Great powers increasingly expect alignment not only in military affairs but also across diplomacy, technology, supply chains, and public signalling. In such an environment, a middle power that mistakes obedience for strategy risks becoming not stronger, but narrower.
Australia has long treated its alliance with the United States as the cornerstone of its national security. That instinct is understandable. The alliance has delivered intelligence access, strategic reassurance, and advanced defence cooperation, and it remains central to Canberra’s strategic posture. But in the geopolitical environment now taking shape, the more urgent question is no longer whether the alliance matters. It clearly does. The real question is whether alliance management has begun to crowd out strategic judgment.
That matters because the world Australia now faces is not simply more dangerous. It is also more coercive, more fragmented, and more demanding of political loyalty. Great powers increasingly expect alignment not only in military affairs but also across diplomacy, technology, supply chains, and public signalling. In such an environment, a middle power that mistakes obedience for strategy risks becoming not stronger, but narrower. Australia should not be afraid to balance.
Balancing is Not Abandonment
Balancing, in this context, does not mean abandoning the United States. Nor does it mean pursuing artificial equidistance between Washington and Beijing. It means something more practical and more mature: preserving room for manoeuvre, reducing overdependence on any single great power, and investing more seriously in coalitions with other middle powers facing similar pressures. The point is not to weaken the alliance. It is to ensure that the alliance does not become a substitute for judgment.
That conversation is already emerging. During his March 2026 visit to Australia, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued that middle powers must work more closely together or risk being sidelined in a world increasingly shaped by dominant superpowers. His trip produced new agreements with Canberra on critical minerals, and Australia joined the G7 critical minerals alliance as part of a broader effort to diversify supply chains and reduce concentration risk in sectors where China holds major leverage. Carney linked this agenda not only to economic resilience, but also to wider cooperation in defence, maritime security, trade, and artificial intelligence.
This is not anti-American. It is strategic insurance. Even close US allies increasingly recognise that the alliance alone is no longer enough. They need another layer of strategy: one rooted in middle-power coordination, economic resilience, and the collective capacity to shape outcomes rather than merely absorb them.
Strategic Agency In An Uncertain Era
A similar logic appeared at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, where Finnish President Alexander Stubb argued that the era of a Western-dominated world order is over and called for broader partnerships, strategic autonomy, and the avoidance of harmful dependencies. His message was not about rejecting the West. It was about recognising that in a more plural and unstable world, states need agency to remain resilient.
Australia should hear that message clearly. For too long, balancing has been treated in Australian strategic debate as a synonym for disloyalty. But that framing is analytically weak and politically unhelpful. The problem is not the alliance itself. The problem is the assumption that strategic prudence can be outsourced to alliance solidarity. In fact, history suggests otherwise.
Some scholars, especially Cheng-Chwee Kuik, might describe this posture as a form of hedging. Conceptually, that is understandable. Hedging is best understood as a strategy by which states manage risk under conditions of uncertainty, often by combining cooperative engagement with precautionary measures. But the literature also warns that the concept is often stretched too loosely, especially when the line between hedging and balancing becomes blurred. That distinction matters in an era shaped by Trumpian volatility. When uncertainty comes not only from external rivals but also from the behaviour of one’s principal ally, hedging begins to look less adequate as a mechanism.
Australia’s own historical experience reinforces the point. As shown in the context of the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, close alignment with Washington did not automatically settle the question of whether Australia would receive proportionate economic gains. Nor has alliance proximity insulated Australia from subsequent US trade pressure.
Even after the AUSFTA, Australian exports have remained vulnerable to American tariff action, including more recent measures affecting broad categories of imports and steel and aluminium. The lesson is crystal clear: strategic alignment does not erase structural asymmetry. Under such conditions, the issue is no longer merely how to hedge risk, but how to preserve strategic agency under asymmetric dependence.
This is why balancing should not be caricatured as betrayal. A country does not strengthen an alliance by behaving like an echo chamber. It strengthens an alliance by contributing independent judgment, regional legitimacy, and the confidence to act on principle when necessary.
That matters especially in Southeast Asia. The region does not reward theatrical declarations of loyalty to distant great powers. It pays closer attention to restraint, consistency, and political judgment. Southeast Asian states have lived for years with the reality of great-power rivalry, yet most continue to prefer diversification and institutional pluralism over bloc discipline.
This is why Michael Wesley’s argument matters. Australia’s problem is not only external pressure, but strategic habit. Southeast Asia is routinely acknowledged as important, yet too often treated as peripheral in practice. As Wesley argues, Australia suffers from a kind of strategic “hyperopia”: focusing on distant great powers while overlooking the region to its north. The result is a widening gap between Australia’s strategic lens and Southeast Asia’s own political logic.
If Australia wants to be taken seriously as a regional actor rather than merely an extension of American power, it must show that it too can act with agency. It must demonstrate that its strategic voice is not exhausted by alliance reflex. This is not simply a matter of style. It is a matter of credibility.
An Australia that coordinates more deeply with Canada, Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and like-minded European partners would ultimately be a more valuable US ally than one that merely echoes Washington in every crisis. Strong allies are not those without independent judgment. Strong allies are those who can contribute capabilities, legitimacy, and regional understanding that Washington itself lacks.
The Courage To Do It
Middle powers should not compete to prove who is most deferential to a superpower. They should be helping one another preserve room for manoeuvre. That is the larger significance of the recent calls for middle-power coordination from figures such as Mark Carney and Alexander Stubb. They point to the same conclusion: the stability of the Indo-Pacific will depend not only on what the great powers do, but also on whether middle powers can coordinate sufficiently to avoid being reduced to spectators in an order shaped by others.
Australia, therefore, should not fear balancing. It should fear the erosion of strategic imagination that comes from assuming loyalty alone is a substitute for judgment. In a harsher world, balancing is not a sign of hesitation. It is a sign of maturity.
The real question for Canberra is no longer whether balancing is compatible with the alliance. It is a question of whether Australia can afford not to rediscover the courage to do it.
Hangga Fathana is a Faculty Member in International Relations at Universitas Islam Indonesia, and a Senior Research Fellow (Australia-Indonesia Relations) at the Perth USAsia Centre.
This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.
