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Australia’s alliance with the United States is under threat as war in the Middle East rages on, with one expert declaring our controversial AUKUS pact could effectively be “dead”.
With fuel prices in both countries remaining high and the war growing increasingly unpopular in the US, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s cautious approach has triggered debate about whether Canberra’s decades-long strategic alignment with Washington is fracturing – and what that could mean for Australia’s future security.
Counter-insurgency expert Dr Allan Orr said the Albanese government’s reluctance to unequivocally back the US marked a historic turning point in the alliance.
“I think Anthony Albanese is the first prime minister to break the American alliance,” Dr Orr told news.com.au.
“I don’t know if we can come back from this. It’s the first time we haven’t automatically gone to war with the Americans.”
Dr Orr argued the fallout could extend far beyond the current Middle East crisis, potentially reshaping Australia’s defence relationship with Washington for decades.
“You’ll probably see AUKUS dead from this,” he said.
“The conservatives in America will remember this. This is going to outlast Trump.”
The Albanese government has faced mounting pressure in recent months over whether Australia would support any US military action linked to Iran.
While Canberra has consistently reaffirmed the importance of the US alliance and backed American-led strategic initiatives across the Indo-Pacific, it has stopped short of committing direct military support in the conflict.
For Dr Orr, that hesitation risks undermining trust at the core of the alliance itself.
“At the moment, we could not rely on America to come to our aid if we needed it,” he said.
“Trump would say, ‘You weren’t there for us on Iran, so why would we be there for you?’”
The comments strike directly at the future of AUKUS.
The defence treaty, struck between the US, UK and Australia – much to the chagrin of France – promised Canberra eight state-of-the-art nuclear-powered submarines, called SSN-AUKUS, by the late 2030s. Some would be built in Australian shipyards.
But spiralling costs, lethargic investment, a lack of political will and an increasingly unreliable US have cast serious doubt on the pact’s longevity.
But not everyone agrees the alliance is near collapse.
International politics expert at the University of Sydney Dr Stuart Rollo said suggestions the Iran conflict could destroy AUKUS or fundamentally rupture the alliance were overstated.
“It will have little or no impact on AUKUS or the US-Australia alliance more broadly,” Dr Rollo said.
“While American administrations always like to have the public support of junior partners in their wars of choice, they are fundamentally pragmatic about alliances and strategy.”
Dr Rollo argued Australia’s strategic importance to the United States was tied overwhelmingly to the Indo-Pacific and Washington’s broader efforts to contain China’s influence in the region rather than war in the Middle East.
“Australia is the southern anchor of the American containment strategy against China in the Pacific,” he said.
“Its public and material support for the war on Iran has very little relevance, other than symbolic, for American strategy in the Middle East.
“The Australian-US alliance will be strong for as long as the Americans see good use for Australia in their Pacific strategy.”
The disagreement between the two analysts highlights a growing national debate about whether Australia’s security future should remain tightly bound to Washington, or whether the country needs a more independent defence posture.
Dr Orr believes Australia ultimately faces only two viable strategic paths: complete military integration with the United States, or the pursuit of its own nuclear deterrent.
“This one foot in, one foot out strategic policy with America has run its course,” he said.
“You either go into a security treaty that’s triggered automatically by one side or the other — no questions asked — or you develop nuclear weapons.
“They’re the only two ways you secure this country.”
But Dr Rollo rejected the idea that the choices were so stark.
“Such choices are rarely binary. Although I do agree that we will see growing support for the development of nuclear weapons here as faith in the American alliance as the bedrock of our national security declines,” he said.
Dr Rollo pointed to proposals such as the “Echidna Strategy”, which would see the country heavily strengthening our asymmetric defensive capabilities, including missiles, drones and submarines, while building stronger regional security relationships with countries such as Indonesia.
“Most of this will depend on decisions made in the US, rather than proactive planning here,” he said.
“Although I do see some signs that the Australian government is finally considering a level of contingency planning and hedging against the possibility that the US alliance as it has existed for the past 75 years is not the eternal answer to all of our security questions.”
The future of AUKUS itself has also become increasingly contested.
While supporters argue the submarine program is essential to maintaining deterrence and interoperability with the United States, critics warn the project risks locking Australia into decades of dependence on American military infrastructure and strategic priorities.
Asked whether it would necessarily be a disaster if AUKUS collapsed altogether, Dr Rollo was blunt.
“Pillar 1 of AUKUS, which covers the acquisition of nuclear submarines by the Royal Australian Navy, is a major strategic liability for Australia,” he said.
“It is the most expensive and complex weapons acquisition in Australian history, and binds us to technological, industrial and military capabilities of the United States in ways that compromise our sovereign capacity to equip, maintain, staff and command our own military forces, as well as determine our own national security strategy in the region more broadly.”
He argued many of the advanced technology-sharing arrangements contained within AUKUS Pillar II could have occurred through existing defence partnerships without embedding Australia more deeply into a formal alliance structure.
Dr Orr, however, warned that abandoning or weakening the alliance without developing dramatically stronger sovereign military capabilities would leave Australia dangerously exposed.
“We’ve been playing politics with defence policy since World War II,” he said.
“There’s this idea that if you build serious military capability you’ll upset the neighbours. But the world we’re entering doesn’t care about our political sensitivities.”
For now, the alliance with Washington remains steady. But as conflict intensifies overseas and uncertainty grows around America’s future global role, the political and strategic debate surrounding AUKUS is only becoming more volatile.
And whether the Iran conflict merely becomes another diplomatic disagreement, or the moment the alliance entered a new and more uncertain era, remains an open question.
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