James Curran is Professor of Modern History at Sydney University and the author, most recently, of Unholy Fury: Whitlam and Nixon at War (MUP, 2015) and Fighting With America(Penguin, 2016). He is now working on a project exploring Australia’s relations with China.
This is an excerpt from the speech he gave at the Sovereignty and Security Conference organised by Malcolm Turnbull on Monday
IPAN attended the Press Conference held on Tuesday where former PM Malcolm Turnbull spoke. See IPAN Press Release https://ipan.org.au/national-press-club-event-hears-call-for-a-serious-rethink-of-the-us-alliance-media-release-2-april-2025/
Consider what Australia has done for the US:
We have integrated our armed forces with the much more powerful US forces to the point where not much useful independent action can be taken by Australia. We are the loyal auxiliary of US forces, ready to be taken in small contingents wherever the US military goes, offering a fig leaf or a UN vote where necessary.
The implication and probably the reality is that if conflict between China and the US arose — presumably over Taiwan — we would be there, with little room to exercise sovereignty or an independent decision on whether we should be involved.
The intimacy of our armed forces is to assist US military intimidation of China.
And therefore we have earned hostility in our biggest export market, which will be long lasting even if the Taiwan issue is settled peacefully.
We have assisted the US in reassuring Japan, the Philippines and Singapore at the least that the US wields effective military power in their neighbourhoods; in other words, we have contributed to US pursuit of continuing primacy in East Asia.
We have helped preserve US influence in the South Pacific, despite rising sea levels and the Trump administration’s contempt for climate change.
We have maintained our unwavering support for the US despite the destruction by recent administrations and this Trump administration of the WTO and the international trade rules-based order.
In Pine Gap, we offer a site once essential for US homeland defence from nuclear missile attacks, despite this making Australia a nuclear target. Homeland defence tasks can now be diverted elsewhere, but Alice Springs remains a nuclear target and an essential intelligence gathering facility for war fighting for US forces.
Elsewhere, HMS Stirling, south of Perth, once it hosts the base for nuclear-powered submarines, will also be a nuclear target.
We have in addition to hosting US Marines in Darwin agreed to the stationing of B-52 nuclear bombers at Tindal airfield in the Northern Territory.
Most recently, we have made the first of a number of payments into the US nuclear submarine industrial base.
In terms of what the US has done for us....Read the full article here
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/james-currans-closing-remarks-to-the-sovereignty-and-security-conference-on-31-march/https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/james-currans-closing-remarks-to-the-sovereignty-and-security-conference-on-31-march/