It isn’t always easy to keep up with what’s happening in the US. “Shorter America” is a series where Dr Emma Shortis loops you in on what’s going on in America and shares news and analysis that you can trust.
Fri 4 Sep 2026 16.08 AEST
Richard Marles meets US Defence Secretary (and former Fox host) Pete Hegseth on his recent US visit. Photo: Instagram (@richard.marles)
With dozens of strategic bombers and nine Carrier Strike Groups, the United States likes to maintain a near-permanent display of its military might (what defence groupies call “strategic posture”) around the globe. Until it can’t.
This week, the Pacific showed world leaders firsthand what climate change looks like. Back home, the Coalition and One Nation saw something else. They saw an opportunity to dog whistle and punch down on our Pacific nations.
Happy birthday, ANZUS. This week, Defence Minister Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was back in Washington hanging out with his “good friend” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Situation normal, I guess?
This week:
On the 75th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty – the security alliance between Australia, the United States and New Zealand (sort of) – you’d think there’d be some space for real reflection on the relationship and its future. We certainly tried over at After America – but the current Australian government? Not so much.
Instead, Defence Minister Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles went to Washington to meet with his buddy Pete Hegseth, where the US declared “it will accelerate military presence in Australia”, as one ABC headline put it. Great news. Big thumbs up from Pete.
Quality research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts you can trust.
That’s the same Pete, incidentally, who is overseeing what The Intercept just described as “a year of murders” in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. As far as I can tell, the last we heard on that from the Australian government was back in December, when an official said that was “for the United States to explain”. Ok then. In the absence of any information to the contrary, we can only assume that Marles did not ask his American counterpart to do so.
That American counterpart is also overseeing an ideological and racist purge of the United States military. In Mother Jones, Arianna Coghill explains how Hegseth “knows damn well who he’s pushing out: Black troops.”
In case that’s not enough to convince you, here’s a longer list of the egregious, dangerous stuff that we’re apparently fine with.
Speaking of terrible men! This week Intelligencer reported that Elon Musk “reportedly authorized his [political action committee] to spend $100 million to $120 million to defeat the Democratic Party” at the midterms. Here’s historian Kevin M. Kruse with some righteous incredulity over the mainstream US media’s disinterest in questioning Republicans on the big ‘ole racist elephant in the room.
If you do want to some good analysis on Musk and his role – I’m currently deep in both Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed and Gil Durán’s Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (possibly the greatest title ever?). Hard recommend on both.
And, finally, another hard recommend to see out your weekend. My colleague and friend Allan Behm has a new book out, on the possibilities for Australia that is full of radical hope for our collective future. It’s called New Game, New Rules: A foreign policy for dystopian times.
