For John Powers, it’s a tough conclusion to reach.

“Australia is a strategic liability because of the waning capabilities that we have.”

Powers is uniquely placed to comment on Australia’s defence relationship with our great security ally, the United States.

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“We have not manned and equipped and sustained our military, our ADF, so that it can keep pace materially and capability-wise with the United States,” he told 7NEWS.

At first blush, it sounds self-serving, delivered with Powers’ thick American accent.

It presses the case US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth put to Defence Minister Richard Marles in late May: that Australia needs to increase its defence budget to 3.5 per cent of our gross domestic product, tens of billions of dollars more in military spending every year.

In fact, John Powers is a dual citizen now living in Australia.

He also brings extraordinary experience to the question of whether his adopted country is a good ally for his old country.

Now retired, his experience as a US special forces soldier, brigade task force commander, and military intelligence specialist stretched across four decades — from Grenada in 1983 right up to the first Trump administration.

Among his roles, he was a war planner.

“When we would put together plans, we would start with Australia,” he said.

“We’d always start to figure out how can we get the Aussies into the fray because when it comes to just grit and mettle and the intangibles of being a reliable soldier, sailor, airman ... you could not have a better ally.”

These days, he’s not trying to recruit Australians. He’s speaking as one.

“I think we’ve underspent on defence from the standpoint of we don’t have the capabilities that we need to even defend ourselves,” he said.

On other issues, John Powers challenges American views.

He waves off a Chinese-owned company’s contentious 99-year lease of the Port of Darwin.

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” he said.

“This same company owns and operates ports in the United States.”

When news of the 2015 agreement broke, he says he saw it as an intelligence opportunity “... to collect on the Chinese ... see how they do business, to be able to cross-pollinate with the Americans.”

Powers cautions Australians who say assets like Pine Gap — the joint satellite surveillance base near Alice Springs — make us indispensable for US military intelligence.

“It’s more important to the Australians than it is (to) the United States,” he said.

“We have similar bases or similar facilities in England, Turkey, Germany, places like that.”

Powers argues “with technology nowadays, you can … bend pipe that stuff back to Fort Meade, Maryland, and it all can be collected there”.

He sees greater value, from the US point of view, in Perth and its ‘very significant’ future as a rotational base for American submarines.

But on the biggest of defence hardware projects, he’s a pessimist.

“I’m not an AUKUS fan,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good deal.”

He doubts Australia will ever take delivery of the American nuclear-powered submarines promised under AUKUS.

“I’m not confident we’ll ever see those three Virginia-class submarines,” he said.

Now watching the friction between the Albanese government and the Trump administration, Powers is animated by one other issue: the tenure of Australia’s ambassador in Washington.

“Mr Rudd should do the honorable thing and resign,” he said.

According to Powers, his contacts back in the US are utterly clear on the issue. The fact Kevin Rudd is a former Prime Minister and respected voice on matters regarding China is beside the point.

“Mr Trump doesn’t like him,” he said. “And as a result of Mr Trump not liking him, nobody else in his administration is going to give him the time of day. That is a disservice to us as Australians.”

For John Powers, any issue causing friction between the country he was born in, and the country he says he plans to die in, is a problem worth solving.

For more from Tim Lester and his interview with John Powers, you can listen to The Issue in the player below or watch their full conversation in the video above.