USSC Director of Foreign Policy and Defence Dr Lavina Lee co-authored, alongside Zack Cooper (ed.), Bee Yun Jo and Satoru Mori, a National Bureau of Asian Research special report titled Extended Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific in an Era of Great-Power Competition.
Dr Lee's chapter, "Australia’s Perception of Rising Nuclear Risks," examines Australian perceptions of the reliability and credibility of the U.S.-Australia alliance in general and U.S. extended nuclear deterrence in particular and argues that while official Australian government policy has not changed, the Trump administration’s transactional approach to alliances has shaken the foundations of faith in the alliance.
Executive summary
Australia’s perception of nuclear risk is significantly shifting as the likelihood of major power conflict rises and confidence in the reliability of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence becomes increasingly contested. Central to this shift is China’s rapid nuclear and conventional buildup and the resulting erosion of deterrence. As Australian forces and bases would almost certainly be involved in any Taiwan contingency, Canberra faces the prospect of nuclear retaliation. Australia will inevitably seek more explicit nuclear assurances from the U.S. if the risks of a regional conflict continue to grow. Additionally, the highly transactional posture of the second Trump administration has intensified debate among alliance optimists and skeptics about whether assumptions underpinning Australia’s dependence on the U.S. alliance remain sound. Both sides nonetheless recognize the immense difficulty for Australia of moving from the current plan A—where defense force posture, structure, and capability development are deeply enmeshed within the alliance—to a plan B based on building sovereign capability outside of the alliance. Australia will likely take a middle path—a “plan A minus”—responding to U.S. expectations for higher defense spending, while gradually building greater self-reliance as a hedge against long-term alliance uncertainty. This would extend to an independent nuclear capability only if the alliance were to collapse or if the U.S. actively were to encourage and support it.
