As we watch Donald Trump’s unpredictable America bomb Iran, and see Xi Jinping building his military to conquer Taiwan by force (if and when he so decides), plenty of familiar voices are saying now is the time to cut the cord with America and chart a new independent path on foreign policy and security. 

This is badged as an independent Australia that ‘finds its security in Asia, not from it’.

Terrific. That’d mean we won’t be pushed around by an America demanding we spend more on defence and we won’t be dragged into America’s wars. Instead, we’ll live in peace and prosperity in a harmonious Asia-Pacific region.  What’s not to like?

Only that this is a fantasy, because other actors get a vote on this path to nirvana.  A simple bottom line is that Australia can’t be secure in an insecure region. And while we might rail about American imperialism, living in a region governed by rules largely set by the US and underpinned by American power is a far more benign experience than we would find living under a region dominated by Chinese power to be.

Others in the region will disagree, however the security and prosperity Australians take for granted has been enabled by a largely benign US that, for a great power, has quite unusually constrained itself by following the same rules as the rest of us. That’s not how the Communist Party leaders in Beijing roll domestically or internationally.

So, an echidna strategy with Australia armed to the teeth to repel those who seek to invade us misses the point. The key question for our future security and prosperity is whether our region is a ‘free and open Indo Pacific’ (to quote former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe) or one where our choices are dictated by Chinese power and preferences. 

That free and open Indo Pacific obviously can’t be delivered by Australia through any amount of clever diplomacy or military power.  We can only be part of a collective effort. 

So, what about making this effort without America and finding the required security ‘in Asia’ not from it?  We could build much deeper defence and government to government relationships with other credible powers who want what we want, like Japan, South Korea and India – and there are signs we’re trying to do so.  The impending decision about whether Australia will choose a German designed frigate or a Japanese one for the $11 billion ‘general purpose frigate’ program will show how seriously we’re taking this.

But the fly in the ointment is that without American power, even the most successful collective efforts from different groups of regional partners will not constrain – or deter – China and its increasingly powerful and aggressive military and militias. And the prospects of South Korea and Japan operating as seamless security partners in light of their centuries long differences is another important limitation here.

Let’s park those pesky political and relative power problems, though, and look at what an independent Australia untangled from our alliance with America looks like and would require. 

It would make current debates about whether we should spend 2 or 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence irrelevant. Almost our entire Defence Force and intelligence community is based on American technology, systems, weapons and data. And the ADF has been designed to operate plugged in to a larger American military during conflict. 

So, we have almost no independent ability to supply what our military needs to operate. When we send the Australian military somewhere, once they use up the tiny stocks of missiles and parts we’ve bought ahead of time, America supplies everything they need out of its own inventories and from US companies’ production lines.

Our military operates because of the goodwill and support of the US, and usually alongside the US – that’s been the plan for decades and it’s the plan the government has for future decades.

We could replace whole chunks of our US-sourced equipment and systems with alternatives from other suppliers – the Europeans, the Japanese, and the South Koreans come to mind as capable defence industry providers. We could also do more for ourselves in many areas of new military advantage – the small, the smart and the many’ world of high volume, disposable drone and counter drone systems, already made by Australian companies, for example.

That transition would all come at a price of multiples of our current annual defence spend of $59 billion, on top of the cost of operating and maintaining the force and paying for defence’s civilian and military workforce. And without easy access to American resupply, we’d need to build deeper domestic supply chains and create new international ones.  Support and maintenance is even more expensive than the eyewatering price tags of high end things like advanced fighters and submarines.

It wouldn’t replace the intelligence access we get from the US-centred Five Eyes grouping.

But, tripling the defence budget for a couple of decades – and giving up on nuclear submarine dreaming – could build this new Australian military untethered from America. 

Unfortunately, it would probably still mean we’d struggle to live in a region not dominated by Beijing unless America worked with others to contest this while we watched.

I doubt any of this alternative future is what Anthony Albanese or Treasurer Chalmers want to contemplate. And the voices for an independent Australia finding its security in Asia also never seem to tell us this is what that vision would take.

Maybe working closely with a difficult America and with our other partners and allies isn’t such a bad plan.  It’s the only one that looks like working.

This article was first published in the Australian Financial Review.