2a. Acknowledging that the United States is the only entity that is capable of effectively balancing against the potential exercise of that power in the Asia-Pacific region.
2b. Concluding, therefore, that Australia should seek to maintain good relations with the United States, and that we should welcome USA's continued engagement in the region.
3. Looking beyond the United States, that Australia's interests are served by (1) maintaining a capable defence force, (2) engaging with other regional nations such as Japan and Indonesia, (3) supporting international institutions that, at least in theory, constrain the behaviour of states according to principles that have been mutually agreed upon.
Different folks will place different weights on these things. But in considering where the real divergences come from, there are meaningful differences in how one assesses the threat potential of China. In part that depends on how just broadly or narrowly one conceives of Australia's national interests, but there are also clear ideological dimensions to those differences in threat perception. But I actually think the greater divergence is not in relation to perceptions of China, but in relation to perceptions of the United States and the role that it plays in the dynamic system.
If you believe that Australian interests always align with those of the United States, that the actions of the United States are always determined by rational and virtuous men on the basis of sober and sagacious advice derived from an accurate and complete apprehension of reality, that the United States is an essentially quiescent "status quo" power that seeks nothing more than to continue to preside benevolently over an inherently stable world order, then you will inevitably conclude that the risk of major conflict in the Asia-Pacific emerges solely in proportion to the appetite for such from the PRC and, therefore the closer association we have with the United States, the better. If you do not believe these things, then you may come to very different conclusions about the sources of potential conflict in the international system and where our interests lie in relation. I notice that talk of the United States as a "status quo" power has disappeared from the conversation in recent times. I can't imagine why.
Hugh White writes about our "post-American future" because he believes that the United States will ultimately yield a sphere of influence to China in the Asia-Pacific. White asserts that America's fundamental security interests are not threatened by the rise of China as they were by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, in large part because there is little prospect of China dominating Eurasia as the Soviet Union otherwise threatened to do post-1945. White proceeds to question the balance of power between the United States and China, the material foundations of American power and its commitment, or lack thereof, to preserving that balance of power. Much of the essay, however, is devoted to exploring the balance of resolve, using the war in Ukraine as an extended analogy. He concludes that the balance of resolve in most plausible conflict scenarios favours China, in large part due to the risk of nuclear escalation, as in Ukraine. So: interests, power, resolve, nukes. The meat and potatoes of realist thought.
One of the standard critiques of realist thought is that it fails to reckon with the internal dynamics of nations. In my view, it is precisely when accounting for the internal dynamics of the United States that the risk of major, potentially catastrophic conflict emerges most clearly. Donald Trump is clearly a unique individual but, also as clearly, he is not a "black swan" event in American politics, but a particular expression of various underlying dynamics, trends, interests and tensions within the American political system, at least some of which will outlast him. I have often written here about American mythology, by which I mean the set of American ideas, narratives, perceptions, values and commitments that have endured and evolved from the pre-history of the United States to the present day, arguably reaching their most rigid apotheosis in the triumphalism and unbounded ambition that followed the end of the Cold War. Of course many of these ideas ultimately emerge from the broader western intellectual milieu, and are reflected to a lesser degree in my own nation. I use the word "mythology" quite consciously, in the secular sense of "religion by another name", because I think that the manner in which many of these ideas are held (extremely tightly, as unexamined, talismanic articles of faith that are highly resistant to mere evidence) justifies that comparison.
Specifically, I don't believe that the ideas that Americans have come to have about themselves and their nation can actually recognise and accommodate the rise of China to material equality or superiority, and so I think we should be increasingly concerned about the potential behaviour of the United States as the balance of power continues to evolve. Graham Allison's articulation of the "Thucidydes Trap" received a lot of coverage a few years back, but most of that coverage all but skipped over one of the two key dynamics that he identified: "it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." To be clear, I don't believe that the United States will actively seek war with China. More plausible routes to conflict involve dynamic interactions with third parties (such as Taiwan or the Philippines) exercising their own agency, coupled with a certain ambivalence in Washington to the prospect of conflict, and a corresponding inability to act (or refrain from acting) in ways that are contrary to one's mythological self-image. The realist narrative from John Mearsheimer about the road to war in Ukraine provides a sobering analogy, for those willing to recognise it.
