AUKUS and deterrence: what, exactly, are we trying to deter?

AUKUS is one of the most ambitious allied defence undertakings in decades. But for all the high-end platforms and advanced capabilities it promises, a fundamental question remains underexplored: what, exactly, is AUKUS seeking to deter?

This question matters—not just as a theoretical exercise, but as a strategic imperative that will shape the effectiveness, and ultimate success, of the AUKUS enterprise.

The behaviour set that we want to deter is not self-evident. AUKUS has often been described as a way to ‘complicate Beijing’s decision-making calculus’ and ensure that President Xi Jinping wakes up every morning and says, ‘not today.’ Australia’s 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS) establishes a strategy of denial as the cornerstone of defence planning, but this broad ambition lacks the precision needed to guide investment, prioritise technologies and convey clear thresholds of unacceptable behaviour to adversaries. If we are serious about generating credible deterrent effects, we must first clarify which behaviours we want to stop.

This is where definition of a behaviour set becomes critical. AUKUS partners must decide which specific behaviours they want to deter—whether they’re cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, attempts to blockade Taiwan, deployment of maritime militias in disputed waters or transfer of sensitive military technology to proxy actors. This clarity is not only foundational to aligning threat perceptions and deterrence priorities among the three nations; it is essential to guide the development of capabilities under AUKUS Pillar One (nuclear submarines) and, more urgently, under Pillar Two (other technologies).

This is not an argument against the enterprise; it is an argument for sharpening its purpose.

When AUKUS was announced in 2021, public attention fixated on Australia’s future fleet of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. That debate, often reduced to cost comparisons with diesel-electric submarines, missed the broader strategic purpose. Nuclear attack submarines provide greater range, stealth, speed and endurance, allowing them to operate far from Australia’s shores and to remain undetected in contested environments. They are instruments of deterrence that complicate an adversary’s risk calculus.

But the deterrent value of AUKUS does not reside solely in the eventual arrival of nuclear submarines. AUKUS generates deterrent effects along the way. Forward rotational deployment of US and British nuclear-powered submarines to Western Australia increases allied presence in the Indo-Pacific, strengthens joint operations and disperses assets in ways that make them harder to track and target. These actions signal resolve and contribute to deterrence immediately.

AUKUS is also laying the groundwork for fundamental realignment of the partners’ defence industrial bases. Reforms are being implemented to remove barriers to innovation, streamline information-sharing, and create the conditions for joint research, development and production. These efforts are about creating an enabling environment where advanced capabilities can be fielded quickly and used to impose costs on potential aggressors.

This enabling environment is particularly relevant to Pillar Two of AUKUS, which encompasses advanced military technologies, including quantum systems, AI, autonomous vehicles, cyber tools, hypersonics and electronic warfare. These technologies offer asymmetric advantages and can be deployed rapidly. But their effectiveness as tools of deterrence depends on one thing: knowing what behaviours they are meant to deter.

The central risk is that without a clearly defined deterrence objective, Pillar Two efforts could become diffuse, driven more by what is technologically feasible than by what is strategically necessary. Technological capability alone is not enough. It must be linked to purpose. Strategic clarity will help identify demand signals, focus innovation and guide experimentation—because deterrence is about sending signals, and ambiguity works only if adversaries have something clear to fear miscalculating against.

AUKUS was never meant to be business as usual. It is intended to be a blueprint for allied defence industrial cooperation. For this to succeed, the private sector must be brought in as a full partner. That requires clarity from government, including on what specific adversary behaviours the partnership is trying to deter. Industry needs to know where it should focus resources.

At its core, AUKUS is about delivering strategic effects. It seeks to align political, bureaucratic, economic, technological and military ecosystems across three nations to respond to a shared systemic pacing threat posed by China. But delivering effects requires more than intent. It demands cohesion. It requires a shared understanding of how individual investments and actions combine to influence adversary decision-making.

AUKUS has rightly been framed as a long-term bet on peace through strength. But strength without strategic focus risks becoming blunt. And in a world where rivals are moving fast and shaping the strategic environment, AUKUS must do the same—with purpose, focus, and a firm grasp of what exactly it is trying to stop.

Editors’ pick: Australia’s security architecture must evolve, not regress

Alongside Monday’s cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese returned responsibility for the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to the Home Affairs portfolio. ASPI executive director Justin Bassi outlined reasons for such a change in a 27 March Strategist article that called for the reform. We repeat it below.

The Independent Intelligence Review, publicly released last Friday, was inoffensive and largely supported the intelligence community status quo. But it was also largely quiet on the challenges facing the broader national security community in an increasingly dangerous world, in which traditional intelligence is just one tool of statecraft and national power.

After the January discovery of a caravan laden with explosives in Dural, Sydney, confusion emerged around what federal and state governments knew and when. The review was completed before the caravan was discovered, and the plot was likely beyond the review’s scope. However, government responses to the event should prompt a discussion about Australia’s national security architecture.

Australia faces an unprecedented convergence of threats. We are confronted simultaneously by the rise of aggressive authoritarian powers, global conflict, persistent and evolving terrorism, foreign interference and the normalisation of cyber warfare.

Luck will not protect us; we need structure and certainty. Australia saw these threats early and began to modernise its security architecture in 2017, including the establishment of the Home Affairs portfolio.

But the government has gradually reversed some elements of the consolidation, returning various security responsibilities to the Attorney-General’s portfolio, including for the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. This reversion to an outdated model risks leaving the system ill-equipped to confront the challenges of the 21st century.

Debate on Home Affairs seems fixated on the leadership style of its former head, Michael Pezzullo. Leadership is crucial, but obsession with individual style over substance distracts from both strategic thinking and the fundamental issue of resurrecting a system that had structural inadequacies and was demonstrably unfit for purpose. We are not simply revisiting a past model; we are resurrecting a failed one.

The Attorney-General’s portfolio, in its traditional guise, was designed for a simpler, less dangerous era. Domestic threats were minimal and tended to come one by one—for example, after the end of the Cold War, security focus shifted from espionage to the emerging threat of Islamist terrorism. The Attorney-General’s oversight was appropriate, as it focused primarily on the legal framework while security agencies executed operations.

However, the proliferation and intersection of modern threats have overwhelmed this antiquated model.

When confronted with asylum-seeker boat arrivals, global terrorism, China and hybrid threats including cyber, the previous system—notwithstanding highly talented people—struggled as the Attorney-General’s portfolio held both the legal and security responsibilities.

The system’s limitations were evident well before the 2017 restructure. In 2011, prime minister Julia Gillard moved cybersecurity from the Attorney-General’s purview into her own department. Similarly, the 2012 review of illegal boat arrival policy was managed within the prime minister’s department, reflecting that the framework was not up to the task. And as a result of a review after the 2014 Martin Place terrorist attack, the Abbott government created a Counterterrorism Coordinator within the prime minister’s portfolio.

The rise of the Islamic State terrorist group in 2014 exposed policy deficits. While terror laws rightly fell under the Attorney-General’s remit, the broader policy response demanded a more strategic perspective and decisive approach. Changes were needed, partly because laws were so out of date.

But it was China’s rise that finally revealed the urgent need for a dedicated focus on national security policy. The 2016 review into foreign interference was a direct consequence of Australia’s evolving threat landscape.

Few of our closest partners’ chief law officers also function as security ministers. Typically, a dedicated security minister focuses on threat assessment and policy development, while the Attorney-General ensures that all actions are lawful.

Australia’s Home Affairs model strengthened the legal checks and balances by separating security policy and operational functions from the legal oversight function. It ensured that a single minister could not simultaneously identify a threat, determine the appropriate response and authorise the necessary actions without independent scrutiny. The previous system essentially allowed a single minister to mark their own homework.

Dividing security responsibilities between the Attorney-General and Home Affairs portfolios limits the effectiveness of both departments.

If this gradual dilution portends a future abolition of Home Affairs altogether, that would be a mistake. As the Dural caravan controversy unfolded, no one seemed able to agree on what was an appropriate amount of information-sharing between police and security agencies, and state and federal governments. This underscores the need for clarity that Home Affairs is responsible for setting, coordinating and implementing national security policy.

Home Affairs was created because the threat environment was evolving and, within our national security architecture, foreign and defence policy were covered but the third aspect of national security—domestic security—was lacking. So, what security evolution has justified its regression? The Attorney-General’s department has not shown itself to be more capable than Home Affairs in terrorism, cybersecurity or foreign interference.

Home Affairs—to the government’s credit—led the world by banning DeepSeek from government devices. Could we count on such decisive action if lawyers were doing all the work and then reviewing it themselves? Would you allow your lawyer to run your business, rather than provide essential legal counsel?

Technology amplifies threats and is advancing much faster than new laws can be written. Terrorists use encrypted apps to plot attacks and social media to attract recruits. China spreads propaganda through social media and has already begun using cyber intrusions to prepare to conduct sabotage operations in future conflict.

Australia must not only reinstate the separation between the security minister and the attorney-general; it must evolve further to confront 21st-century threats. This should include establishing a National Security Council or Secretariat, like those of many of our partner nations, including Quad countries. This body should be led by a national security adviser who provides strategic coherence and policy coordination.

To navigate the increasingly complex and dangerous global security landscape, we need to evolve, not regress.

Chinese pressure is a part of Solomon Islands’ politics. Other Pacific countries should take note

The Chinese embassy in Solomon Islands has reportedly pressured newly appointed Minister of Rural Development Daniel Waneoroa to quit an international group that challenges China’s authoritarian regime. This incident highlights Beijing’s increased tendency to pressure foreign elites, despite rhetoric around non-interference in domestic affairs. Pacific leaders and their foreign partners should be watching.

Waneoroa said he made the decision to resign from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) last week ‘in the interest of fostering stability and aligning with a collective national vision’. That national vision is likely one that strongly adheres to the ‘One-China principle’ in exchange for financial benefits from Beijing.

Waneoroa’s decision should not reflect poorly on him as a politician or a leader. He was brave enough to be part of a group that many others wouldn’t join, despite potential personal beliefs; he is now choosing to be part of the governing coalition for domestic stability and economic opportunities.

Instead, this affair should highlight the depth of Chinese influence in Pacific politics and an increasing trend of self-censorship by countries when it comes to China.

IPAC aims to unite global lawmakers to promote democracy and address the threats China’s rise poses to human rights and the rules-based system. Individuals from more than 40 countries are part of the alliance, including more than 20 Australian parliamentarians from both major parties after the 2022 election. After Waneoroa’s resignation, opposition member Peter Kenilorea Jr is the only representative from Solomon Islands listed on IPAC’s website.

IPAC’s partners are mostly Taiwanese and US institutions, so membership is a highly sensitive issue for Beijing, which views it and similar pro-democracy groupings as tools of US foreign policy. Kenilorea Jr reportedly said that Waneoroa ‘had been pressured by the Chinese embassy here in Solomon Islands to quit IPAC for some time now.’ But Waneoroa’s actual decision point was his appointment as a minister in the governing coalition.

In April, several ministers resigned from Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele’s Government for National Unity and Transformation (GNUT) coalition and joined the opposition in a looming motion of no confidence. Manele worked quickly to stave off the motion—which was ultimately withdrawn—by coaxing Waneoroa and others into the GNUT with offers of better positions. It was a savvy move seen many times before in Pacific politics. The remaining point of contention was Waneoroa’s IPAC ties.

Once the dust had settled, Waneoroa had little choice but to align himself fully with GNUT’s position. Ministers are highly replaceable in the Solomon Islands system and the coalition is large enough to survive losing one uncooperative member. So, Waneoroa made the decision to cut ties with IPAC, allowing him to keep his government position and deliver more for his own constituents in North Malaita. Even without direct pressure from the Chinese embassy, there are logical reasons for Waneoroa’s decision that prioritise domestic politics and stability over his broader international affiliations. Again, Waneoroa shouldn’t be blamed for his decision when the problem of political pressure is built into the system.

With so much dependence on and desire for Chinese funding and support, countries such as Solomon Islands are in a tough position, and government members have little choice but to toe the line. We can expect Waneoroa to now align with the GNUT and Manele’s stance on all China issues going forward. Publicly opposing that position would only generate internal tensions and potentially additional harassment and pressure from China.

Other Pacific leaders have spoken about attempts by Chinese officials to harass, bribe and undermine them, including former president of the Federated States of Micronesia David Panuelo, who said Chinese officials had directly threatened his personal safety. Self-censorship on issues likely to trigger Beijing is a rational choice for local politicians who are trying to represent their constituents’ best interests. But cumulatively, such decisions narrow the space for domestic political debate.

The attraction of China’s partnership has been financial support with no strings attached. But leaders need to start thinking about what the real cost is in terms of free speech and affiliation. It may seem easy and harmless to make a statement in support of the ‘One-China principle’, but how far can China push those statements? Clearly it leads to a change in behaviour in politicians, whether the pressure comes directly from China or from peers. Pacific media outlets also face pressure from Chinese embassies, which has led to greater self-censorship and less transparent reporting on Chinese activities in their countries.

For Solomon Islands, all eyes will be on any efforts to disrupt Taiwan’s participation in the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in early September. It’s unlikely Taiwan will be shut out completely, but we may well see the next stage of Chinese pressure on the political elite, upsetting the region’s core institution.

No, Australian trade isn’t diversifying away from China

Australia’s free-trade agreements with nations other than China have delivered diversification in neither exports nor imports over the past decade, leaving Australia more tightly bound by trade to China than any other advanced nation.

While trading partners, led by Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, did help Australia to endure a three-year Chinese assault on its exports, which began in 2020, their shares of Australian exports contracted once China dropped its discriminatory bans.

It is too soon to say how the Trump administration’s tariff strategy will reshape global trading relationships, but its expressed preference for trade partners to isolate supply chains from China would be hard for Australia to accommodate.

China (including Hong Kong) bought 36.9 percent of Australia’s goods exports last year and delivered 25.8 percent of our imports, putting its share far above global averages.

China took only 11.1 percent of the rest of the world’s exports in 2023 while it provided 16.7 percent of the rest of the world’s imports.

The Trump administration has been railing against China’s share of US trade however it accounted for just 14.8 percent of its imports and 7.7 percent of its exports.

China’s out-sized share of Australia’s exports is the obvious result of the resource sector, which has provided the lion’s share of the iron ore, coal, bauxite and other minerals from which China’s mega-cities, infrastructure and manufacturing plant have been built.

Australia was China’s third largest supplier of goods behind South Korea and the United States in 2023, although it was likely pushed into fourth place by Russia in 2024.

The strength of Australia’s resource sector drained capital and labour away from its manufacturing, which has been contracting since 2008. An increasing share of manufactured goods consumed in Australia has been imported, with a third coming from China.

As efforts to upgrade the World Trade Organisation faltered after the global financial crisis, the Abbott government sought to forge new bilateral and regional trade agreements. Australia now has deals with the United States, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Britain, as well as with ASEAN and two broad Asia-Pacific agreements.

Australian businesses have benefited from the reduced tariffs and trade-related red tape resulting from these deals, but they have not materially affected the direction of Australian trade.

Between 2014 and 2024, the share of Australia’s exports going to bilateral free-trade partners, other than China, dropped from 47.6 percent to 44.3 percent.  The  share going to China rose from 34.8 percent to 36.8 percent in that time. China’s share of exports peaked above 40 percent between 2019 and 2021, then plunged to 30 percent in 2022 during its trade strikes, before recovering.

Source: DFAT trade statistics.

Since the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement entered force at the beginning of 2015, Japan’s share of Australia’s exports has dropped from 18.1 percent to 13.6 percent. Japan was nevertheless a valuable aid during China’s trade boycotts. Its share of Australia’s exports rose from12.2 percent in 2020 to reach 19.9 percent by 2022 before dropping back again as exports to China recovered. There was a similar trend in exports to Korea and Taiwan.

On the import side, Australia’s free trade partner share changed little from 44.5 percent in 2014 to 43.8 percent a decade later. China’s share of Australia’s imports has risen sharply from 20.1 percent to 25.8 percent in that time.

According to the Financial Times, the preliminary trade deal between the United States and Britain announced last week aims to exclude China from the supply chains of British exports to the US.

Relief from US tariffs on steel, pharmaceuticals and other, yet to be specified, sectors was conditional on Britain accepting US requirements on supply chain security and ‘ownership of relevant production facilities’, effectively shutting out China. The newspaper said this was to be a template for agreements with other countries.

After plans for such supply chain restrictions were first aired in mid-April, China’s commerce ministry warned it would ‘resolutely take countermeasures’ against any country reaching a deal with the US at the expense of Chinese interests.

The US accounts for only 4.6 percent of Australia’s exports (and 11.8 percent of goods imports), but it is a significant buyer of Australian pharmaceuticals, medical instruments, aircraft parts and measuring instruments. Sales of pharmaceuticals to the US have risen from $200 million to $2.2 billion over the past decade. Disentangling Chinese manufacturers from Australian supply lines would be difficult.

Former treasurer Joe Hockey records in his memoir that in 2015, as the relationship between the US and China was deteriorating, President Barack Obama asked Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott to stop selling iron ore to China. ‘Both the prime minister and I were astounded,’ he said, adding that the Chinese sales were critical to both the economy and the federal and West Australian budgets.

Australia may face renewed calls from the US to divert its Chinese trade, but no policy has ever been articulated that would achieve this.

Localising northern supply chains will strengthen national resilience

Coming off the back of a successful NT Defence Week, one thing is clearer than ever: the Northern Territory is not just a remote outpost—it is an asset central to our national security, economic resilience and future-focused industry growth.

Today, supply chain disruptions are a daily reality, not just a possibility. As we face growing threats—from international conflicts and climate change, to pandemics and trade tensions—the need for robust, sovereign and localised supply chains has never been more urgent. For northern Australia, this is both a challenge and enormous opportunity.

Yet the federal government continues to invest billions into defence and infrastructure projects that bypass local capabilities. Southern suppliers, multinational contracts, and offshore interests dominate the procurement pipelines, while NT businesses, including Indigenous-led enterprises, are left fighting for scraps.

The NT’s proximity to Australia’s northern neighbours, its access to critical infrastructure, and its vast natural resources position it well to support the growth of Australia’s sovereign manufacturing capability. To capitalise on this, we must shift our focus from just doing business to building long-term capability through investment, innovation and people.

Local procurement is key. Too often, large-scale projects and defence contracts rely heavily on southern suppliers, missing the chance to engage the talent, industry knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit that exists right here in the NT. When we invest in local businesses—from advanced manufacturers and logistics providers to Indigenous-owned contractors and regional suppliers—we’re not just supporting the economy; we’re reinforcing a resilient, adaptable supply chain that can meet Australia’s evolving needs.

The NT is already leading the way. Defence NT is pushing for greater inclusion. The Industry Capability Network NT is turning capability into contracts. The NT branch of the Australian Industry and Defence Network is amplifying small and medium enterprises, while the Chamber of Commerce and Australian Industry Group are connecting the dots between policy and practice.

But they need backup, not just applause.

The future of Australia’s sovereign capability cannot be achieved without inclusive, ethical, and place-based supply chains that empower local enterprise and honour our regional strengths. But infrastructure is only half the story.

The other half is our people, and particularly our young people. The territory has a rising generation of curious, capable minds who should be given every opportunity to step into careers in science and technology. From defence innovation and engineering to cyber security and space tech, the demand for territory-grown talent is real—but so is the supply gap.

We need to invest early in our schools, training providers and hands-on programs that show young Territorians what’s possible. We must centre Indigenous youth in these efforts, recognising the importance of cultural knowledge, land stewardship, and the unique perspectives they bring to innovation and sustainability.

We also need visible leadership and role models who reflect the diversity of the NT, demonstrating that success in defence, technology and manufacturing is not only possible, but powerful.

A radical reset is necessary, and possible. But changes must be made.

The government should mandate local content quotas in all federally funded projects, especially those in defence, infrastructure and energy. This should be a requirement, not a recommendation: if it’s built here, it should be sourced here.

As well as this, decision-making must be decentralised. We need to move procurement officers, investment leads and project managers into the north, so they can see what local businesses can deliver instead of relying on spreadsheets from city offices thousands of kilometres away.

Too often, the same names keep winning contracts because of outdated systems and risk-averse thinking. We must dismantle this trusted supplier monopoly and improve  transparency and equity. This will require an overhaul of how supplier capability is assessed, ensuring it factors in cultural knowledge, community benefit and regional resilience—not just bottom-line cost.

Finally, we must invest in NT-owned manufacturing. If we’re serious about sovereignty, we need to fund regional manufacturing hubs. Let’s build the infrastructure for Australia’s future here in the north, with equity at its core.

The NT is not on the edge of the map, it’s on the frontline of opportunity. It we get this right, we won’t just build a stronger supply chain; we’ll build a stronger nation.

The Lai Ching-te government shifts gears

Complex developments in Taiwan’s domestic legislative politics may affect the regional security outlook over the next 12 months.

Since his election in 2024, Taiwan president Lai Ching-te has upheld the disciplined foreign policy of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, with some domestic policy innovation. But his party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), does not have a majority in the legislature. The opposition parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have sought to capitalise on their combined majority and permanently shift Taiwan’s political centre of gravity to the legislature by initiating a series of laws to expand legislative intervention over the presidential office, revise the constitutional court and restrict the national budget.

The Lai administration has adopted largely tactical responses to the legislature’s actions, including referring laws to the same constitutional court the legislature seeks to undermine.

However, since 2024, dozens of public recall campaigns have sprung up across Taiwan’s legislative districts. Under the constitution, citizens in an electorate can petition the Central Election Commission for a by-election. Thirty-five KMT seats are moving through the legal stages towards that outcome, with a countermovement targeting 15 DPP seats.

While these are grassroots movements, in recent months the DPP has swung its support behind them.

At the same time, there has been a surge in pro-Beijing espionage at senior levels of the political system, as well as scandals involving high-profile PRC-born Taiwanese social media influencers supporting Beijing amid Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has been systematically escalating its activity over several years, never allowing it to become normalised to maintain the salience of its threat.

With this febrile atmosphere of divisive politics and growing public anxiety, Lai convened a national security forum including key figures from his administration in March. He gave a speech on Taiwan’s security outlook, putting forward 17 policy measures specifically directed at China’s interference in Taiwan’s political, corporate and public life.

The measures cover espionage, political interference, united front work and corporate leverage. They establish a range of public education initiatives on China-related risks, much stronger rules on public disclosure of individual and organisational links to China, and tighter control over business, religious, cultural and academic exchanges. They include specific measures for younger Taiwanese and the social media landscape and a review of existing regulations and laws on interference in Taiwan’s democratic system. The government will also more firmly apply sedition laws against retired military and government personnel.

In his speech, Lai stated that China met the definition of a ‘foreign hostile force’ and warned against the erosion of Taiwan’s sovereignty, identity and democracy.

Lai has securitised Taiwan’s public life by defining tolerable and intolerable forms of civil society in terms of a hostile China. He has expanded the definition of Taiwan’s security and strengthened policies to protect it.

Lai’s policy announcement demonstrates open democratic practice, but it also highlights how Taiwan’s current relationship with China is also a relationship with its own authoritarian history. The president called for protection of Taiwan’s security from China in the name of a democratic Taiwan; decades ago Chiang Kai-shek made the same call in the name of his military dictatorship. Taiwan today is deeply committed to truth and reconciliation with its authoritarian era, and Lai’s move to encompass public discourse and civil society within a security outlook is inevitably caught up in that process.

Nonetheless, since his speech, Lai’s polling has jumped to its highest level of his presidency so far, suggesting that he is taking the electorate with him.

Meanwhile, the recall movement for legislative seats continues and will lead to a wave of by-elections. This is unprecedented in Taiwan’s democratic history, and it is possible the DPP will regain a legislative majority over the next 12 months.

If that were to happen, it would be a stunning repudiation of Beijing’s multi-domain tactical campaign against the Taiwanese but would also be taken by Beijing as proof that the DPP are irredeemable separatists manipulating the Taiwanese people to hold back unification.

For all the disruption to the international system of recent months, developments in Taiwanese domestic politics could yet make the end of 2025 look even more challenging.

Trump’s science cuts threaten public research data

US President Donald Trump’s cuts to scientific research create anxieties about the accessibility of research data. Scientists worldwide fear websites and data sets hosted in the United States will be deleted or decommissioned. While private initiatives in and outside of the US have emerged to transfer and archive data elsewhere, a more concerted approach is needed to safeguard globally relevant data holdings, especially when our strategic policy is meant to be data-driven.

The Trump administration has been repurposing US scientific research to help maintain the US’s economic, military and technological advantage. Trump’s team is relentlessly focusing on critical and emerging technologies to boost US defence, including AI, quantum information science, biotech, semiconductors and nuclear technology.

The administration has also started divesting from research it deems irrelevant, distractive or counterproductive, such as climate science and clean energy, diversity and gender equity, health and disease control, and environmental policy. Federally funded research groups, functions and programs are being closed. Continued and unhindered access to research and measurement data is at risk.

This new approach may be defensible domestically, although the dismissal of the national archivist and NASA’s closing of the Office of the Chief Scientist and Office of Science, Policy and Strategy are hugely concerning. Much of the world’s most important research, while conducted through US institutions and with data hosted on US soil, involves substantial contributions from global partners. It is shared international knowledge.

Many affected research outputs are important to the US’s most active and trusted science and technology partners, including Australia. These radical divestments risk ceding stewardship of significant research data to competitors. China already sees climate science, weather monitoring and space-based monitoring as an area it can step into.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is now in the administration’s sights. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report accuses NOAA of creating the ‘climate change alarm industry’. The 2 May budget proposed suspending NOAA’s world-leading centres for research on climate, weather and marine resources. Instead, the agency is expected to manage the licensing for deep seabed exploration.

The agency is retiring some 20 data sources containing live metrics on earthquake, marine, coastal and estuary science. Global climate science relies on NOAA’s data for measurements, trend analyses, weather forecasting and disaster preparedness. The data is also important to national security, due to its use in crisis management and military operations in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe.

NASA is another agency in trouble. Three of its main Earth-observing satellites are in urgent need of replacement. This includes the Aura satellite that hosts the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), which measures changes to the ozone layer. The OMI project—a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, European science and technology institutes, funding schemes, and national meteorological institutes—is an international undertaking. It’s now feared that 20 years of data-gathering will be discontinued and retired.

The US Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are also affected. Almost two dozen repositories of research and public health data are marked for review. While other government datasets or webpages, including NASA’s and NOAA’s, could be transferred, NIH data requires a cumbersome disclosure review process.

Beyond raw data, there are concerns about aggregate databases such as NASA’s repository of Astronomy and Physics literature (hosted at Harvard but financed by NASA) and PubMed, a database hosted at NIH with millions of references for biomedical sciences.

This disconnection from scientific data will affect Australia. For instance, for Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, ‘international partnership and cooperation is of critical importance […] in technology development and data exchange’ and involves US institutions such as NASA and NOAA. The bureau relies on ‘free access to data from around 30 satellites, operated by Europe, the US, Japan, India, and others.’ Similarly, the agency services assist the Australian Defence Forces and the Defence Science and Technology Group in weather forecasting, advanced defence science, and planning of land, aerial and marine operations.

AUKUS is also involved, given the partnership’s focus on the subsea domain for future operations and the joint development of defence tech capabilities.

Grassroots initiatives are already underway, aiming to safeguard research and data. Safeguarding Research & Culture, for example, was established in February after Trump signed a series of executive orders related to research agencies. The community seeks to create ‘an alternative infrastructure for archiving and disseminating of cultural heritage and scientific knowledge’. In Switzerland, the University of Geneva issued advice to staff to reassess the use of Open Science Framework, a commonly used platform, and to redirect data to servers outside of the US.

But if Trump’s administration continues at the same speed and relentlessness, these actions may be too little, too late. Mitigating the most dramatic consequences will require coordinated effort from like-minded governments.

In its 2030 cybersecurity strategy, the Australian government committed to the protection of ‘datasets of national significance’. This policy initiative should be expedited and should include overseas datasets.

But this will take time to come into effect. In the short term, the government should check in with federal, state and territory agencies, as well as universities, and do a stocktake of current dependencies on US and US-hosted scientific data. It should establish a point of contact to which researchers can report issues, concerns or rescue initiatives. Australia could also work with the US’s other science and technology partners to negotiate a transition period with the Trump administration, developing a handover plan through which Australia could become a data safe-haven.

Mike Copage, head of ASPI’s Climate program, and ASPI data scientist Jenny Wong-Leung contributed to this article.

Stress-testing US soft power

The father of soft power and smart power has died, just as the United States has been giving those concepts a deathly stress test.

Whereas US President Donald Trump thinks hard power is all he needs, Joseph Nye broadened the world’s understanding of power.

Nye, who died last week at the age of 88, wrote that hard power rested on command, coercion or cash—‘the ability to change what others do.’ Soft co-optive power, Nye wrote in 1990, shaped what others wanted through attraction.

Soft power persuades volunteers and believers, while hard power issues orders. Nye stood with Talleyrand, who advised Napoleon: ‘You can do anything you like with bayonets, except sit on them.’

Trump has taken to heart Machiavelli’s advice that it’s better for a leader to be feared than loved. Nye believed it was best for a leader to be both.

Nye always said that good foreign policy needed both soft and hard power, and he combined them in the concept of ‘smart’ power: ‘If a state can set the agenda for others or shape their preferences, it can save a lot on carrots and sticks. But rarely can it totally replace either. Thus, the need for smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power.’

The Harvard University professor despaired at how Trump was ‘liquidating’ US soft-power reserves. The major elements of a country’s soft power, Nye argued, were its culture (‘when it is pleasing to others’), its values (‘when they are attractive and consistently practiced’), and its policies (‘when they are seen as inclusive and legitimate’).

Trump attacks on all three fronts. In the words of The Economist, the president leads ‘a revolutionary project that aspires to remake the economy, the bureaucracy, culture and foreign policy, even the idea of America itself’.

US alliances are shaken by Trump’s cavalier coercion. He zig-zags on Ukraine, often leaning towards the Russian strongman he admires. US foreign aid is smashed. The nation that set the model for free and independent journalism with its First Amendment now guts its international broadcaster and threatens its own journalists.

Trump’s international view is imperial, seeking to carve the world into spheres of influence. His raw realism has no veneer of manners—the Mafia Don makes demands that others can’t refuse. The US’s tariff campaign is driven by the Don’s demand for a deal that delivers profit.

Wielding US hard power, Trump imposes a huge stress test on US soft power and the values America has long expressed.

With an experiment, you draw conclusions from the results. The early returns from the Trump test are negative. Certainly, he is good at smashing things, but Americans can’t see much being built, as Sam Freedman notes:

Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any President after 100 days. He’s even beating his own woeful first term numbers. His signature tariffs policy has been a disaster, and polls terribly. Confidence in the economy has collapsed. Even on immigration he has negative numbers.

The Trump effect on Australian opinion is similar. Previews of the 2025 Lowy poll show that Australians’ trust in the US to act responsibly has fallen by 20 percentage points, with only one third of Australians having any level of trust in the US—the lowest in the history of the survey. While having no faith in Trump, Australians still cling to the alliance, with 80 percent saying the alliance is ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ important for Australia’s security. Maybe Australians got the memo about the difference between hard and soft power.

Donald Trump’s actions prove he’s no conservative. He has no understanding of how a foreign policy realist sees the mix of forces and interests, capabilities and ambitions, or the way values and morals shape what a nation does in the world. For such thoughts, turn to Nye. A good place to start is The Strategist, which published 100 of Nye’s columns during the last decade. They’re all here.

Start with Nye’s March column, a meditation on how empires and states need both soft and hard power. The state needs legitimacy as well as legions.

The column touches on the fear Nye expressed in the memoir he published last year: that domestic change in the US could endanger the American century. Even if US external power remains dominant, a country can lose its own virtue. As Nye concluded in his column on Trump’s threat to the international system:

If the international order is eroding, the US’s domestic politics are as much of a cause as China’s rise. The question is whether we are entering a totally new period of US decline, or whether the second Trump administration’s attacks on the American century’s institutions and alliances will prove to be another cyclical dip. We may not know until 2029.

One year on: no agreement for New Caledonia despite serious negotiations

It’s been a year since massive riots shook New Caledonia, but progress towards a long-term agreement on the territory’s status has been slow. Last week, intense closed-door talks failed to reach concensus. The discussions centred on two proposals: one by Paris for ‘sovereignty with France’ and the other by loyalists for ‘federalism within the French Republic’.

In late April, French Minister for Overseas Territories Manuel Valls arrived in New Caledonia—his third visit since February—to bring together local political parties for an intense round of negotiations. Valls even promised to remain in the territory until they reached an agreement.

These negotiations followed riots that broke out on 13 May last year. The violence reflected underlying tensions but was ignited by French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to amend the constitution to expand the electoral roll. This would extend voting rights to residents of at least 10 years—a move seen by indigenous Kanaks as an attempt to further dilute their voting power.

This followed three failed referendums on independence, although the third result was disputed as the Kanak population boycotted amid a Covid-19 outbreak.

In response to the 2024 riots, the French government declared a state of emergency. It deployed excessive military force, later prompting the United Nations to release a statement of condemnation.

Paris first suspended the electoral reforms in June before abandoning the proposed changes in October. By then, 13 people had been killed, including 11 indigenous Kanaks and two French officers.

The Pacific Islands Forum was keen to play its role as a neutral regional actor. After some delays, the prime ministers of Fiji, Tonga and Cook Islands led a three-day observational mission in October to gather information and provide assessment to the forum. They are expected to present their findings at the leaders’ summit in early September this year.

During the observational mission, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown suggested the deployment of forces from the newly established Pacific Policing Initiative.

French authorities weren’t convinced. France’s Ambassador to the Pacific Veronique Roger-Lacan stated that regional policing had not been discussed, clarifying that ‘security is the exclusive competence of the French State’. But a regional force could be a neutral alternative to France’s policing efforts, given the criticism of latter’s heavy-handed crackdown.

Paris tried to increase its engagement with the territory after the riots, but spent the second half of 2024 preoccupied by a prolonged domestic political crisis, weakening its response.

During a mid-October visit to New Caledonia, France’s newly appointed minister of the overseas, François-Noel Buffet, could only promise up to €500 million in loans and funds for the reconstruction of all schools and 70 percent of public buildings. However, the total damage was estimated at more than €2 billion.

The French government eventually fell to a motion of no confidence in December.

Valls has taken the issue seriously and, under his guidance, negotiations have progressed well. In April, a draft document was leaked that appeared to acknowledge further delegation of ‘soveriegn competencies’ to authorities in Noumea. Valls denied the document was an official proposal from France, claiming the paper was a result of earlier talks in February and March.

The Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, the dominant pro-independence group, initially accepted the proposal as the basis of negotiations, but also stated that they would not be rushed to an agreement. The language around delegation of sovereign powers concerned loyalists that France was abandoning the territory. As a result, loyalists walked out of a multilateral negotiation in early May, before key figures entered into a conclave for intense discussion on 5 May.

That closed-door discussion covered the two proposals. There was some convergence around reinforcing New Caledonia’s competence in international relations and even security, including the training of military personnel, albeit in a shared manner. But this failed to translate into a full agreement. While France seems willing to seriously discuss future institutional arrangements—short of independence—even that appears too far for loyalists.

However, changes to the electoral roll remain a sticking point.

Provincial elections, initially planned for last year, are now expected in December. New Caledonians may end up going to the polls without an agreement, risking further tensions by potentially undermining electoral legitimacy.

While negotiations are for Paris and Noumea alone, stability is in the region’s interest. As New Caledonia’s competencies in international relations and security are discussed, there is room for more engagement with regional partners.

Australia must build its understanding of New Caledonia to support any emerging concensus, or ensure it is better prepared should further violence erupt. A passive Australia is a bad look to its Pacific family.

The path forward will almost certainly be slow and frustrating but progress is welcome.

Taiwan worsens its vulnerability to a Chinese energy blockade

Anyone would think that Taiwan, faced with a risk of blockade from China, would be doing all it could to ensure self-sufficiency or at least long endurance without supplies. But in energy security, it is going backwards.

President Lai Ching-te’s government is increasing Taiwan’s dependence on short-term energy imports that China can easily stop. The administration is persisting with an almost decade-long campaign to shut down the island’s nuclear power stations and wants to increase the share of liquified natural gas (LNG) in its energy mix. Progress on renewable-energy capacity has been slow.

Lai’s government is understandably concerned about energy security, as at least 97 percent of the island’s energy is imported. But it also wants to reduce carbon emissions, having established a goal of net-zero by 2050. The Taiwanese government views LNG as a cleaner type of energy and is phasing out the widespread use of coal. Natural gas powered 32 percent of Taiwan’s electricity in 2016. The figure rose to 42 percent last year, and Lai is pushing for it to reach 50 percent by 2030. The drive for LNG grew following Donald Trump’s election as US President. Taiwan plans buy more US LNG over the next decade to help reduce its trade surplus with the United States.

However, LNG is difficult to store long term, which would create problems in the event of a quarantine or blockade. Taiwan is densely populated and has limited space for the fuel’s expensive storage infrastructure. Lu Tsaiying, an energy expert with Taiwan’s Research Institute for Democracy Society and Emerging Technology, notes that Taiwan’s LNG stockpiles would only last 12 days in a crisis. In contrast, coal could last 42 days and crude oil 146 days.

Lu predicts that coal, which currently powers 39 percent of Taiwan’s electricity, and renewables, powering 12 percent, would be the main sources of energy during a blockade, quarantine or even a war. The government would rely on its existing coal powerplants and convert decommissioned coal-fired power stations into emergency back-up plants. She estimates that Taiwan could survive for at least 40 days in this way, and possibly much longer depending on its power-rationing system. Coal can be more easily stored, and its energy density is twice that of LNG. According to Lu, ‘the Taiwan government is increasing strategic coal reserves’.

Although Taiwan has been slow to act, it’s beginning to give unprecedented attention to energy security. In July, Lu’s think tank and the American Foundation for Defense of Democracies will hold tabletop exercises focusing on Taiwanese energy resilience. Taiwan’s state-run power company, Taipower, will provide data. Ranking officials and industry leaders will be invited.

There is also ongoing debate in Taiwan around nuclear power. While nuclear fuel must be imported, it requires very little land relative to the power it generates. Lai’s independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party is avowedly anti-nuclear. When his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, first came to power in 2016, she took on a gargantuan task of simultaneously reducing carbon emissions and phasing out carbon-free nuclear energy, which then accounted for 12 percent of the energy mix.

Many renewable-energy projects are now running dramatically behind schedule. Tsai originally aimed for renewables to make up 20 percent of Taiwan’s energy mix by 2025. The government missed this deadline, extending it to the end of 2026. Despite this extension, experts remain sceptical of the Lai administration’s ability to reach its target. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s six aging nuclear reactors have been decommissioned on schedule, with the final one to be decommissioned on 17 May.

Energy shortages in Taiwan present a global security risk, as the island makes about 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips. The semiconductor industry is especially energy-intensive, and a power disruption of only a few seconds can damage output. Along with many minor power disruptions, Taiwan has suffered three major blackouts over the past seven years. In 2022, one of those major blackouts left more than 5 million homes without electricity and reportedly cost semiconductor, petrochemical and steel businesses more than NT$5 billion.

The Taiwanese government tends to blame blackouts on human error and an over-centralised grid, but critics argue that operating power reserves are insufficient. Artificial intelligence industries also consume enormous amounts of energy, leading some to question whether Taiwan’s power supply can meet growing demand.

Nuclear power was the only domestic issue that significantly divided the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the two opposition candidates during last year’s presidential election. The DPP’s main opposition, the Nationalist Party, wants to pass laws extending the life of the one remaining reactor in southern Taiwan.

On 9 March, Tung Tzu-hsien, the deputy convener of Lai’s climate committee, voiced support for nuclear power, pointing to the importance of Taiwan maintaining manufacturing capacity ‘if war breaks out.’ The US de facto ambassador Raymond Greene told the Taiwanese media that nuclear power was ‘an exciting area for cooperation going forward,’ adding that the US had offered to help Taiwanese government with a transition, if it wanted one. Lu notes that even though the Nationalist Party’s legislation is expected to clear Taiwan’s parliament, Taiwanese laws will still require the reactor to undergo lengthy security checks. This means it will take three to five years before the shuttered reactor is operational again.