By Jennifer Parker*
With Defence Minister Richard Marles back from a mysterious trip to the United States, the alliance is back in the spotlight, as it has been since the second Trump administration took office. This week we debated whether Marles’s photo with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth represented a ‘happenstance’ or a ‘meeting’, an issue that represents the chaos in the Pentagon rather than a reflection on the alliance. Yet beneath the headlines lies a more pressing question: in a crisis, how would we fight together in an Indo-Pacific conflict, are our expectations of roles clear and are they truly in Australia’s interest? (From: The Strategist. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute.)
