A Model Alliance? The Strategic Logic of US-Australia Cooperation

In September 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States captured the world’s attention with a technology and capability-sharing partnership known as AUKUS. For many, this was yet another example of the closeness of the alliance between the United States and Australia, which was initially formalized in the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), from which New Zealand was suspended in 1986. Yet, however strong the public narrative seems, American and Australian officials have expressed concern and confusion about each other’s behavior in recent years, and well-connected scholars have warned of “complacency” and “expectation gaps” while identifying divergences in the interests, behavior, and outlook of the United States and Australia. During the 2010s, Australia regularly acted in ways that belied its loyal ally identity. Canberra consistently rejected US pressure to conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea. It ignored direct US pressure and joined China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), agreed to a Free Trade Agreement with Beijing, and signed an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) to support the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Indo-Pacific. Canberra was privately skeptical about the US commitment to its region under presidents Barack Obama as well as Joe Biden, and explicitly