Australia’s former top diplomat has urged the Albanese government to pursue a more self-reliant defence policy, warning that America would not guarantee the country’s security and that maintaining US global primacy was not a key national interest.
Peter Varghese, who ran the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2012 to 2016, said he wanted policymakers to view the US alliance through more of a transactional lens than a values-based one.