Clinton Fernandes remains one of Australia’s sharpest commentators on defence and security. His background in army intelligence gives him a rare vantage point for understanding the institutional habits and assumptions that shape Canberra’s strategic choices. In books such as Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era and Sub-Imperial Power he places contemporary decisions in historical and geographic perspective, showing how long-standing patterns explain present policy—and why those patterns are increasingly ill-suited to current realities.
Fernandes’ critique of AUKUS and the decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is central to his argument. What is presented as a national boost to shipbuilding and strategic autonomy, he contends, functions largely as a contribution to US combat capability: manpower, territory, resources, finance, diplomatic cover and ideology all reinforcing American military power. This continues an eight-decade habit in which Australian policy is first judged by whether it advances US interests and Canberra’s standing within Washington’s orbit.
That reflex to ingratiate is becoming dangerously rigid at a moment when the United States itself is changing. Fernandes documents how the Trump administration sought to reorder allies and partners—Europe, the Middle East and Asia—around narrow US industrial and strategic goals. Rather than stabilising alliances, this has often produced transactional, one-sided relationships marked more by pressure and conditionality than by reciprocal ties or shared values.
Under such a dynamic, Australia’s eagerness to please has had costs. Canberra has normalised involvement in controversial interventions, lent legitimacy to actions that conflict with expressed commitments to human rights, and accepted double standards when political convenience demands it. Fernandes points to selective outrage on human rights—vigorous criticism of China over Tibet and Xinjiang alongside muted responses to Israeli conduct in Gaza or US covert operations in places like Venezuela—as evidence that human-rights rhetoric is amplified or muted to preserve alignment with US priorities.
Debates about a “China threat” are often framed in ways that obscure political intent and practical motives. Operations presented as defending international law, such as freedom of navigation missions, also collect intelligence and probe capabilities. Treating those operations as politically neutral shields them from democratic scrutiny. Meanwhile, China’s status as the world’s largest trading nation gives it strong incentives to avoid conflict; much of its military modernisation can be interpreted as deterrence and a rational response to an enduring US coercive posture, including nuclear options.
On force structure, Fernandes acknowledges the importance of submarines for an island continent. But he argues the platform choice matters: cheaper air-independent-propulsion submarines could meet Australia’s defensive needs without the same proliferation and strategic-commitment risks posed by nuclear-powered vessels. Critics such as Albert Palazzo and Hugh White converge on the view that matching great-power platforms is not the only—or the best—path to security. The example of New Zealand’s modest defence approach is offered as a counterpoint to costly, prestige-driven acquisitions.
Perhaps more consequential, Fernandes reframes what should count as the most urgent threats. Environmental collapse and climate-driven instability pose immediate and existential risks to Australia that dwarf the chance of a classical invasion or maritime blockade. The Trump-era US was not merely an unreliable partner on climate policy; it actively impeded global mitigation efforts. In Australia, both major parties remain wedded to narrow definitions of the national interest that prioritise fossil-fuel expansion and extractive projects, decisions that will hand escalating turbulence to younger generations.
The value of Fernandes’ critique is that it expands the terms of the security debate beyond force projection and deterrence. He asks whether close alignment with a disruptive, increasingly authoritarian US leadership truly serves Australia’s long-term interests, especially when cooperation with states pursuing aggressive climate action and multilateral stability might produce more durable security. If Canberra persists in subordinating policy to the preservation of US dominance, it risks investing in strategies that increase global instability and compromise Australia’s future resilience.
Mark Beeson is adjunct professor, Australia–China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney
