Australia & Japan Are Seemingly Having Second Thoughts About the De Facto Asian NATO

Yves here. American abuse of its supposed strategic allies has gotten to be so severe and inexcusable that some are having debates in political circles and the media about why they are continuing to accept this treatment. It’s as if the abusive husband intensified his wife-beating even as his income was shrinking due to bad career moves.

Admittedly, the US has been engaged in a stunning show of disrespect and preening sense of entitlement towards Europe, so there’s every reason to see if the US can pull the same stunt on the Pacific Rim. The US harmed all of Europe by promising it would do whatever it takes to beat Russia in Ukraine in a conflict the US sought, drained NATO members of weapons stocks and EU states via non-military Ukraine assistance, and harmed Europe and most of all Germany by blowing up the Nordstream pipeline. But to add insult to injury, the Trump team has threatened the EU with further harm via sanctions while acting as if Europe should further subsidize the US by buying US weapons to continue Project Ukraine, rather than let them derive some modest benefit from continued war-mongering by fabricating their own arms.

Now this pattern is obviously self-destructive, but there’s at least an explanation, which is the Iron Law of Institutions. The US exerts considerable influence in EU institutions and the NGOs that are career ladders and safety nets for pols and bureaucrats. So they see upside in playing nicely with the US and risk if they don’t.

My sense is that while there is, or was, fear of crossing the US among its soi-disant Asian and antipodean allies, the upside is more limited. The Andrew Korybko piece below focuses on a fresh bit of US cheek, in the barely-coded demand by Under Secretary of Defense Eldridge Colby to Japanese and Australian official to pre-commit to assisting the US if things get ugly in its planned escalation with China.

Although space prevents us from giving the full context, Japan and Australia were already souring on the US before the latest demand, Renegotiating such complicated relationships won’t happen quickly, but the fact that both countries are debating whether the US is worth its ever rising price is a seismic shift.

For Japan, Trump’s trade thuggery has been a slap in the face, and the US shows no interest in repairing the damage. Alienating Japan is even more epically stupid than alienating Canada, since Japan is richer and in a more geopolitically important location. Unlike the EU, Japan has also been uncomfortable with its status as a military protectorate¹ but has lacked an internal consensus as to what if anything to do about it.

When Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs, Japan made a point of being one of the first to enter into talks. As former ambassador Chas Freeman recounted it, the Japanese were shocked to find the US completely unprepared, with no proposals as to what it might provide Japan and what it might expect in return, and instead thuggishly asked Japan what it was prepared to offer to escape US tariff punishment.

If you have ever worked with the Japanese, they are extremely loath to complain or argue. The fact that many officials are now sharply criticizing US conduct means they are incandescent. The depth of the souring on the US is confirmed by media reports that Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea were discussing how to coordinate trade talk strategies against the US.

I am pretty sure the translation below was sanitized. The key word reported elsewhere was “gangster”. Note that this was the head of the opposition party and the ruling LPD just suffered its biggest setback in 70 years in upper house elections, with the government’s poor performance in the trade negotiations cited as a big, if not the, reason:

This Japanese MP (whose name is Shinji Oguma) absolutely nails it, and reflects what pretty all countries in Asia are thinking: pic.twitter.com/U1jZahc5Sh

“When Japan negotiates with what [Trump] is saying it’s akin to being extorted by a delinquent.

If Japan gives in, thinking…

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 18, 2025

And there are signs of spine-stiffening:

Japan draws a red line in trade talks with the U.S., rejecting any deal that doesn’t include relief from harsh automobile tariffs. As Washington threatens 25% duties on Japanese goods starting August 1, Tokyo stands firm, refusing to trade away its auto sector or make rushed… pic.twitter.com/wdo4qhfzu9

— Asia Fact-Check (@AsiaFactCheck) July 21, 2025

All is not well in Asia. Japan’s PM called the trade talks “a battle” and urged reduced US dependence.

Seeking more from allies is fine, even appropriate. But how one does it matters because allies have domestic politics, face, agency — and yes, choices. pic.twitter.com/LIC1KgC5fQ

— Rush Doshi (@RushDoshi) July 12, 2025

Now to Australia. The disgraceful AUKUS submarine deal was a massive sellout to the US. For an overview, a section from a 2023 cross post by Prabir Purkayastha:

The recent Australia, U.S., and UK $368 billion deal on buying nuclear submarines has been termed by Paul Keating, a former Australian prime minister, as the “worst deal in all history.” It commits Australia to buy conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines that will be delivered in the early 2040s. These will be based on new nuclear reactor designs yet to be developed by the UK. Meanwhile, starting from the 2030s, “pending approval from the U.S. Congress, the United States intends to sell Australia three Virginia class submarines, with the potential to sell up to two more if needed” (Trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. Partnership on Nuclear-Powered Submarines, March 13, 2023; emphasis mine). According to the details, it appears that this agreement commits Australia to buy from the U.S. eight new nuclear submarines, to be delivered from the 2040s through the end of the 2050s. If nuclear submarines were so crucial for Australia’s security, for which it broke its existing diesel-powered submarine deal with France, this agreement provides no credible answers.

For those who have been following the nuclear proliferation issues, the deal raises a different red flag. If submarine nuclear reactor technology and weapons-grade (highly enriched) uranium are shared with Australia, it is a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which Australia is a signatory as a non-nuclear power. Even the supplying of such nuclear reactors by the U.S. and the UK would constitute a breach of the NPT. This is even if such submarines do not carry nuclear but conventional weapons as stated in this agreement.

So why did Australia renege on its contract with France, which was to buy 12 diesel submarines from France at a cost of $67 billion, a small fraction of its gargantuan $368 billion deal with the U.S.? What does it gain, and what does the U.S. gain by annoying France, one of its close NATO allies?

And as Satyajit Das noted:

American willingness or ability to support allies, other than with financial assistance and low risk stand-off weaponry, is questionable. Outside of minor affairs like Panama and Granada, the US record in military combat is unimpressive. For Australians tied to the US and UK through the opaque 2021 AUKUS defence agreement, the possibility of being drawn into a military conflict with China and the prospect of the American cavalry not reporting for duty is a clear concern. The parallel to Great Britain’s abandonment of Australia during the World War 2 is striking.

The criticism has become even more fierce as new bad facts are coming out, including a campaign to exit AUKUS:

Australia “could sacrifice sovereignty” in AUKUS alignment, says Former FM #opinions pic.twitter.com/QVf3kdPVHb

— T-House (@thouse_opinions) July 15, 2025

You thought the toxic nuclear submarines were the worst part of AUKUS. It gets worse… much worse. pic.twitter.com/DEsX0fQn8y

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) July 10, 2025

Nuclear waste costs are expected to double the already nosebleed level price tag. As the Michael West site explains (which ample detail):

Everything about AUKUS nuclear waste is a political secret, including the cost, which will more than double the $368B announced AUKUS price tag. Former submariner Rex Patrick with the story.

If we ever get these subs, the total price tag may well be over $1 trillion. I’m in the Federal Court at present, trying to pry open a November 2023 report into how the Government intends to deal with the high-level nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines.

But there’s already a lot we can deduce by combining what has been extracted from the Government using Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, from Senate testimony and also looking at how the United States does and doesn’t take care of its naval nuclear waste.

For starters, there was a short but insightful exchange in Senate Estimates last year between Senator Lidia Thorpe and the head of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA), Admiral Jonathon Mead.

After making quick reference to the cost of nuclear waste facilities overseas, Senator Thorpe asked about the waste costs for AUKUS, “There’s no costing as yet; is that right?” Mead responded, “That’s correct”.

For an organisation that is required to cost its capability from cradle to grave, including support facilities, it’s a huge omission. It might be the case that they’re too frightened to do the math

We’ll see if the backbenchers have enough support to move the leadership:

Rank-and-file Labor members in Victoria are preparing to launch a blistering attack on US president Donald Trump and demand the Albanese government withdraw from AUKUS.https://t.co/gBfNxeG8Xe

— Financial Review (@FinancialReview) July 22, 2025

Now to the main event.

By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website

Playing any role in a Sino-US war over Taiwan, even a logistical one, could provoke Chinese retaliation.

The Financial Times reported that US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby recently asked Australian and Japanese defense officials how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan. He also asked them to boost defense spending after NATO just agreed to do so during its latest summit. Colby lent credence to this report by tweeting that he’s “focused on implementing the President’s America First, common sense agenda of restoring deterrence and achieving peace through strength.”

This sequence shows that Trump 2.0 is serious about “Pivoting (back) to (East) Asia” in order to more robustly contain China. This requires freezing the Ukrainian Conflict and assembling a de facto Asian NATO, however, both of which are uncertain. As regards the first, Trump is being drawn into “mission creep”, while the latter is challenged by Australia’s and Japan’s reluctance to step up. To elaborate, they seemingly expected the US to do all the “heavy lifting”, just like NATO expected till recently as well.

That would explain why they didn’t have a clear answer to Colby’s inquiry about how their countries would respond to a war over Taiwan. Simply put, they likely never planned to do anything at all, thus exposing the shallowness of the de facto Asian NATO that the US has sought to assemble in recent years via the AUKUS+ format. This refers to the AUKUS trilateral of Australia, the UK, and the US alongside what can be described as the honorary members of Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Australia and Japan are correspondingly envisaged as this informal bloc’s Southeast and Northeast Asian anchors, yet they’re evidently unwilling to fulfill the military roles that their US senior partner expects. What it apparently had in mind was them at the very least playing supportive logistical roles in the scenario of a Sino-US war but their representatives reportedly didn’t even suggest as much to Colby. This in turn reveals that they fear retaliation from China even if they don’t participate in combat.

Japan’s population and resultant economic density make it extremely vulnerable to Chinese missile strikes while unconventional warfare could be waged against Australia through sabotage and the like. Moreover, China is their top trade partner, which opens up additional avenues for retaliation. At the same time, however, neither of them wants China to seize control of Taiwan’s TSMC (if it even survives a speculative conflict) and obtain a monopoly over the global semiconductor industry.

The US doesn’t want that either, but the problem is that the two envisaged anchors of its de facto Asian NATO aren’t willing to boost defense spending nor seemingly assist America in a war over Taiwan. That’s unacceptable from Trump 2.0’s perspective so tariff and other forms of pressure could be applied for coercing Australia and Japan into at least spending more on their armed forces. The endgame, however, is for them to agree to play some sort of role (whether logistical or ideally combative) in that scenario.

Seeing as how the US won’t relent on its “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia”, it’ll likely coerce the aforesaid concessions from Australia and Japan one way or another. The same goes for the other members of AUKUS+, namely South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan, albeit with perhaps a little less defense spending from the last two. All in all, “The US Is Rounding Up Allies Ahead Of A Possible War With China” as was assessed in May 2023, but it’s anyone’s guess whether it actually plans to spark a major conflict.

____

¹ Depending on who is doing the grading, Japan’s self defense force ranks between number five and number 8 in military power. An important white paper argued for increasing defense spending from 1% of GDP to 2% by 2027.