Quarterly Essay 98: Hard New World: Our Post-American Future

by Hugh White

What is Australia’s place in the new global landscape?

Are we ready for our post-American future? In an era of rising danger for all, and dramatic choices for Australia, Hugh White explores how the world is changing and Australia should respond.

Under Donald Trump, America's retreat from global leadership has been swift and erratic. China, Russia and India are on the move. White explains the big strategic trends driving the war in Ukraine, and why America has "lost" Asia. He discusses Albanese Labor's record and its post-election choices, and why complacency about the American alliance – including AUKUS – is no longer an option. This essential essay urges us to make our way in a hard new world with realism and confidence.

"The Canberra establishment is shocked by any suggestion that we should walk away from the ANZUS commitments. They think we can and must depend on America more than ever in today's hard new world. But that misses the vital point. It is America that is walking away from the commitments it made in very different circumstances seventy-five years ago. That was plain enough under Joe Biden. It is crystal clear today under Trump."—Hugh White, Hard New World

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

Audible Audio

Published June 3, 2025

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Other authors publishing under this name are:

Hugh White, Strategist
Hugh White, Christian religion

Reviews

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book. It doesn’t even purport to be a book: It is an essay and, as such, I find it rather curious. Hugh White is eminently qualified to pontificate about defence strategy. And this is what he does in this essay. But, as qualified as he is, much of the arguments depend on suppositions about what might happen. For example, he suggests the following scenario:
If the Chinese attack Taiwan, either by invasion or blockade, Washington would have to choose between abandoning Taiwan and going to war. If it abandons Taiwan, its entire position in East Asia will be severely, and perhaps fatally, damaged...... if America failed to defend Taiwan.
The Japanese would sooner or later - and probably quite soon - decide to go their own way........... US standing elsewhere in the region would crash, and China would be a big step closer to getting America out of East Asia, This is all clearly understood by leaders in Beijing, which is why they are so tempted to attack Taiwan.

Now most of this argument sounds quite convincing.....it’s easy to get seduced by the logic.... but it is pure supposition. Perhaps there is another way. For example, the US could start to publicly accept that Taiwan is part of China so that re-unification is acceptable to them (the US) This might/would totally change attitudes in Taiwan (would they still be so keen to go to war with the mainland?...doubtful).....and open the way for some sort of peaceful re-unification over time. Thus the Americans could still maintain the alliance with Japan and South Korea. ....
The essay is built entirely on suppositions about how Trump’s America will treat the world in the future. Basically retreat into its own borders and let the Atlantic and Pacific oceans do the defending for them. This may be right but in geopolitics things rarely work out the way strategy planners think. And I can think of all sorts of scenarios where White’s vision could go awry. For example, I can’t imagine the defence industry being happy about the US pulling back into its own borders. They will be promoting “involvement”.
White says that we have moved from a world where we could put all our eggs in the US basket as far as defence is concerned. Now we seem to face something even more fundamental: a shift from a world which worked well for us to one that looks a lot harder to navigate. The basis of our prosperity is imperilled by the collapse of globalisation and the prospect that rival trade blocs will be built on its ruins. The foundation of our security is undermined by the eclipse of the US-led rules-based order. And the power of our values is undermined by the persistence of strong authoritarian governments in many powerful states, and the rise of populism and the erosion of democratic norms in places where these once seemed strongest, especially the United States. The world America made for us is passing away. Its place is being taken by a new and harder post-American world, and we are at a loss to know what to make of it and how to make our way.
Now Trump is back, worse than ever. His first months back in office have been an astonishing spectacle. His absurdly inappropriate appointments to key jobs. His grotesque ideas on Gaza. His open contempt for US allies, His threats to Canada, Panama and Greenland. His treatment of Ukraine. His frontal assault on the global trading system. The wrecking ball he has swung at the machinery of US government. His contempt for democracy and the rule of law. We must now recognise that Trump and the movement he inspires constitute a decisive shift in the way America works and in how this shapes the world.
[Since WWII we have relied on the USA] but are not alone. US allies in Europe and Asia have also relied on America, but they are now thinking seriously about their post-American futures.
We have not even started........ the custodians of Australia's alliance with America - political leaders, officials, commentators and assorted schmoozers - believe that ours is something very special. They are convinced that between Australia and America there is a unique intimacy and mutual commitment that lifts our alliance under the ANZUS Treaty to a different level. [Basically, White does not support this view].
If the Chinese attack Taiwan, either by invasion or blockade, Washington would have to choose between abandoning Taiwan and going to war. If it abandons Taiwan, its entire position in East Asia will be severely, and perhaps fatally, damaged....... It is clear in Tokyo that the more powerful China becomes, the more it would cost America to defend Japan from a Chinese attack, and the more likely it therefore becomes that America would let Japan down by deciding not to.
Those doubts would quickly grow if America failed to defend Taiwan...... It is also clearly understood in Washington. They know that failing to defend Taiwan would be fatal to the US position in Asia, but they definitely do not want a war with China, so for them everything depends on convincing the Chinese that they would defend Taiwan. It is no exaggeration to say that America's strategic future in Asia depends on its success at doing this.
America's response to the invasion of Ukraine has a bearing on this..... the key message that Beijing took from the whole tragedy is that America is not willing to fight Russia to defend Ukraine..... And since China emerged as a strategic rival, no US leader has suggested to the American people that containing China's ambitions in East Asia was so important that it might mean nuclear attacks on US cities.
All this makes it very hard for Washington to neutralise Chinese nuclear threats with credible counterthreats of nuclear retaliation.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US policy elite have been very muddled about China for a long time......It is a pattern common to many strategic failures. We often overestimate the threat posed by an adversary by mistakenly seeing our most vital interests at stake - and then we underestimate what it will cost to deal with it. So we blunder into a needless rivalry or conflict, which we find we can't win.
There is no reason to believe that China will be strong enough to extend its primacy beyond Fast Asia and the Western Pacific.
It will not be able to dominate Asia as a whole, because India stands in its way. India is still a rising power, but it is formidable already and will be more formidable still in future, and it is determined not to live in China's shadow........ If China comes to dominate East Asia and then tries to extend its sway over Eurasia as a whole, the most likely outcome by far would be for India, Russia and Europe to act together to resist it. And........ The fact is that the "balance of power" principle really works to stop any single great power dominating all the others. Throughout history, in any group of great powers the weaker members have banded together to prevent the strongest from dominating them all.
[On the question of the nuclear subs for Australia].... eight Australian SSNs will do almost nothing to improve America's chances of winning a US-China war, and thus nothing to help America deter Chinese aggression.......And the AUKUS subs are not clearly committed to the fight. America seems to take it for granted that they are, but Canberra says they are not.....That muddle undermines any deterrent value they might have.
And most important, it is futile for Australia to frame its defence around US deterrence of China when America itself is not serious about it.
America will not be able to deter China's challenge unless and until Washington can convince Beijing that it is willing to fight a nuclear war to remain Asia's primary power, and as we have seen, there has been no sign of that.
US investments in facilities to support US Air Force long-range strike missions from Tindal in the Northern Territory make no serious difference to America's capacity to deter or win a war with China. But they mark a significant step in preparations for Australia to support America in such a war...... We've had an "America First" foreign policy too. It is sobering to see how narrowly directed our diplomacy now is to supporting the US........ Apart from resuming contact with Beijing, the big item on the Labor agenda has been deepening engagement with our neighbours in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. But in both regions the primary aim has been to urge our neighbours to side with America against China.
In future it will no longer be militarily impossible for China to attack Australia directly. And not just China: other major regional powers, especially India and eventually perhaps Indonesia, will have the potential to launch significant attacks on Australia.
But that does not mean we face now a serious threat of Chinese military attack. Today the only circumstance in which Australia could credibly find itself under attack from China would be if Australia joined America in a war with China over Taiwan...... While we should not ignore it, we should not allow the distant possibility of a Chinese military threat to dominate our thinking about China. There are many other dimensions to what is a very important, complex and ultimately inescapable relationship....... Once we abandon the illusion that America is going to manage China for us, we will realise that we have no choice but to find our own way with it. This will not be comfortable or easy. China is ruthless, demanding and completely transactional - though no more than other great powers. Over the past decade, in Canberra and around the country, exaggerated fears and a desire to stay in step with Washington have crowded out serious thinking about China itself and how the very complex range of interests we have in our relationship with it can best be balanced. We have less deep expertise on China now than we had thirty years ago. That has to change....... Our second big task is to rethink our relationship with America...... It is often said, for example, that the intelligence relationship is so close and so important to both sides as to be indissoluble. Don't bet on that. US access to Pine Gap as a location for its satellite ground station is valuable, but very far from essential. .....We should free ourselves of the debilitating assumption that we cannot look after ourselves...... Our diplomats will find this prospect terrifying, because there is nothing they dislike more than telling Washington things it does not want to hear.
But they might have a pleasant surprise in Trump's Washington. He is no fan of America's alliances, and no fan of war with China over Taiwan either....He might warm to a country that lets go of Washington's apron strings and goes its own way.
Australia will need to spend a lot more on defence if it wishes to manage the risk of aggression by a great power like China in the decades ahead but it is pointless to debate how much more will be needed until we have a much better idea of what exactly we want our forces to do......... The key step is to decide that our armed forces must be designed primarily to defend Australia independently rather than to support America in a war with China. Once that is agreed, it becomes much easier to decide what capabilities we need. One thing that becomes very clear immediately is that we do not need nuclear-powered submarines. A bigger fleet of conventionally powered submarines, much cheaper and less risky to build and operate, plus uncrewed surface and subsurface systems, would be far more cost-effective for defending Australia......... Another thing that becomes clear is that we should be spending far less on surface warships. Today we plan to build the Navy's largest-ever surface fleet, at a time when surface ships are becoming less and less useful in high-intensity maritime warfare because they are becoming so much more vulnerable to aircraft, missiles and submarines.
It may not be long before it becomes more effective to use uncrewed drones rather than crewed aircraft for the kinds of missions our fighters will be called upon to perform. It is time we started to shift investment from legacy systems to future capabilities.
However, AUKUS is now the overwhelming preoccupation of Defence, at the expense of everything else. Until it is abandoned, it will be impossible for the organisation to begin the real work of transforming our armed forces to meet the demands of a new era.
AUKUS is the perfect symbol of the failure of our entire political system to respond to a changed world. The failure starts at the top....... rising strategic rivalry in Asia has been acknowledged by everyone in politics, including Albanese himself, as one of the most pressing issues of our time. He has had plenty of time and opportunity to learn about it all. And yet he still has no capacity even to engage in a serious discussion of the issues. When questioned, his responses remain as scripted, stilted and superficial as ever. It is a major failure, and it has prevented his government from doing anything but follow the misguided tracks laid down by its Coalition predecessors....... But the failures of our political system transcend the shortcomings of individual leaders. The Albanese cabinet has passively acquiesced as the arguments and evidence against AUKUS have mounted up, and the government's defence of it has become correspondingly more threadbare. Have none of them had doubts and thought it their duty to air them? Neither party has generated the lively and urgent internal debate that issues of this importance warrant.
So what’s my overall take on the essay? I find that I’m pretty much in agreement with most of what White is saying, although I would like to see much greater emphasis on improving relations with China through education (sending students both ways), cultural exchanges; more cooperation and less hysteria with University research and more acceptance of China’s role in the world. And possibly even more cooperation on defence and humanitarian assistance. Despite more than 200 years of fear of the “yellow peril”, China has never shown any desire to invade Australia......the really dangerous players in this whole equation are our own, Australian, defence and security people. Ideally, one would think they are the people best placed to make the correct strategic calls. But, in practice, they all benefit from “talking up” the threat; (drums of war stuff), bigger budgets, more staff, more promotions, more toys......The Navy’s obsession with being a “Blue Water” Navy and holding their head up with the “big boys” is clearly dangerous. Also, our whole defence/security apparatus and thinking is hopelessly compromised and intertwined with the Americans...especially socially (on the diplomatic circuit via golf matches) and via training programs and purchasing contracts and defence exercises under ANZUS etc., I think we need to place more of the staff with the Chinese for a spell. ...Anyway, I liked what Hugh White is saying. Think he’s close to correct and happy to give his essay five stars.

[Ron Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an avid fan of the Quarterly Essay and have subscribed for many years. I believe this is Hugh White’s fourth Quarterly Essay and all of them have been on the bilateral relationship of Australia and China. Now, with the dynamics of world relationships in turmoil he makes it a trilateral analysis with the added complexity of the US under Trump.

Up until the election of Donald Trump as US president Australia was fairly comfortable sitting at the bottom of the world and with a big muscular mate guarding our interests. We had volunteered to assist our big muscular mate in the many blues he managed to get himself involved in and we thought this support would guarantee his protection from any unfriendly force. For many years White argued that one day we might have to choose between our source of much of our wealth and our big muscular mate. Most recently we have come to the conclusion that our mate is not necessarily going to be there for us.

White spends pages explaining the fascinating rise of Trump. I think you have to be an American to fully understand the attraction this man has for the American electorate. He then goes on to write about Putin and his ambitions for Russia. Europe and US have had to tread carefully with its support of Ukraine as there is a belief that Russia would use nuclear weapons if it were to suffer major setbacks in Ukraine. White is critical of the Biden’s administration in its handling of the Ukraine crisis.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not only a shock to Ukraine but Europe as well. Then Trump and his administration’s appalling attitude to Zelensky and Ukraine has changed European’s attitude to NATO and their own defence.

White then turns his attention to the balance of power in Asia. Trump has appointed a few China hawks to his administration but at no stage does he bad mouth China as a military threat but rather focusses on China being an economic rival.

“Trump’s attitude and his team’s divisions, plus their all-pervasive incompetence, means there will be no clear leadership from this administration to guide and focus an effective US response to China’s challenge.”

How strong and effective the alliances between America, Japan, Korea and Australia is anyone’s guess.

Australians are faced with the question is China’s military build-up part of their plan to strengthen their own defence or is it part of a plan for military action in their part of the world?

Back in 2013 Australia and China had a cordial relationship. While Tony Abbott was PM Xi Jinping visited Australia and spoke to a joint sitting in parliament. This relationship splintered when Australia started to be suspicious of Chinese economic interests. Huawei was banned. Legislation to counter Chinese involvement/interference in Australian politics. The closure of a number Confucius Institutes in Australian universites. (I was a student at the Confucius Institute at Newcastle University. My delightful female Chinese tutor never tried to corrupt me. She did ask for lifts home on a number of occasions.)

Then we had the Morrison Government’s call for an international enquiry into the COVID virus in China. That set off the wolf warrior diplomacy actions of the Chinese Government (only now to be copied by Donald Trump with his heavy tariffs on America’s allies and nothing on America’s perceived enemies!!)

White exams the possible threats to Australia from China. In Abbott’s day greed predominated. Today it is fear. He asks what do we fear?

Some claim that the recent Chinese Navy’s transit around Australia was in preparation for an imminent invasion. Here’s looking at SMH, Peter Hartcher, the Murdoch media and right wing think tanks. These pundits never mention the Australian warships that often shadow the PRC coastline.

White argues that Australia would only be attacked by China if Australia joined America in a war with China. He is considered in his analysis of the circumstances when Australia would be threatened with military aggression by China

Do we as a nation have leaders who can think and act rationally about how to defend our country without this constant supposed threat of China?

“AUKUS is the perfect symbol of the failure of our entire political system to respond to a changed world” - Malcolm Turnbull.

China is not a friend of Australia at the same time it is not an adversary. China is an authoritarian one-party state and has become increasingly so under the leadership of Xi Jinping. China states its territorial claims loudly and it does not respect the views of the local people, see Tibet and Uyghurs. It is in dispute with Taiwan over its independence from the PRC and, has been for more than seventy years. It is in dispute with the Philippines and Japan over territorial issues. It has one overseas military base. It has not invaded a foreign nation in living memory. It has built a defence force that could only be challenged by the US. It has used “wolf warrior diplomacy, hostage diplomacy and tariffs.These are facts there are no indicators present or past that demonstrate a willingness to invade a foreign country, let alone one thousands of kilometres away over oceans of water. China is not Russia and Australia is not Ukraine.

At this time when so much discussion about Australian foreign policy is dominated by right wing ideologues with little knowledge of China’s intentions and its history I turn to polymaths such as White to build an informed view of Australia and the world.

I find White an invaluable contributor to the discussion of Australia’s relationship with America, China and our other Asia/Pacific neighbours.

As I finish this review sections of the media are attacking PM Albanese for visiting and talking with our biggest trading partner. Even accusing him of betraying the alliance with Trump’s America.

[Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a relief it is to read analysis by people who actually know what they're talking about! on almost every issue our government seems determined to manage the decline rather than do anything about the problem. White's analysis is bang on as far as I can tell, something that makes me feel a little sad for a country that insists on trading good fortune for bad.

[Brianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We should start recognising that Asia’s future, and Australia’s, will not be decided in Washington, but in Asia.”

White explores the likelihood of a multipolar future, replacing the unipolar world, predicting 3 of the top powers will be in Asia. Substantial diasporas of the these countries live here, with immigration likely to create further intwining in the future.

Well worth reading if you’re wondering where we go from here in Australia’s international relations. White has long made informed, reasonable and achievable policy suggestions on this topic, not least in his various quarterly essays. If only politicians weren’t so focused on the short term and heeded his advice.