Washington: While Donald Trump continues to lash Australia for supposedly failing to assist the US with the war against Iran, Kurt Campbell believes Canberra has handled the matter pretty much perfectly.
Campbell – Joe Biden’s top Indo-Pacific adviser – said Australia was “artful” in agreeing to assist the United Arab Emirates by providing an E-7 Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and medium-range missiles. He predicted other countries would make similar moves as the conflict continues.
“I thought the Australian approach was actually artful in the sense that they offered support to countries in the Gulf that had been unintentionally pulled in, like the UAE,” Campbell told this masthead.
“We will see more of that. That was a quite politically dexterous thing to do.
“You might see more countries saying, ‘Look, we want to help Kuwait, UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia’. And that is one way to show international responsibility without participating in a war that many countries’ populations believe is either imprudent or at least unwise.”
Trump has made no secret of his contempt for US allies – particularly NATO members, but also in the Indo-Pacific – which have not joined the war or volunteered to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
On Thursday (Washington time), he singled out Australia for criticism after he was asked about British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s reluctance to send aircraft carriers at the start of the conflict.
“[Starmer] did something that was shocking. He didn’t want to help us,” Trump said. “Australia, too – Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia.
“I wouldn’t say anybody was great, other than the five countries in the Middle East. We never really had very much support.”
It was not the first time he has criticised Australia on the matter. Last week, when asked by Sky News Australia, he said he was surprised that Canberra didn’t want to get involved in the war because “we always say yes to them”.
The Albanese government sees it very differently. Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles says the only request from the US was to help out the Gulf states – which is what Australia is doing. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, too, says Australia is doing what has been requested of it.
So what is Trump playing at?
Much of Trump’s ally-bashing is performative. In the same way he superlatively praises US military power as the best in the world “by far”, he reflexively puts down the capabilities of even close allies. On Thursday, he mocked British aircraft carriers as “not the best” and “toys compared to what we have”.
It’s also a bit of red meat to the nationalistic, America First base at a time when many in that constituency are questioning the wisdom of getting involved in another war in the Middle East.
World leaders are seemingly willing to put up with a lot of Trump’s public blustering as long as their private relations remain civil. Even though Trump has been bashing Starmer regularly for the past few weeks, the pair have continued to speak about the conflict by phone on Sundays.
Australia is now one of 22 countries to sign a statement – which originated with major NATO powers and Japan – pledging to “contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait”. However, it is not clear what those would be, or when they might transpire.
None of that seems to have moved the dial with Trump, who continues to rage about the US spending trillions of dollars to protect NATO countries. “They weren’t there for us … and that’s not fair,” he said on Thursday. “And we have to remember that as a country.”
Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state and Indo-Pacific co-ordinator on Biden’s National Security Council, believes that allies will ultimately be compelled to render more military assistance in the Strait of Hormuz.
But he says the Trump administration should be more diplomatic.
“If we are ultimately talking about securing commerce … this is one of those missions that we [the US] probably cannot do alone,” says Campbell, who now chairs the Asia Group consultancy.
“We do not have sufficient anti-mining capabilities, and frankly, we would need more help in just the basic kind of laborious effort of escorting ships through the Strait.
“If there is going to be an effort here, we will likely need to do it with others. If we do it under duress, though, I think it’s going to be very hard for countries to sign on to that, for fear that they’ll take casualties in a war that they are also struggling to explain to their populations.”
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.