For reasons set out briefly below, let’s suppose that Australia is a US vassal state and that the Pacific — what Australia likes to call its ‘backyard’ — is a peripheral sphere of US influence. Under these circumstances, this essay considers some of the more worrisome implications for Australia’s security stemming from the ruling paradigm (Kuhn, 1970) of international relations, John Mearsheimer’s (2001) doctrine of Offensive Realism (OR).

### Australia’s Vassal State Credentials

Just a few of Australia’s unimpeachable credentials as a pliant US vassal state are sufficient to make the case. They include:

– Its eagerness to accommodate numerous US military bases on its territory;
– Its acceptance that the US should neither confirm nor deny whether nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil;
– Its acceding to US expectations regarding the genocide in Gaza, and its multifarious support of Israel;
– Its participation in the US-led invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan;
– Its purchase, under the AUKUS partnership, of up to AUD $368 billion worth of nuclear submarines from the US.

### Offensive Realism

Offensive Realism (OR) is widely received as the preeminent account of how and why the great powers of the world behave as they do. The doctrine stipulates that nation-states are self-interested rational actors whose primary goal is survival. They compete to survive in an anarchic world where there is no effective and accepted superordinate authority to resolve disputes.

> “The ideal situation is to be the hegemon in the system” (Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 34).

To survive, states must maximise absolute military and economic power to protect themselves against threats. Mearsheimer (2019) acknowledges this “can be a ruthless and bloody business.” Power gains come at the expense of rival states in a zero-sum game.

Regarding great powers, wars should only be waged in their own ‘neighbourhood’ or in ‘distant areas that are either home to another great power or the site of a critically important resource’ (Mearsheimer, 2019, p. 17).

Peripheral spheres of influence are regions where none of these conditions apply, so there is no incentive for great powers to involve themselves directly militarily.

Great powers fear and do not trust one another. Alliances with other states are thus temporary and unreliable “marriages of convenience” subject to unpredictable change, hinging on fluctuating balances of power and interest.

> “This inexorably leads to a world of constant security competition, where states are willing to lie, cheat, and use brute force if it helps them gain advantage over their rivals” (Mearsheimer, 2001, p. 35).

### US-China Relations and Liberal Democracy

Vis-à-vis China, Mearsheimer (2019, p. 17) asserts that:

> “The US will have little choice but to adopt a realist foreign policy, simply because it must prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon in Asia.”

Mearsheimer also reflects on US liberal democracy, which he regards as “the best political order,” and includes the belief that:

> “[It] has an activist mentality woven into its core. The belief that all humans have a set of inalienable rights, and that protecting these rights should override other concerns, [creates] a powerful incentive for liberal states to intervene when other countries regularly violate their citizens’ rights. This logic pushes liberal states to favor using force to turn autocracies into liberal democracies” (Mearsheimer, 2019, p. 14).

For a self-professed “hard-nosed” pragmatist, this is a curiously romanticised (delusional) account. It suggests that if liberal democracies have been overly warlike and aggressive in their foreign policies, they could only have done so for the most humane and altruistic reasons.

But the (soppy) good old days are no more.

The hard-nosed real-world pragmatism of OR, which conveniently normalises the US-led imperialism of late-stage capitalism in the 21st century, has put paid to that.

### Implications for Australia as a Vassal State

For vassal states like Australia, OR presents ample cause for alarm:

– **Great powers like the US are driven solely by ruthless interest in their own survival and strive to maximise absolute power to ensure it.**

– **Alliances are temporary and unreliable.** Great power friendliness can easily shift into insouciance or outright hostility.

– **The US’s well-known cavalier disregard for international treaties and international law when its interests are at stake is more than suggestive of this attitude** (see Gahima in Blunt et al., 2025).

– **Great powers lie, cheat, and use brute force to get what they want.**

– **Wars should only be waged in immediate neighbourhoods or in ‘distant areas’ that host another great power or critical resources.**

The Pacific is clearly a ‘distant [or peripheral] area’ that is neither ‘home to another great power’ nor possesses ‘critically important resources’ in sufficient quantities to warrant serious attention — apart perhaps from as-yet unexploited rare earths on the deep ocean floor (see Hatcher & Blunt in Blunt et al., 2025).

In line with OR, even in regions with critical resources like the Middle East and in territories proximate to great powers such as Eastern Europe (home to Russia), the US prefers to use proxies (Israel and Ukraine) rather than commit significant direct military involvement.

The US’s recent reversion to overt military aggression in its own neighbourhood (Venezuela and possibly other parts of the Caribbean), and what seems likely to be the peace deal imposed on Ukraine, also align with OR’s framework.

The presence of US military bases in Australia carries no commensurate security guarantees. Even if such guarantees existed, they could not be relied upon.

Furthermore, liberal democracy in the US, and its (illusory) missionary purposes, are things of the past. If they ever truly existed, the US will no longer embark on altruistic, ‘democratising,’ or ‘rescue’ missions abroad.

In this calculus, allies and vassal states are dispensable.

This is not mere casuistry.

In a peripheral sphere of US influence like the Pacific, the implications for a US vassal state that might find itself in need of help are clear and serious.

The “Hotel California” difficulties of gang membership notwithstanding, these are implications that make non-alignment a rational foreign policy alternative.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2025/12/australia-a-us-vassal-state-in-a-peripheral-sphere-of-influence/