It is becoming quite fashionable in Australia to assert that we must now leave our alliance with the United States. This assertion is based on the view that US power is in decline and that we can no longer rely on the US’s global leadership. So, it is argued, we must now focus on going it alone without the US alliance and develop the Australian Defence Force primarily to defend our continent.

This is easier said than done. Those who make such assertions fail to recognise just how small the ADF is. In fact, it is no larger than it was almost 40 years ago, when we considered that we would not face a direct miliary attack without plenty of warning.

I’ve lost count of how often I’ve been with ministers and seen their disbelief when confronted with the reality that the most we could sustain on operations, even for a short time, would be a couple of battalions, two submarines and a continuous combat air patrol, the latter to be maintained for only a few days.

Some commentators, obviously uninformed, even claim we are already fully capable of the defence of this continent.

The fact is that the ADF is essentially a peacetime force capable of handling only low-level contingencies for a limited time. And we’re still capable of only limited forward operations in the north of the continent—that is, only limited operations on our own territory. The ADF has very little capacity for rapid expansion to meet today’s credible miliary threats.

Then there is the abiding nature of our geography, which brings both serious liabilities as well as pluses and which we have yet to exploit fully for our strategic benefit. While it’s true that the inmates of Russell Hill in Canberra, home of the Defence establishment, have long displayed in their offices nice maps of our hemisphere centred on Darwin, the fact is that our forward military bases in the north of Australia have long been in a disgraceful condition and unfit to support military emergencies. This has applied to even basic military supplies, such as aviation fuel.

We have more recently applied some improvements to our northern bases, especially for the use of US strategic bombers, but we have not made the necessary arrangements to develop military bases in the South Pacific. Moreover, we have yet to complete the development on our territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which could potentially be very useful for military operations around the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits—and indeed over the South China Sea.

Moreover, given the development of our strategic relationship with Japan we need to negotiate clearer access to military bases on its territory, to contribute to deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Such an attack could lead to a war catastrophic for Australia, irrespective of our military involvement. And a victory by China in the Taiwan Strait over the US would be a disaster for Washington’s military standing and influence in East Asia, especially given Taiwan’s status and example of a highly successful democracy.

What can we learn from other countries moving to a more independent strategic stance? Nearby is New Zealand, with which we have traditionally had a strong and reliable military relationship. But that was distinctly undermined by Wellington in 1986 declaring that it would not allow visits to New Zealand ports by US naval vessels carrying nuclear weapons or being nuclear powered. Moreover, we have watched with dismay as Wellington’s conventional naval and air power has become something of a joke.

When I was the director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation, I took part in a decision that we could not share classified US satellite photography with Wellington as we prepared for military operations in a particular South Pacific country.

With a more assertive, if not belligerent, China on the prowl ever closer to Australia, the last future we should embrace is that of almost disarmed New Zealand.

Another model that will attract some in Australia is that of Sweden.

When we were building Sweden’s large conventional submarines of the Collins class, I visited Stockholm once a year for 10 years and learned a lot about their defence industry and their survival as an independent neutral country in the Baltic Sea close to the Russians.

With a population less than half that of Australia, it could build and export fighters as well as submarines. Stockholm also planned and prepared seriously for the prospect of nuclear war. That is something we have never done, even when the Australian-US joint facilities at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and Northwest Cape were undoubtedly Soviet nuclear targets. Sweden practised nationwide military service. It is difficult to imagine Australia being similarly hard-nosed in pursuit of military independence.

But now, of course, Sweden has become a member of NATO, so it is no longer a model of strategic independence at all.

So, how might Australia turn towards a more self-reliant defence posture while still maintaining an alliance with the US? My central policy guideline is to demonstrate to Washington that, short of a large attack on Australia by a major power, we would be able to defend ourselves.

The days are gone when we can immediately turn to the US if we are threatened by military challenges in our own region of primary strategic concern. That was made clear to us in 1999 when then prime minister John Howard asked for US military protection as we undertook the multi-nation leadership role for the United Nations in what became an independent East Timor. President Bill Clinton made it very clear that this was a role for Australia’s own military to lead. More than a quarter of a century later we should not still be waiting for Washington to hold our hand when it comes to military contingencies in our own region of primary strategic concern.

The second policy point is not to assume the isolationist tendencies of President Donald Trump will endure after him as a new normal in our bilateral relationship. As the former secretary of foreign affairs Peter Varghese wisely counsels, the US, like all countries, will only ever act according to its own interests and that does not include guaranteeing the security of an ally in all foreseeable circumstances. Contrary to some views in Canberra, Varghese believes that for the next several decades, the world will remain largely bipolar, dominated by the US and China. This will continue to increasingly demand the attention of Washington, which will continue to have its hands full.

Third, we should stop routinely agreeing to US requests for forward defence operations outside our region of primary strategic concern (which includes Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and the northeast Indian Ocean). We’ve become the only ally that always says ‘Yes.’

We need to understand that even limited defence self-reliance is a big task, given the size of our continent and maritime claims, which rank among the biggest in the world. As Varghese points out, we should no longer find security in mistaken notions of acceding to these forward-defence requests at any price.

However, it needs to be plainly understood in Canberra that all this will require significant and sustained increases in our defence spending. As China’s power grows, we need a defence force capable of helping to constrain it in our region of primary strategic concern. This will involve us benefitting from US, as well as Australian, intelligence, surveillance and targeting networks.

Moreover, it is imperative that we quite quickly acquire long-range antiship strike missiles with ranges of more than 2,000 km as well as a much-needed integrated air defence system. And, instead of yet more expensive major platforms—ships, aircraft, big ground vehicles—we need to urgently focus on drones and unmanned combat aircraft and submarines. We should be consulting our quasi-ally Japan about closer co-operation in this urgent new endeavour.

Finally, we need remember that we continue to have privileged access to, among many things, highly classified US weapon systems, such as the top-secret combat systems and weapons on our submarines and in our EA-18G Growler electromagnetic-warfare aircraft. If we left the US alliance, we could not expect continued access to these weapons and others. It needs to be plainly understood that almost no other ally of the US has access to these highly sophisticated weapons.