By James Cotton*
What does Donald Trump have store for Australia when he returns to the White House? Past actions reveal a willingness to undermine long-standing alliances and deterrence strategies, raising concerns about the potential fallout for US partners like Australia and South Korea. (Australian Institute of International Affairs.)
Let us go back to the 2018 Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. The art of that particular deal later came unstuck, but consider its terms. Essential was the agreement to work towards the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula. This has often been an aim of various negotiations, going back to the abandoned “Six Party Talks” which included the Koreas and also Russia and China (and Japan). What was the key issue in Singapore and why was it different? Trump was agreeing—without any reference to his Republic of Korea (ROK) ally (which was not a party)—to a policy to be applied to both Koreas, North and South. As all arms control specialists understand, agreement is a vital and necessary start, but verification is the key. There can be little doubt that if this agreement would have proceeded North Korea (the DPRK) would have required on-site inspections of military facilities in the ROK and these facilities would have included joint US-ROK as well as ROK sites. If the ROK had refused such inspections, the deal would have come unstuck, and Trump’s displeasure would have wreaked additional havoc. After all, Trump had also agreed to the normalisation of relations with the DPRK, which, at some point, would have meant a transition from the current “armistice” arrangements to state to state recognition.
Later, in his stream-of-consciousness Singapore press conference, which ran for more than one hour, Trump repeated what Kim had just said to him. To the obvious discomfort of the American uniforms in the room, Trump condemned the provocative “war games” that the United States regularly conducted with the Republic of Korea. This terminology, part of the DPRK code book, condemned what the American side had always hitherto represented as drills to maintain the deterrence credibility of US forces based in and around the Korean peninsula. At a stroke, without considering his Northeast Asian allies, Trump had discarded (and partly on the basis of cost) the key to the deterrence system that has kept the peace in Korea and the region for 70 years. The context for these remarks, of course, was Trump’s insistence that the ROK pay (even) more for the defensive role of American forces on the peninsula, the subject of repeated public haggling during his administration, and a clear signal to the DPRK that if the price was not right Trump would pull out the troops.
What has all this to do with the intelligence gathering “shared facilities” at Pine Gap? It is a clear prospect that, once president again, Trump will seek a “deal”—even if only for the photo opportunities—with one or other of the dictators currently running Russia and China. He seems particularly to admire Vladimir Putin (and we still do not know what the Russians were offered in Helsinki). Those parties are most interested in undermining American power, and would be prepared for some concessions in exchange for greater transparency of American assets, especially if that would embarrass erstwhile allies. For a president capable of storing nuclear secrets in his bathroom—and denying that they were there when they were discovered—a future stream-of-consciousness press conferences in Beijing or Moscow could well include an undertaking to open relevant US facilities for verification purposes. A helpful questioner might ask whether this included facilities on the territories of allies, which would likely elicit an approving response. This is the spectre of AUKUS, and it only takes a little imagination to consider what Trump might be prepared to give away or shut down in order to assuage what his interlocutors of the moment say they dislike about it.
Trump is determined, we know from the blueprint, to cripple the capacity of the US federal government by transferring civil servants to an employment schedule (schedule ‘F’) that would leave them open to summary demotion, dismissal or replacement if their loyalty (to Trump) was perceived to be in any doubt. If he is prepared to destroy US government capability, probably without any understanding of the catastrophic long term consequences for America and the world, he is unlikely to worry about distant allies, especially if their leaders had appeared in prominent ceremonies with “crooked Joe Biden.” Those public servants, think tankers, and academics who are currently doing well out of AUKUS budgets and grants would be advised to consider, as their first priority, how the ROK was almost cut loose by Trump 1.0 and how, therefore, Australia should prepare for a parallel performance by Trump 2.0. And they would surely recommend that Kevin Rudd would be advised to resign his ambassadorial position to pre-empt the humiliation of the Australian government having to withdraw him.
*James Cotton FAIIA (PhD, London School of Economics) is Emeritus Professor, University of NSW, Australian Defence Force Academy.
