Australia’s most senior military officer has warned that Donald Trump’s war with Iran has left Australia exposed to China as US assets are pulled out of the region.
“The United States has moved enormous military capacity into the Gulf region at the moment, including a lot of capacity out of the Indo-Pacific,” Australian Defence Force Chief Admiral David Johnston told a briefing in Canberra on Thursday, 7News reported.
“This is an important time for us to be in the Indo-Pacific. China’s recent military deployments in our region demonstrate its increasing military capabilities and capacity.”
Admiral Johnston also used the briefing to reiterate that Australia’s E-7 Wedgetail surveillance aircraft operating out of the United Arab Emirates was not assisting in attacks on Iran.
“We make sure that everything that has come off that aircraft is related to a defensive mission that we’re performing,” he said.
The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning AEST), a little over an hour before Mr Trump had threatened to destroy Iran’s “whole civilisation”.
But within hours, the fragile agreement appeared to be cracking as Israel, which launched the February 28 attack with the US, continued its bombardment of its northern neighbour, Lebanon.On Thursday, Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that all US military forces would “remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with”.
Iran conditionally accepted the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire if attacks against it were halted, and agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.
The US has sparked alarm from key Asian allies, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, with the redirection of a number of key military assets — including large stockpiles of precision-guided weapons and expensive missile interceptors — to the Middle East.
That includes about 2200 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) from Japan, Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence systems from South Korea, and the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which usually operates as part of the Pacific Fleet.
“In 2025 and 2026, aircraft carriers were diverted from the Indo-Pacific, where they were intended to deter China, to respond to crises in the Middle East,” Lowy Institute defence analyst Jennifer Parker wrote last month.
“For a country that identifies China as its primary strategic competitor, that reallocation sits uneasily with its stated priorities.”
Defence Minister Richard Marles and his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi met for a summit in Tokyo on Wednesday to discuss the growing concerns among US allies and partners.
“Even as the world’s attention is focused on the Middle East, we must not allow a security vacuum to emerge in the areas surrounding our countries or in the Indo-Pacific region,” Mr Koizumi told reporters, per The Japan Times.
Mr Marles said a North Korean missile launch hours before the meeting highlighted “challenges that we face in the Indo-Pacific, and how important it is that countries … maintain a focus on the challenges that we have here”.
Liberal MP Andrew Hastie highlighted Australia’s precarious position in a speech to the ANU National Security College last month.
“Australia bet long on globalisation and US strategic primacy, accepting that the Cold War had brought an end to great power competition,” he said.
“But we failed to anticipate the rise of China, Iran and Russia and their mutual interest in disrupting the peace underwritten by U.S. leadership and hard power. This led us to outsource our military obligations to the United States, and to offshore our industrial capacity to neighbouring countries in our region.
“And the trade-off was our security and resilience in a fuel crisis like the one that we are in today.”
