A panel of experts unpacked Japan’s National Security Strategy and explored the opportunities and challenges for Australia-Japan-US trilateral strategic cooperation under Trump 2.0. The panel featured two prominent strategic thinkers from the US and Japan.

Few countries have done more to reorganise themselves for a new era of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific than Japan. Building on the strategic vision of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Build-Up Plan provided a new framework for Japan to assume a more active and assertive role in regional security affairs. Since then, successive Japanese leaders have introduced new pieces of legislation, strengthened key national security institutions, increased national defence spending, and expanded Japan’s defence partnerships with the United States and Australia, including trilaterally, to address an increasingly volatile regional and global security environment.

The logic of such cooperation remains sound even with the second coming of Donald Trump. Yet even trusted US allies like Japan and Australia are facing difficulties and uncertainty in their relationships with Washington. The threat of tariffs, demands for increased defence spending, reviews of marquee initiatives like AUKUS, and the dismantling of key US national security and diplomatic agencies all pose challenges to Australia, Japan and trilateral cooperation.

How have Japan’s security policies developed in recent years? What more must be done to fully implement those changes? How are Australia and Japan navigating their relationships with Trump 2.0? Where is the trilateral defence partnership headed?

To discuss these questions, USSC hosted a panel discussion featuring Yuki Tatsumi, Senior Director at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security; Hirohito Ogi, Senior Research Fellow with the Institute of Geoeconomics at the International House of Japan, and Tom Corben, Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the USSC, moderated by USSC Professor and CEO Dr Michael Green.

This event was part of the United States Studies Centre’s Assessing Implementation of Abe’s National Security Strategy supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation.

Three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the second Trump administration has made sweeping changes to US foreign policy priorities and moved to limit US support for Ukraine. In the last six months, the world has seen an explosive Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, NATO states pledging to increase their defence spending to as much as 5% of GDP, and continued Russian attacks on Ukraine. With future US support for Ukraine appearing to be uncertain, key questions about Ukraine’s future arise:

• Beyond budget pledges, how will European states respond to US demands for them to step up their defence contributions to Ukraine?
• What role should Australia play in the ongoing conflict?
• What will the second Trump administration mean for Ukraine’s future?

To discuss these questions, the USSC hosted a panel discussion featuring USSC Senior Lecturer Dr Gorana Grgić, University of Sydney Senior Lecturer Dr Olga Boichak, and Griffith Asia Institute Associate Professor (Adjunct) Dr Matthew Sussex, moderated by USSC Director of Research Jared Mondschein.

The event began with a virtual address by Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia His Excellency Vasyl Myroshnychenko.

The transition to a new US Administration has sharpened Washington’s focus on the Indo-Pacific, while also exposing deep strategic and political tensions shaping the future of American foreign and defence policy.

Competing pressures — between isolationism and interventionism, reassurance and burden-sharing with allies, and fiscal restraint versus demands for force modernisation and advanced capabilities like ‘Golden Dome’ — are creating uncertainty around how the US will deter what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called China’s “imminent threat” to Taiwan.

These tensions raise urgent questions: How has (and hasn’t) the US approach to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific changed under the new Administration? Are US forces adequately postured to support US regional interests and alliance commitments? Where are the major fault lines in US regional strategy, and what do they mean for the future of regional security and US influence in the Indo-Pacific?

To unpack these issues, the United States Studies Centre hosted a fireside chat with Kelly Magsamen, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Senior Advisor at The Asia Group. The conversation was moderated by Professor Peter Dean, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre.

This event is part of the United States Studies Centre's ‘Next Generation Leaders in the Australia-US Alliance’ project which is supported by funding from the US State Department.

For more than five decades following the 1972 rapprochement between the United States and China, the two countries seemed to be steadily building a sound relationship, even accounting for periodic setbacks like the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The last decade, though, has seen a sharp increase in tensions and a complete reorientation of US policies toward China — from “engagement” to “competition.” Australia, too, has changed its approach to its largest trading partner.

What happened? Where is strategic competition heading? And what should US allies like Australia know?

This United States Studies Centre event featured Professor David Shambaugh, a world-renowned China scholar and author of “Breaking the Engagement: How China Won and Lost America”.

The future of the global economic order is in flux. Beijing's coercive economic policies, President Trump’s unprecedented tariffs, and the embrace of industrial policies around the world have cast doubt on the future of international economic rules. Globally, countries like Australia are being forced to contend with a more fragmented economic landscape that is affecting trade and technology flows, supply chains, multilateral institutions, and relations with the major powers.

In this era of unpredictability, critical questions arise:

• Where are Trump's tariffs heading and how will they impact US economic relations and the United States as a place to do business?
• Are the US and China heading for economic decoupling?
• How should countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India navigate great power competition and economic pressure?
• What is the impact on alliance relations?
• What role will minilateral and regional groups play in shaping a post-tariff global order?

These questions were discussed by leading expert in diplomacy and economic affairs in East Asia, Ambassador Kurt Tong and USSC CEO, Dr Michael J. Green, at a public event moderated by USSC Director of Economic Security Hayley Channer.

To launch USSC senior lecturer Dr Kathryn Schumaker's new book, Tangled Fortunes: The Hidden History of Interracial Marriage in the Jim Crow South (Basic Books, 2025), Dr Schumaker was joined by scholars Dr Michael Green, Associate Professor Frances Clarke, and Dr Aaron Nyerges to discuss the themes of the book.

Prior to the US Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, most American states prohibited interracial marriages at one time or another. But as Dr Schumaker reveals in Tangled Fortunes, such laws did not effectively prevent interracial marriages. Indeed, enforcement of such laws was inconsistent when it came to relationships between white men and Black women. In some Southern communities, such unions were tolerated – though often subject to social disapproval. The book offers a new narrative of the rise and fall of racial segregation from the perspectives of ordinary people whose primary goal was to keep their families together in the face of great difficulty.

• Read the Wall Street Journal review of Tangled Fortunes.

Out of sight, out of mind. Low Earth Orbit has undeniably become busier, with upwards of 10,000 satellites and millions of pieces of space debris currently in orbit. With vital services—ranging from communications to climate monitoring, national defence, and financial services—increasingly reliant on space, the proliferation of space assets and debris, and the associated risks of collisions, explosions, and anti-satellite warfare have become a major political issue.

Countries have developed new tools and cultivated norms to improve traffic management and space sustainability. However, amid a proliferation of space stakeholders; the absence of binding international agreements; and challenges in monitoring activities in space, significant gaps remain.

How are public and private actors navigating the challenges of growing congestion in space? How can international frameworks like the Outer Space Treaty be strengthened to address these risks? And how can space sustainability be integrated into the national security policy debate?

To address these questions, the United States Studies Centre was pleased to host a webinar with Audrey M. Schaffer. Ms Schaffer is an internationally recognised expert in space policy, currently serving as Vice President of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace and Non-Resident Senior Associate with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She previously served in the US government for over 15 years, holding positions in the Executive Office of the President, Department of Defense, Department of State, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Ms Schaffer led the US delegation that negotiated the UN Guidelines for Space Sustainability and, from 2021–23, served as Director for Space Policy on the National Security Council of the Biden-Harris Administration.

This webinar was hosted by Dr Kathryn Robison, Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre and Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Space Governance.

This event was made possible with funding from the US State Department.

As space technologies proliferate and international political competition heats up, space has become a hotly contested strategic and operational domain. The rise of space-related threats, from increased orbital congestion to the proliferation of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons now threatens to upend the international balance of power and drive crisis instability and arms racing between the world’s major powers.

What are the strategic implications of the militarisation of space? How have space threats evolved since the Cold War ‘Space Race’? What measures exist to safeguard critical space infrastructure and to manage space traffic? And how are space-based threats reflected in Australian policy and strategic thinking?

To discuss these issues, the United States Studies Centre hosted a panel featuring the following experts:

• Audrey Schaffer, an internationally recognised expert in space policy and former Director for Space Policy on the National Security Council staff. Ms Schaffer is currently the Vice President of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace and a Non-Resident Fellow with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
• Professor Melissa de Zwart, Deputy Director and Chief Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space, and Professor of Space Law and Governance at the University of Adelaide. Professor de Zwart is a prominent legal scholar, working in the areas of commercial and military uses of outer space, encompassing both domestic and international space law.
• Aude Vignelles, Director of Vignelles Space and former Chief Technology Officer of the Australian Space Agency. At the Australian Space Agency, Ms Vignelles was a core contributor in the development of the technical roadmaps of the Australian Civil Space Strategy.

The event was moderated by Dr Kathryn Robison, Lecturer in American Studies at the United States Studies Centre and a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Space Governance. The panel will be followed by audience Q&A.

This event was made possible with funding from the US State Department.