s post-World War II security architecture – telling Europeans they need to look after themselves. Despite assurances by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that NATO still matters, we seem to be returning to an older, more anarchic era of geopolitics where great powers dominate and carve up the world into spheres of influence and economic dependencies.”

President Trump has been quick to articulate his frustration with the Europeans and his expectation that they step up their levels of defence spending to take more direct responsibility for the collective security of the European continent has been met with varying degrees of shock, horror and clutching of real or metaphorical pearls in shock that America’s continued benevolence and free cheques are coming to an end.

Yet for Dupont, this is business as usual for Trump who has increasingly viewed allies as potential adversaries and opportunists who have been taking advantage of the continued kindness of the United States, all while “King Trump”, as Dupont refers to him, continues to court dictators like Putin and Xi.

“Treating allies like adversaries and bullying other countries into submission is a dumb strategy. Whatever gains are achieved will be ephemeral and eventually outweighed by a loss of global influence as once friendly countries lose trust in American leadership and loosen their economic and security ties with the US,” Dupont said.

This brings us to Australia and its relationship with the United States and the uncomfortable reality that we, collectively, continue to rest on the laurels of our past and previous efforts to ingratiate ourselves with the US through “paying into the insurance policy” via support for Korea, Vietnam and the Global War on Terror, hoping that nostalgia will spare us the treatment of Europe.

Yet this may serve to undo our best-laid plans, something Dupont detailed, saying, “So far Australia has largely escaped Trump’s baleful eye. But after beating up on Zelensky and excoriating European allies for their paltry defence contributions, it would be a major surprise if Trump doesn’t demand increased defence spending and greater burden-sharing from Asian allies, including Australia.”

Dupont goes further, adding, “Spruiking AUKUS and our credentials as a historically loyal ally may not cut it any more as our flatlining defence budget and hollowed-out defence force come under the microscope in Washington ... Contrary to widespread expectations that Trump would increase US defence spending, his newly appointed Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior military officers to develop a budget plan that would slash defence spending by 8 per cent – a dramatic cut that, if implemented, could lead to a reduction in the US military presence in Asia and Australia. That would delight Xi and likely lead to more frequent deployments of Chinese warships to our neighbourhood for live-fire exercises and other manoeuvres.”

Highlighting our challenges, Dupont added, “Hope is a poor substitute for strategy and there is no sign that Anthony Albanese has one. This could cost Labor dearly if national security starts to play into an unhappy electorate’s concerns. The Coalition is also struggling to develop a coherent Plan B should Trump betray our faith in the alliance.”

While what a true “Plan B” looks like is open for debate, Dupont does flesh his version out, saying, “Plan B should have four major elements: more and better Australian hard power; less security reliance on the US; strengthened ties with regional neighbours, and; greater sovereign capabilities in advanced manufacturing, defence industry, cutting-edge technology and critical minerals processing. These should be bound together in a whole-of-government national security strategy fit for today’s turbulent times.”

However, for some, debate about Australia’s potential need for a “Plan B” is rather reductive and potentially damaging to our own long-term security.

Counterpoint

One of the key proponents of reframing the conversation around the nature of an Australian “Plan B” is Susannah Patton of The Lowy Institute, with a particular degree of nuance that may seem contradictory to the central thesis of her position.

Of particular note is this statement by Patton, “Australia needs to respond with urgency to the second Trump administration, but framing the conversation around the idea of a Plan B is self-defeating.”

But what exactly does Patton mean by “self-defeating”?

Well to begin with, Patton established what she saw as the basis for any proposed “Plan B”, stating, “Australia, although in a comparatively favourable position to European countries or other targets of Trump’s ire, like Canada, cannot afford to be complacent. But Australia’s current policies are already focused on the two main elements that any contingency plan would involve: building greater sovereign defence capability (the 2024 National Defence Strategy calls for just this) and deeper security partnerships with countries in our region.”

One would logically argue that each of those points seems entirely reasonable, commonsense points, and should be a national priority regardless of adverse geopolitical and deteriorating strategic circumstances, yet for whatever reason, such an approach remains controversial, even within defence and national security circles, why?

Because largely, Australian policymakers, commentators and the public are, in essence, the equivalent of crabs in a bucket, that being whenever one of us gets too big for our own boots, the others swiftly pull the upstart back into said bucket.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Australia doesn’t need to up its game, something successive governments have been at great pains to deliver, as Patton stated, “Australia has also stepped up cooperation with several countries in Southeast Asia, including signing a notable defence agreement with Indonesia. Practical defence cooperation with Jakarta now far exceeds what many observers would have expected even five years ago. Australia is pushing others to participate more, too: last year Vietnam deployed a People’s Navy Vessel to Australia for a multilateral exercise, the first such deployment to a Western country.”

However, it is important to understand and accept that despite the best wishes, none of these nations, even when combined, provides an offset for Australia’s alliance and partnership with the United States, something that Patton stressed, saying, “The obvious limitation of these partnerships, however, is that for the most part, countries in our region have neither the capability nor the shared strategic outlook to genuinely align with Australia in response to shared threat perceptions. Put simply, almost none of our neighbours share our concerns about China. In pursuing closer strategic ties with regional countries, the onus would therefore be on Australia to adopt more accommodating policies towards China.

“Under our current policies, pursuing closer security ties with them can serve important objectives, including reducing the risk of misunderstanding, building strategic trust or even creating the foundations that could one day foster alignment. However, it cannot be viewed in any way as equivalent or fungible with the kind of security cooperation that we have with the United States.”

That isn’t to say that Patton doesn’t present her own alternatives, as Dupont did, which must also address three specific questions that need to be addressed and will undoubtedly have direct and significant consequences on Australia’s strategic future.

Patton stated, “First, to what extent will the United States continue to support stability in the Indo-Pacific? Second, what actions, if any, can Australia take to encourage the United States to support stability in the Indo-Pacific – that is, to remain committed to its Asian allies and show its support for important regional norms? The third question we should focus on is what actions Australia and others can take collectively and individually to support regional stability.”

Each of these questions and their answers have significant implications on Australia’s future planning, however, by far the most important component remains Australia’s enduring relationship with the United States and how we, as a nation, step up to the plate of what will undoubtedly see us playing more of a proactive, more independent role securing our own interests in an increasingly competitive reason.

However, importantly for Patton, this conversation needs to be done more holistically to avoid falling into a trap of being too myopic in our planning of the future, something she articulated, saying, “There is no doubt that the United States has changed, and Australia needs to respond with urgency. But the way we frame that conversation matters. Our response should focus on continuing to work flexibly with the United States and a wide range of partners in pursuit of regional security. A narrowly focused Plan B aimed at reducing reliance on the United States would be self-defeating in that it would hasten the advent of precisely the scenario we wish to avert: a region without the United States.”

Final thoughts

Australians must accept that as the world becomes increasingly multipolar, the Indo-Pacific is rapidly emerging as the most fiercely contested region on the globe – a development that will fundamentally reshape our nation’s role, influence and security, and accordingly, should be our primary focal point.

At the centre of this shift is the rise of new powers. China is flexing its economic and strategic muscle, while countries such as India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam – and the resurgent capabilities of South Korea and Japan – are creating a competitive hotbed right on our doorstep.

It’s high time we moved beyond the short-term, reactive policies that have dominated our diplomatic, strategic and economic decision making since Federation. We need to play the long game, fully capitalising on the opportunities transforming the Indo-Pacific.

The most pressing question now is: when will we see a detailed analysis and robust strategy that not only outlines the challenges and opportunities facing Australia but also provides a clear narrative to help both industry and the public navigate the path ahead?

As events continue to unfold across the region and China further asserts its influence, can Australia afford to remain a secondary power, or must we embrace a larger, more independent role in an era of intensifying great power competition?

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..