Just because it's been acting unilaterally doesn't mean Washington has been acting alone: Canberra has been right there beside it all the way.
Kyoto Protocol: Australia has worked in tandem with the United States to torpedo the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas reductions, seeking to do all it could at the July 16-23 Bonn conference to gut and stall it. In May, "environment minister" Robert Hill was even arguing that the conference should be cancelled altogether.
Despite pulling out of the Kyoto process, the US has continued to negotiate and manoeuvre in collusion with other members of the so-called Umbrella Group, which includes Australia, Japan and Canada. "We clearly consider the members of the umbrella group to be our closest friends and allies", said a leaked US cable in April.
Now the US and Australian governments are scheming to develop an alternative "plan" which will be still weaker than the Kyoto treaty.
Biological weapons: While foreign minister Alexander Downer has criticised the US for pulling out of negotiations on a Biological Weapons Convention's compliance protocol, his criticisms have been lame and toothless.
The US has long been part of the 32-member "Australia Group", set up under Canberra's initiative with the aim of crafting a protocol weak enough for the US to sign.
At a negotiating session on the protocol in May, China, Iran, Cuba, Indonesia and five other countries called for disbanding the Australia Group, on the grounds that it was undermining progress towards effective controls on biological weapons.
National Missile Defence: While the rest of the world has either condemned NMD outright or expressed grave concerns about it, Australia has signalled its unconditional support.
Australian support for it is very much needed, as much of the intelligence data for the NMD is gathered at the US base at Pine Gap, in central Australia. Then US defence secretary William Cohen said in July 2000 that Pine Gap had been "very much" involved in NMD since October 1999.
The Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation has been involved in collaborative research on ballistic missile detection with the US Ballistic Missile Defence Organisation since 1995.
The US military is planning to establish a rocket range in Western Australia as a testing ground for its Theatre Missile Defence, an extension of NMD into the Asia-Pacific — and already has the full support of the federal government.