As Donald Trump upends geopolitics what happens to Five Eyes and AUKUS?

By global affairs editor John Lyons, ABC

As Donald Trump sets about overturning many of the assumptions of global politics, for Australia the key national security question is clear: what will Trump's new world mean for the Five Eyes alliance and AUKUS?

Since 1945, the bedrock of Australia's defence and intelligence framework has been the alliance with the US.

Under the Five Eyes agreement, the US, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand share most of their intelligence.

An exclusive club

While each country retains the right to keep certain material to itself - sometimes Australia will designate a limited amount of intelligence "AUSTEO", or Australian Eyes Only - the assumption is that most intelligence will be shared.

The countries share raw intelligence before it has been analysed. So if the Australian Secret Intelligence Service or Britain's MI6 have a particularly well placed agent in Beijing or Tehran, for example, the other countries can benefit from this human intelligence, or HUMINT.

Many countries, including Israel, have long wanted to join this agreement, making it Six or Seven Eyes. But this is one of the world's most elite and secretive clubs, and the members do not want to admit new members.

The US, with its wealth and technological strength, has the most extensive intelligence network in the world largely in the form of HUMINT, which is collected mainly by officers and agents from the well-resourced Central Intelligence Agency.

The other comes from electronic surveillance, run by the National Security Agency. Given the capability of the US, the information it gathers from its electronic footprint is extraordinary. Then add to that one of Australia's major contributions - information gathered from the Pine Gap facility near Alice Springs - and Australia is intertwined with Washington's intelligence gathering.

But if anything has become clear since Trump was re-elected, it's that nothing can be taken for granted. It's clear that he is viewing the world through a transactional lens - the real currency has become what a country has to offer to Trump and the US.

What does Australia offer?

Author and filmmaker Richard Kerbaj says Australia offers the alliance a great deal.

"One of Australia's greatest intelligence advantages is its geographic proximity to the greatest economic, geopolitical and security rival facing the western world - China," says Kerbaj, an Australian journalist based in London who has written a definitive book on intelligence, The Secret History of the Five Eyes.

"Australian human and signals intelligence agencies play an outsized role in covering central and South Asia. And when it comes to real estate, Australia is home to Pine Gap which is one of the alliance's most valuable interception platforms in the eastern hemisphere."

Kerbaj says Five Eyes could not have been formed without Australia. The experiment of bringing together security officials from the five countries for operational purposes took place in Melbourne in 1942 - 14 years before the alliance's official formation.

"At the time, General MacArthur was the allied commander of the South Pacific region during WWII and he was running his operations from Australia," he says. "He created an Allied signals intelligence division and recruited codebreakers from the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand to form the wartime Cipher Bureau in Melbourne which then relocated to Brisbane in 1943."

In his book, Kerbaj writes that originally Pine Gap was to serve as a ground station for the control of US spy satellites and to intercept a range of targets, including commercial communications, and tests of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear weapons.

"The programme's reach through strategically positioned spy bases in Five Eyes countries was eventually expanded to spy on the telephone, fax, and online communications between both public and private organisations, as well as ordinary citizens worldwide."

A club within a club

For the book, Kerbaj interviewed Mike Burgess, Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Burgess said the Five Eyes label was often misused, telling Kerbaj: "So Five Eyes is an intelligence thing, not five nations that would do everything together outside of intelligence - and that is an important factor."

But AUKUS has created a club within a club. As Kerbaj writes: "The existence of AUKUS has somewhat created a two-tier system - or at least the impression of one - within the Five Eyes. Intelligence officials are quick to push back against that view. And that is largely because, as it stands, AUKUS does not hamper conventional intelligence sharing outside of the trilateral defence pact. But it does illustrate to Canada and New Zealand that, at least on one level, they do not belong in the big league with the three others."

So where to now for Australian intelligence under Donald Trump?

Defence analyst Hugh White says Australian leaders are telling the public that the Trump presidency will make no difference to key elements of the alliance with the US, including AUKUS and Five Eyes and that's a "big mistake".

"Trump has transformed American politics and policy. In foreign policy he rejects all the old orthodoxies, including the commitment to US global leadership of the Rules Based Order and the central role of US alliances in sustaining that leadership," says White, a former deputy secretary for strategy and intelligence in the Department of Defence and now emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.

"He sees America using America's power to serve US interests alone. And this time, unlike his first term, he has people around him like Secretary of State Marco Rubio who agree with him and will make things happen. As we are already seeing, a compliant Congress and a sympathetic Supreme Court give him a lot of power to reshape the US government, and America itself."

White says Australia should expect Washington to be much more sceptical of the value of Five Eyes, and much less willing to do Australian any favours.

"The long-standing Five Eyes co-operation on things like intelligence have deep institutional roots which will take time and effort to overturn, but just keeping the old arrangements going will not help us meet the quite different and much greater demands we face over coming decades," he says.

"They would need to be transformed to meet the new demands of a new era, and the Trump Administration will have little appetite for that."

Under Trump, White says, America's broad strategic objectives have fundamentally shifted.

"Trump is fixated on China as an economic rival, and on keeping China out of America's backyard in the Western Hemisphere, but he has no real interest in resisting China's strategic ambitions in Asia," he says.

"So Australia matters a lot less to him that it did to Biden."

What about AUKUS?

As to AUKUS, White says it was always in deep trouble but that the trouble has deepened under Trump. The AUKUS plan to pass US Virginia class nuclear-powered fleet submarines to the Royal Australian Navy means weakening the US Navy to help Australia which, he says, "makes no sense at all to a man who wants to maximise America's strength and doesn't care about allies".

"The best Canberra can hope for is that Trump, recognising that he has us over a barrel, will jack up the price - and not just be demanding more dollars," White says.

"More likely, as the hand-over approaches, he will pull out of the deal. Quite possibly he will do both."

AUKUS, says White, was a bad idea for three reasons.

"Firstly, we do not need nuclear powered subs because conventional subs are much more cost-effective for our needs. Instead of eight nuclear boats we should be getting 24 (or more) conventional boats for less money," he says.

"Secondly, we will not get them, because the US will not be willing to weaken its sub force by passing Virginia-class SSNs that it desperately needs itself to Australia, and the plan for a joint UK-Australian build of the follow on AUKUS-class boats that are supposed to follow them is full of holes.

"Thirdly, AUKUS tied us into support for the Biden administration's half-baked containment strategy towards China, which was never going to work but which increased the risk of catastrophic war."

White's assessment is blunt: "The sooner we cut our losses and get out of AUKUS the better, and if the Trump administration's scepticism offers a chance to do so, we should grab it."

White says that "Trump's animosity" to the US security and intelligence establishment is much more a problem for the establishment than it is for Trump - and that that is a problem for Australia.

"Trump is already showing how determined he is to radically overhaul them - witness his nomination of maverick Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intel community," he says.

"There is a real risk that Australia's old friends in that community will become a liability not an asset. The harder the old intelligence establishment argues to preserve and expand cooperation with Australia, the more sceptical and indeed hostile Trump and his team will become."

AUKUS could 'collapse under its own weight'

International affairs analyst Allan Behm says because of its long delivery time - "effectively the best part of half a century" - AUKUS will stand or fall on its own merits, without much reference to Trump's preferences over the next four years.

"During Trump's presidency, Australia will be contributing around $4 billion to the construction capabilities of the US submarine contractors' yards," says Behm, a former head of the International Policy and Strategy Divisions of the Department of Defence and now special adviser to the International and Security Affairs program at The Australia Institute.

"Trump will do Australia no favours and will be happy to accept Australian cash without feeling obliged to ensure that Australia gets any return on its investment. The problems facing the delivery of the AUKUS submarines are profound."

Behm says the US production rate is too slow to deliver the vessels within its navy's timeframe and the delivery of attack submarines - the Virginia class that are intended to meet Australia's interim needs - is falling behind while there's a "serious backlog" in the repair and maintenance of those that have been delivered. Meanwhile, he says, the new ballistic missile submarine - the Ohio class - is already "cannibalising the submarine construction system as it competes for construction, systems integration and trials resources".

"Beyond these structural and industrial constraints, there remain serious reservations within US naval circles about Australia's ability to manage, man and maintain such an advanced nuclear propelled submarine," he says.

"So, whatever position President Trump might adopt - and he is unlikely to be particularly helpful - AUKUS is more likely to collapse under its own weight."

Behm says there's no indication that Trump has given any thought to AUKUS.

"Prime Minister Albanese, during his conversation congratulating President Trump on his election, mentioned both ANZUS and AUKUS," says Behm. "Whether Trump knew what Albanese was talking about is moot. He would be happy enough for the US to make money out of Australia's purchase of advanced submarines systems, but without any disadvantage to the US Navy. And to the extent that Australia becomes interchangeable with the US Pacific forces - to use Defence Minister Richard Marles's expression - Trump would probably see Australia as a strategically dependent client state, similar to Canada but even less problematic. It would be an example of 'burden sharing' that he would probably boast about."

Behm says that for Trump, AUKUS is not an urgent matter, "not least of all because it is largely irrelevant to Trump's approach to global affairs".

"Trump is interested in money as the principal determinant of power. He is not interested in strategy for its own sake. If Trump is advised that AUKUS is bad for America, or a constraint on the power and agility of the US Navy, he would kill it without compunction. Otherwise, he will let matters take their own course without any further consideration. He will certainly not champion AUKUS - another reason for its inevitable demise."

Behm says there is as yet no indication that Trump intends to impose tariffs directly on Australia but the nation would be inevitably caught up in the aftermath of the tariff regime being imposed on Canada, China, Mexico and the EU.

"But Trump's easy resort to tariffs as an instrument of bludgeoning coercion in the management of America's international interests is counter to Australian interests," he says.

"It puts Australia between a rock and a hard place. Quiet connivance and reluctant acceptance are counterproductive. Australia may well find itself having to complain and resist."

'No direct threat to AUKUS'

Long-time US observer and former Democrat staffer in Washington, Bruce Wolpe has a more positive view of the future of AUKUS.

"The early indications are that AUKUS is viewed positively by the Trump team," says Wolpe, a senior fellow (non-resident) at the United States Studies Centre in Sydney.

"One of the first meetings by Secretary of State Marco Rubio was with Foreign Minister Penny Wong. There has been no negative mention of AUKUS from the White House nor from the new Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth. Bipartisan support in Congress continues to be quite strong. I believe Trump will want a review of the contracts, flow of jobs and dollars, and technology transfer to ensure the deal cements full value to the United States - and that may trigger some adjustments. So at present, no direct threat to AUKUS."

Wolpe says he believes there is more vulnerability on trade issues between Australia and the US than on AUKUS.

"Trump campaigned on universal tariffs on all imports into the US, with no exceptions mentioned. There should be no US tariffs on Australia because of our free trade agreement with the US - now 20 years old - and because the US has a trade surplus with Australia. So we will see. That AUKUS is with the UK of course gives it more insurance."

Wolpe echoes White's view that a key issue will be Trump's distrust of US intelligence agencies.

"There is underway at this moment a purge within the FBI of people who Trump does not trust. The same will occur at CIA. So this suspicion of and antagonism to the intelligence establishment will diminish, in Trump's eyes, his trust in Five Eyes - and likely affect the degree of trust among the other partners."

This story was first published by the ABC.