A handshake, a hug and fun was how U.S. Secretary of Battle Pete Hegseth greeted Australia’s Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on the Pentagon earlier this month.

Hegseth additionally gave the media a thumbs-up earlier than the pair sat down for one in every of their now-regular conferences.

Throughout his opening remarks, Hegseth known as the occasion a “reflection of the deepening partnership … at a private stage between our administrations, between our nations, between our militaries.”

The high-level talks ended with a declaration that the U.S. would speed up its army presence in Australia — which already features a distant desert intelligence base and annual rotations of hundreds of U.S. troops throughout Australian bases.

The U.S. stays Australia’s closest ally and principal strategic associate, mentioned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a press release a couple of days after the assembly.

For Canadians, seeing Hegseth and Vice-President JD Vance embrace Australia on the Pentagon — and in tweets — whereas the U.S. administration targets this nation’s financial system, army and sovereignty is perhaps infuriating.

However analysts say there’s a transactional tone to the tightening U.S.-Australia alliance — one which’s partly defined by geography.

“Australia permits america to have drive projection by way of the Indian Ocean and permits fast and quick access up by way of to the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait,” mentioned James Curran, a professor of contemporary historical past at Sydney College.

In different phrases, two waterways China has made no secret of wanting to regulate.

Defensible alliance?

The timing of the assembly wasn’t unintentional, as the 2 nations mark the seventy fifth anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty, a safety settlement between Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.

That army alliance started in 1941, when the primary American troopers landed within the state of Queensland.

“One million American service personnel used Australia as a base to mission north and win the Second World Battle within the Pacific theatre,” Marles mentioned throughout the latest summit.

However Curran says that as China continues to construct up its financial and army energy all through the Pacific, folks on the Pentagon are realizing the U.S. place in Asia is prone to slipping.

Australia is a strategic and sizeable outpost for the U.S. within the area and a major complement to its community of bases in its Indo-Pacific Command.

For the Australian authorities, the prospect of accelerating Chinese language naval energy in its waters and maritime commerce corridors feels nearer than ever.

The Folks’s Liberation Military, the army wing of the Chinese language Communist Get together, boasts the world’s largest navy and an more and more succesful long-range air drive.

A 2026 report by the non-partisan think-tank the Lowy Institute discovered that China may strike northern Australia with ballistic missiles from its South China Sea outposts. The report’s authors mentioned this capability would “develop considerably over the approaching decade” and that China’s affect may also be felt with commerce disruption, the severing of undersea communication infrastructure and complex cyber operations.

It is “the largest typical army buildup by any nation on the earth for the reason that Second World Battle,” Marles instructed journalists after the assembly on the Pentagon.

China stays an necessary buying and selling associate for Australia, however the continued scaling up of weapons and capabilities in Australia’s yard with out diplomatic efforts is regarding, Marles instructed a defence summit viewers in 2025.

“None of that gives strategic reassurance,” he mentioned.

The fact is that through the years, Australia has needed to come to phrases with being a great distance from its conventional allies, Curran says. The British army withdrew from the area within the late Sixties, however the Individuals remained.

“Now we’re taking a look at Chinese language industrial, army and financial energy at such a scale that earlier than too lengthy, China will grow to be the dominant energy in Asia,” he mentioned. “Does Australia, subsequently, need to face the area alone for the primary time in its historical past?”

Watching a commerce warfare from afar

Because the U.S. takes a renewed curiosity in Australia, the media Down Below are additionally paying shut consideration to the escalating commerce warfare between the U.S. and Canada.

Through the U.S. go to, a reporter requested Australia’s deputy prime minister to justify a more in-depth alignment with the U.S. given a latest survey highlighting a “massive group of Australians who’ve main issues in regards to the reliability of the U.S. as an ally.”

The U.S.-Australia alliance is justifiable, Marles mentioned, due to the massive menace posed by China.

“That is essentially necessary to the defence of Australia,” he mentioned.

The Australian Defence Drive felt that menace in 2025, when three Chinese language warships have been noticed crusing lower than 300 kilometres off the coast of Sydney, as reported by ABC Information.

Beginning subsequent 12 months, the alliance with the U.S. will convey a rotation of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines, through a trilateral safety partnership that features the U.Ok. (AUKUS). Australia hopes that can ultimately result in the acquisition of its personal submarines from the U.S., that are solely offered to authorized allies.

Referring to the alliance with the U.S., Marles mentioned, “we’re actually grateful for it.”

On house soil, the Australian authorities has been pressured to defend these deepening U.S. ties.

The AUKUS alliance is below renewed scrutiny within the type of a public inquiry inspecting the fee, sustainability and public assist of a deal that critics say was made in secrecy.

Reporting by the Guardian newspaper in Australia in September drew consideration to dozens of amenities on Australia’s mainland that the U.S. partially or totally controls. Figures have been offered in Parliament to Australia’s International Affairs Minister Penny Wong by one other senator, who claimed the U.S. has made Australia a ahead working base and uncovered its residents to retribution for U.S. overseas coverage selections.

Minister Wong rejected the declare, saying the U.S. army’s presence in Australia is on a rotational foundation, mutually decided and at Australia’s invitation.

“We’re of the view that the U.S. alliance contributes to Australian sovereignty. It permits us to have entry to a spread of functionality that Australia wouldn’t have entry to,” Wong mentioned.