Australia, the United States, Japan and the Philippines should establish a formal NATO-style defence alliance to counter China’s growing military power in Asia, according to a former top adviser to Joe Biden.
Ely Ratner, who served as Biden’s assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, also urged the Albanese government to significantly increase military spending to ensure that AUKUS does not cannibalise the defence budget and drain resources for other important investments.
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He said he was concerned by Donald Trump’s lack of focus on competition with China and that he feared the US president could make damaging concessions to Beijing when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping this year.
“The threat is mounting from China. China’s ambitions have not moderated. It is building a military to be able to dominate the Indo-Pacific, and it has ambitions for which only combat-credible deterrence will prevent conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” Ratner said in an interview.
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Interesting member list to exclude Korea, whose military is literally larger than the rest of the Pacific members combined.
Maybe because that alliance of actually relevant militaries already exists?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American–Japanese–Korean_trilateral_pact
Though maybe they would want to consider adding the Philippines, with their military twice the size of Australia’s.
And, of course, Australia is already protected by ANZUS and AUKUS, if you consider America a trustworthy partner in the first place.
So the question about this opinion from a Biden official isn’t really why is America not making Pacific treaties, it’s why he doesn’t know they already exist and why Australia isn’t looking to create its own network that doesn’t rely on America.