# Australia: Your strategy is f@cked Around Australia, the region is changing. From South Korea and Japan down through all the ASEAN ten, and reaching into the Pacific, there’s an acceptance that it’s time to gently let America leave. Everyone else in the region knows it’s time. Not Australia—it has AUKUS. It’s pinning the rent money on a trifecta where one horse is lame, another’s knocking at the knackery, the third’s a poorly painted ring-in—and the bookie’s a better runner than all three. South Korea and Japan are playing the right strategy. First, there’s a recognition that the U.S. is no longer reliable, and no longer capable. Slowly but steadily they’re building up an _independent_ capacity. Japan has doubled down on defense spending, long-range strike capabilities, drones, missiles, ammunition stockpiles and its domestic defense industry. South Korea is moving in much the same direction, but from an already formidable industrial base: expanding indigenous weapons production, seeking wartime operational control of its own forces, and now pursuing domestically built nuclear-powered submarines. The alliance remains, but underneath it something important is changing: Seoul and Tokyo are acquiring the means to have choices if Washington cannot—or will not—turn up. South Korea is the clearest thinker. Below the radar, there’s talks of grand bargains, securing a latent nuclear capacity, inviting recognition as a neutral state, and integrating into a China-led region. It’s not a dramatic pivot towards Beijing, nor is it abandoning Washington. It is a slow and steady, gradual adjustment: retain the U.S. alliance while it remains useful (and leverage Trump’s ego where necessary), build greater independent military capacity, repair and strengthen relations with Beijing, deepen economic and social links with China, and most of all, avoid being dragged into American containment of China. Australia? Why, it’s setting up U.S. bases, pouring billions into American shipyards, and clinging to the increasingly forlorn hope that the nuclear submarines it has ordered will actually turn up sometime in the 2030s. While its neighbors are quietly hedging against American decline, Canberra has put its last chips on the table and is hanging around like a wino waiting for the Casino’s last free drink. Living in Seoul, I’ve seen many Australian strategists and foreign policy wonks on government funded trips come by and meet the usual gatekeepers. Then later they, and their government handlers will sit around some 1.5-track conference and regurgitate some sh!te about how Australia and Korea are in the same boat. Australia and Korea are not in the same boat. They’re not even in the same ocean. A good contrast comes from how the countries see the middle power concept. Australia still views the middle power concept like it’s the height of the 1990s. A middle power punches above its weight, uses niche diplomacy, activist diplomacy, coalition building and acts like a good international citizen. Middle powers work with like minded states to pursue… I could go on, but you get the picture. South Korea never really bought into this load of horse shite. It always saw the middle power concept as a status to be secured, and then abandoned. It’s not a national strategy. Indeed, South Korea has a much longer historical and more acutely realist understanding of the concept. Middle powers can’t choose their international structure; they survive by recognizing its form early on, accepting its constraints, and finding the most advantageous place within it. Throughout history, Korean states did just this—adapting to successive regional orders while preserving as much autonomy, prosperity, and security as circumstances allowed. Korea’s relationship with imperial China was hierarchical, but it was also remarkably durable and provided political, economic, and security benefits. Seen this way, South Korea’s accommodation of American primacy after 1945 was less an historical exception than another successful adaptation to the prevailing order. With that order now weakening and a more China-centered regional order emerging, the realist lesson is to not waste national power trying to preserve a structure you can’t control. Understand the new hierarchy, negotiate your position within it, retain whatever autonomy you can, and make yourself valuable to whoever sits at its center. I guess that’s why I never get invited to Australian embassy events. I get invited to other embassies for briefings and dinners, and get to meet visitors from other countries. I mean, a good chunk of the diplomatic corps subscribe to this newsletter. A soul can put up with not being invited when their preferred dinner ensemble is trackies and a singlet, but sometimes, I wonder why. Is it because they’re scared I’d say something inappropriate? Like... Australia: Your strategy is f@cked! You’re alone in the region. You’re the last to realize that change has come. You’ve squandered your God-given resource wealth; you’ve more homeless on the streets than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime; you’ve been working on fast trains since Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up” (改革开放) and still don’t have one; you’re internet still uses copper; you’re paying for nuclear subs that you won’t get, and can’t crew if you did; and your diplomatic and strategic understanding of the region worse than your linguistic competence--and that’s saying something. The U.S will leave the region, and if it doesn’t then it will act as an offshore balancer, and Australia’s up for a frontline seat. But don’t worry, China will never invade or take over. Why? It’ll just buy everything it wants at bargain prices from a stinking homeless-ridden banana republic with nuclear subs. That’s a strategy! Australia: Your strategy is f@cked. It’s only going to get harder from here. *** Please… support a real professor [Buy Me a Coffee](https://buymeacoffee.com/junotane)! ## Related articles - [[2026-09-19 China will never invade Australia|China will never invade Australia]] - [[2026-05-27 Australia and Korea - nuclear subs and sovereignty|Australia and Korea: nuclear subs and sovereignty]] - [[2026-06-25 A banana republic with nuclear subs|A banana republic with nuclear subs]] - [[2024-09-28 Do Koreans know what an echidna is|Do Koreans know what an echidna is?]] - [[2026-06-10 If South Korea had the resources of Australia|If South Korea had the resources of Australia]] - [[2026-06-29 What if middle powers don't exist?|What if middle powers don't exist?]]