Once again, Trump has broken the mould. The 100-day mark is traditionally used to assess a new administration’s progress in advancing its policy agenda. With Trump, that’s impossible.
The future of Taiwan, important though that is in itself, has become the focus of something much bigger – the strategic contest between America and China over which of them will be the primary strategic power in East Asia over the decades ahead.
Australia must deal now with an inexperienced American leadership inclined to reject expertise. Intelligence chiefs have been removed from the most important decision-making apparatus, the National Security Council, and replaced with ideologues. The potential for grave errors of judgment appears greater than in years.
Although the Australia-US alliance is a relationship of longstanding mutual benefit, Canberra now needs to take very seriously the possibility of its ally devising plans that are not well matched to the risks the nation now faces, Greg Raymond writes.
Now we know. For 20 years Australians have been happy to assume that America had the strength and resolve to remain the world's leading power. In particular, our leaders have assured us that we can rely on America's power and judgment to manage China's rise, to keep Asia stable and Australia safe. But now we know that America is not the country we thought it was.
The US-China relationship - arguably the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world - is defined by an abiding paradox: while the two countries