The US-Australia relationship is a special one. Bilateral military and defense ties between the two countries are over a century old, with the Australian military having been involved in almost every major conflict that the United States has been involved in since World War I. These ties have only grown stronger with the emergence of security-based minilateral initiatives such as the Quad and AUKUS. US-Australia minilaterals are products of the contested nature of the Indo-Pacific security landscape, in which the United States and Australia find themselves grappling with what they consider a monumental adversary in the People’s Republic of China.. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent those of the East-West Center.