Manufacturing Consent in the Indo-Pacific: Richard Marles, Peter Hegseth, and the Strategic Surrender of Australian Sovereignty

In the opulent conference halls of Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue this week—where power is paraded as diplomacy and strategy masquerades as inevitability—Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles delivered a performance cloaked in gravitas but riddled with contradictions. His embrace of U.S. military primacy in the Indo-Pacific, presented as pragmatic realism, was in fact a wilful submission to an agenda not shaped in Canberra but in Washington. That his remarks were so enthusiastically paired with those of U.S. Defence Secretary (and Signal text-leaker) Pete Hegseth—whose speech verged on triumphalist exceptionalism—only underscores the extent to which Australia has forfeited its strategic independence under the guise of deterrence.

Hegseth, in his first major regional address since his appointment by Donald Trump, set the tone with an unflinching declaration: the Indo-Pacific is now “the priority theatre” for American military power. His solution? More weapons, more integration, and more spending. He called on Asian allies to "sharpen their spears" and dramatically increase defence budgets. In return, the U.S. would escalate its forward presence, including conducting its first-ever live-fire test of mid-range missile systems on Australian soil in the coming months. The symbolism was unmistakable: Australia is not just a partner; it is now a proving ground.

Rather than distance himself from this muscular escalation, Marles echoed Hegseth’s call to arms, declaring America’s presence “deeply welcome” and stating baldly that “there is no effective balance of power in this region absent the United States.” It was a speech devoid of ambiguity and rich with deference. Yet it also raises an uncomfortable question: at what cost?

Marles insisted that Australia must not leave the heavy lifting to the U.S. alone, reiterating that his government is undertaking the “largest peacetime increase in defence spending since the Second World War,” amounting to $330 billion over the next decade. But that still wasn’t enough for Hegseth—or for the hawks in Washington. Behind closed doors and in media interviews, the U.S. has been pushing for Australia to commit even more. Hegseth himself stopped short of naming a figure, but the pressure was unmistakable. “Shared security requires shared sacrifice,” he said. “Our allies must invest proportionally to the threats we face.”

Yet what exactly are those threats?

China’s military expansion is real and should not be dismissed, but to speak of it without reference to America’s encirclement strategy—complete with missile deployments, nuclear submarine transfers, and joint war games off the Chinese coast—is strategic storytelling, not objective analysis. The Indo-Pacific is being transformed not into a stable multilateral security environment, but a staging ground for hegemonic rivalry. Australia, far from playing the role of impartial regional mediator, has elected to be the southern anchor of U.S. power projection.

It is precisely here that Marles’s invocation of “liberal trade” as a stabilising force tips into the absurd. The Indo-Pacific is not a playground of free markets, but a contested zone where trade, technology, and supply chains are all being securitised. Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs—now including a blanket 10% levy on Australian exports to the U.S. and a doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminium—are a case in point. Washington's economic nationalism is not a temporary aberration but a structural shift. That Marles could laud America’s stabilising presence while ignoring the destabilising consequences of these protectionist measures is either a failure of analysis or an act of deliberate omission.

The cognitive dissonance reaches its peak when Marles warns of nuclear proliferation, even as he applauds the deepening of AUKUS—a trilateral pact that hinges on the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines and the embedding of Australian forces into American war-fighting logistics. For a country that refuses to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and which is now hosting U.S. mid-range missile tests, to lecture others about proliferation is nothing short of Orwellian.

Indeed, the most chilling revelation of this summit is not what was said but what was left unsaid. There was no discussion of peacebuilding mechanisms, no appeal for arms control agreements, no acknowledgment that the rush to militarisation may itself be the destabilising force. The logic of deterrence—more weapons, more integration, more escalation—is presented as immutable, as if history has not repeatedly shown how such thinking leads to catastrophe.

Timor-Leste’s President José Ramos-Horta, sharing the stage with Marles, injected a rare note of sobriety. His observation that smaller nations “watch from the periphery with growing concern” speaks to the reality that many in the region do not share this enthusiasm for great power militarism. They understand that conflict, if it comes, will not be fought in Washington or Beijing—but in their homes, their waters, and their economies.

The French President Emmanuel Macron, in a keynote address, proposed a “positive new alliance” between Europe and Asia—one grounded in diplomacy and multilateral cooperation rather than bipolar confrontation. It was a suggestion quickly side-lined in the Anglo-American dominated proceedings.

Ultimately, the question is not whether Australia can spend more on defence—it is whether it should. Should it pour billions into missile systems, nuclear-powered vessels, and satellite-guided munitions at the expense of diplomacy, education, healthcare, and climate resilience? Should it tether itself so tightly to a superpower undergoing its own democratic convulsions and openly demanding tribute from its “friends”? Should it accept, uncritically, the premise that peace is only achievable through perpetual readiness for war?

What we are witnessing is not strategy, but submission. Not security, but strategic servitude. Australia has aligned itself so closely with U.S. priorities that it has forfeited the opportunity to craft its own.

Marles may believe he is safeguarding the future. But history may record this moment differently: as the one in which Australia abandoned autonomy in favour of alignment, and the region edged closer to war, applauded all the way.

Because in the end, the only clear winners of this peacetime arms race are not the citizens of Australia, nor the communities of the Indo-Pacific, but the defence contractors, weapons manufacturers, and private equity firms whose profits are indexed to conflict. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems—backed by billionaire investors and shielded by secrecy—reap windfalls from every submarine ordered, every missile tested, every war game staged. The military-industrial complex, which Dwight D. Eisenhower once warned would acquire “unwarranted influence,” is no longer a shadowy force behind the throne—it is now the one writing the speeches. And Australia, it seems, is buying every word.