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The United States and ANZUSThe United States and ANZUS
About the author
Natasha Kassam
Natasha Kassam was Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program from 2019 to 2022, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations.
Australians have consistently expressed high levels of support for Australia’s alliance with the United States in the Lowy Institute Poll, even at times when US presidents were unpopular in Australia. In 2020, more than three quarters of Australians (78% — up six points this year) say that the alliance with the United States is either very or fairly important to Australia’s security.
Australian support for ANZUS remains high, though many would not support military action
Low levels of confidence in President Trump may have had some impact on Australian sentiment about the alliance in 2019, but support for ANZUS has now rebounded. The 2020 result is 15 points higher than in 2007 (63%), which remains the low point for Australian support for the alliance in 16 years of the Lowy Institute Poll.
Although Australians remain highly supportive of the security alliance with the United States, there is persistent reluctance to support military action under ANZUS. The majority of Australians (68%) say ‘despite the alliance, Australia should only support US military action if it is authorised by the United Nations’.
Only four in ten Australians (40%) agree with the statement that ‘Australia should act in accordance with our security alliance with the United States if it means supporting military action in the Middle East, for example, against Iran’. This is an eight-point decline from 2013. Even fewer Australians (34%) agree with Australian support for ‘military action in Asia, for example, in a conflict between China and Taiwan’. In 2013, a similar proportion (38%) said Australia should act in accordance with the alliance even if it meant supporting US military action in a conflict between China and Japan.
There is strong support for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Most Australians (88%) say they would support ‘Australia forming a partnership with the democracies of India, Japan and United States to promote peace and security in the region’.
