Our politicians are deer in the headlights of history. But Zelenskyy showed how to lead

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has done the rest of the world an enormous favour by not merely showing how Donald Trump should be dealt with, but also by fully tearing the MAGA mask off the United States and revealing its capricious, egotistical and unreliable nature. There is now nowhere for any credible leader in the West to hide from the reality that the post-war security environment that kept Western countries safe for two generations is gone.

Anthony Albanese believes he can continue to hide. He immediately emerged on Sunday morning to declare that Australia stood with Ukraine, but continued with his stolid refusal to express a view on Trump. It’s becoming an increasingly difficult line to maintain — if Australia stands with Ukraine, it cannot stand with the US, which seeks to impose economic vassalage on the country (without any concomitant security guarantees) and hand large parts of its territory over to the vile regime that attacked it. The statement “We stand with Ukraine” no longer makes sense in the absence of the rider “including against Donald Trump’s bullying”.

At least the prime minister had something to say. Peter Dutton has pulled another of his disappearing acts. His hard-man stuff is just an act — all that bravado directed at easy targets like refugees or journalists vanishes when he’s faced with a difficult choice. As usual, shadow ministers found themselves having to navigate the politics their leader wanted to avoid. “We’re fully supportive of the Ukraine at this time,” Angus Taylor said, sounding a bit like a club president saying he had “full confidence” in a losing coach. Shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie suggested wasting billions of dollars on more F-35s would placate Trump. Home affairs shadow minister James Paterson said we should be doubling down on cooperating with the Americans.

So, those are the policy options on offer: Labor pretending that everything will be fine if we don’t upset Trump; the Coalition wanting to throw taxpayer money at him to stay in his good books.

But Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelenskyy shows that’s simply untenable. The US is a direct threat to Western nations in its determination to dictate other countries’ domestic policies and undermine their security by sacrificing their interests to thugs like Putin. The world has changed, radically and in ways unknown since the 1940s. But Albanese and Dutton aren’t reacting. They’re like deer in the headlights of history.

The first, most urgent issue for reappraisal is AUKUS. No-one can now credibly maintain that AUKUS is anything other than a doomed venture. It was always highly risky — neither the US nor the UK have the capacity to build additional submarines for Australia, and in fact will be flat-out building the ones they themselves need. If they ever arrive, we don’t have the workforce to maintain or crew them. But now, we’re in the position of paying a standover merchant for them. There’s literally nothing to stop Trump from simply jacking the price up endlessly. Another $5 billion. Then $10 billion. Where does it stop? The risk to the budget is simply too great.

If Anthony Albanese was capable of moving fast — which he isn’t — he’d immediately send Malcolm Turnbull on a trip to the Élysée Palace to beg Emmanuel Macron to find out if he can get Naval Group to agree to build nuclear submarines off the shelf for Australia. Chances are the bill would be a fraction of the $368 billion we’ve signed up for.

The next step needs to be a cool, cross-party assessment of what Australia needs to do to prosper in a world without our traditional security guarantor. Former prime ministers and foreign ministers of both sides should be tapped to offer their expertise — hawks, doves, pragmatists, warmongers, it doesn’t matter. Opinions will vary widely, except that all will agree we need to lift defence spending significantly.

That will require its own major policy response. What does it mean for the budget to spend 3-4% of GDP on defence? What does it mean for tax? What does it require from our workforce? How do we work better within our own region? How do we achieve the Keating maxim of security in our region, not security from our region?

And if we’re going to spend a lot more on defence, we need a royal commission into the Department of Defence, which has demonstrated repeatedly that, either because of incompetence or corruption, it cannot be relied on to manage major procurements. At this point, there is no guarantee that the bulk of any increase in defence spending won’t simply be wasted.

As for the more immediate challenge of Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Australia, that can be dealt with. If Trump wants transactional — as his advocates and apologists insist — then give him transactional. If he imposes tariffs, we curb intelligence-sharing with the US. If he maintains tariffs, we pause marine rotations through Darwin. If he threatens Australia’s interests, we suggest Pine Gap might go dark until he realises Australia’s value.

The United States is no longer an ally. It’s just another large country prone to bullying smaller ones. Zelenskyy, who faces an existential threat to his own country, not to mention his life, showed how to deal with it. Have our own leaders, with far less at stake, got the fortitude and sense to heed his example?

Have something to say about this article? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.