beware of submarine gift-bearing americans.........

“US policy needs to be based on a clear understanding of what the rest of the Indo Pacific wants. We need to demonstrate we have interests we want to nurture beyond security interests.”

Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong made an important speech in Washington on December 7, spoilt by an untenable claim discussed below. In addressing the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she gave the strongest expression of her views since the election. She said, “US policy needs to be based on a clear understanding of what the rest of the Indo Pacific wants. We need to demonstrate we have interests we want to nurture beyond security interests.”

By Brian Toohey

She said the region is “not enthusiastic about great power competition” and pressed China to take up President Biden’s offer to put in place “guardrails” to prevent growing tensions from spiralling into confrontation or war.” Concerned by increasingly strident criticisms of China in US politics, Wong said,“Heads of government need assurance that nationalistic domestic posturing won’t sink the effort to build safe guards.”

Unhappily, Wong also said Australia is creating deterrence with major military investments in future capability, including through the AUKUS partners — a reference to the planned acquisition of nuclear submarines from the US .

Nuclear submarines will not create lasting deterrence or ensure stability. Wong acknowledged this when she said, “We need to do more than establish military deterrence to avoid conflict. We need to work to create together incentives for dialogue.”

Just before Wong’s speech, Australia US Ministerial Meeting (AUSMIN) in Washington kept alive the Albanese government’s desire to buy eight nuclear powered submarines fully owned by Australia. The US is having trouble fitting them on a crowded production line. They are likely to cost over $200 billion by the time they are all delivered sometime after 2060. The Albanese government wants what is candidly called the “Attack Class”. Australia will be the only non-nuclear weapons state to acquire nuclear submarines. Some neighbouring countries don’t like introduction of more nuclear submarines, particularly these ones fuelled by highly enriched weapons grade uranium.

Supporters see big Australian nuclear submarines being deployed to loiter off China’s coast to sink Chinese submarines and fire cruise missiles into the mainland. What happens when China retaliates is not explained. These submarines are not suited to the job of defending Australia in the shallow waters off its coast. Smaller conventionally powered submarines, which are much harder to detect, can effectively deny access for hostile ships to the seas around Australia. They can also range much further from Australia if needed.

Australia’s budget making processes have been shattered by the decision to buy eight nuclear submarines, only two of which are likely to be operational available at any time. The decision to go down the nuclear path has been taken without a cost effectiveness study by the Treasury and Finance departments, let alone Defence. At a minimum, these studies must make the comparison with modern conventional submarines that can operate silently for long periods, as well as examining the advantages of underwater drones and other weapons systems. Choosing nuclear will freeze out funding for many important vote winning civilian programs.

During AUSMIN, the US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the US would increase its forces in Australia, including “rotations of bomber task forces, fighters and future rotations of US Navy and US Army capabilities”. Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles strongly supported this build up, including B2 and B-52 bombers which are offensive weapons platforms. In response China is likely to further build up its forces. Based on past US behaviour, a future US administration is likely to engage in wars of aggression with Australia’s participation. But Marles focuses on increasing the “lethality” of Australia’s weapons, rather than giving a convincing commitment not to use them for wars of aggressive. Arms-control agreements, not arms races, are needed to avoid war.

The US is extraordinarily secure. Its military spending is more than the combined total of the next nine biggest spenders, including China. One reason China is increasing its military spending is in response to its encirclement by the US and its partners. China is deploying these air and naval forces to defend the approaches to its homeland, far from the US homeland. The US is yet to provide evidence of what threat China poses to distant countries like Australia, let alone the US homeland.

Austin criticised China during AUSMIN for “It’s dangerous and coercive actions throughout the Indo Pacific”. That is much too sweeping. China and Taiwan claim a right to resources associated with some unoccupied rocks, shoals, etc. in a limited area of the South China Sea. China claims ownership of a couple of unoccupied rocks between it and Japan in the East China Sea, but hasn’t tried to seize them. For its part, the US claims to respect the Law of the Sea Treaty, yet has refused to ratify it.

As for the rest of the vast Indo Pacific, China has not established military bases there, unlike the US which has coerced the indigenous population into accepting additional bases on islands such as Guam. Unlike China, the US left a terrible legacy from testing thermo- nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.

The AUSMIN communique blasted China for alleged human rights abuses while failing to acknowledge serious abuses committed by two other members of the Indo Pacific. One is India where Narenda Modi’s Hindu supremist government discriminates viciously against its 200 million Moslem population and has stripped Kashmir of its independent constitutional status.

The other is Australia where harsh national security laws ensure the country is no longer a liberal democracy. An example is a law that makes it an ill- defined criminal offence attracting a 15 year jail sentence to report or comment on “economic or political relations with another country”. More recently, peaceful demonstrators such as Violet Coco, who want more action on climate change, are being sentenced to 15 months jail without bail.

https://johnmenadue.com/wong-indo-pacific-is-not-enthusiastic-about-great-power-competition/

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/45958

By Gus Leonisky at 11 Dec 2022 - 6:24pm
Gus Leonisky's blog
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war powers.......

by Zacharias Szumer

The Parliamentary Inquiry into War Powers heard the pros and cons of a parliamentary vote to go to war versus the status quo, that is, the Prime Minister alone can make the call. Zacharias Szumer reports on the hearings and the big points of concern.

Civil society groups, veterans and all who have long fought for a greater democratisation of the way Australia goes war finally got their day in parliament on Friday, with what may be the one and only hearing of the Inquiry into International Armed Conflict Decision Making.

Over five hours, those both for and against reform were questioned on the arguments made in their submissions by members of the defence subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT). Debates ranged from complex Constitutional questions to the toll of war on veterans’ mental health. However, there were several themes that consistently loomed over the proceedings.

Intelligence and secrecy

One of the primary arguments made against parliamentary war powers was that, for the parliament to make informed military decisions, it would need access to confidential intelligence. Ostensibly, this intelligence would feature in parliamentary debates over a potential military deployment and would thus become public knowledge.

A submission made by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) argued that “important operational concepts requiring high levels of secrecy … are incompatible with pre-notification. Government discretion on when to notify, taking into account intelligence agency and allies’ security assessments, is vital to Australia’s defence.”

At Friday’s hearing, a Department of Defence representative said that “understanding … what a potential adversary’s objectives may be, the manner by which they pursue those objectives, the timelines or intent and insights that we may have into their plans to achieve them—most often that information is derived from highly sensitive information or intelligence.”

A public discussion “risks the sensitive information that has been provided, often by countries other than our own, who may source it,” he added.

Secrecy excuse

Australians for War Powers Reform President Dr Alison Broinowski pushed back on this argument, saying that classified information “is not the kind of thing that we would necessarily expect to be shared with each and every parliamentarian.” Instead, “what would be disclosed would be the nature of the threat, the capacity of Australia to meet it and the necessity for Australia to do so. None of that needs to be classified information.”

“I used to be a diplomat. I was top security cleared too… A lot of the stuff that is highly classified has to do much more with what I said about the sources of information … and about what to about it in a strategic or tactical fashion, than the matters that I was just referring to,” she added.

Referring to the intelligence about the “weapons of mass destruction” used to justify the Iraq War, Dr Broinowski added that “when we talk about the value of intelligence, and how important it is to protect it in the parliament, it needs to be reliable intelligence or it’s not worth having.”

I hope they don’t mean that, just as Britain has the Gurkhas, the Americans have us. If that’s what they mean, their view should be rejected in favour of Australian sovereignty and parliamentary authorisation

Grave concerns

Those opposed to reform often argued that parliamentary approval would delay the type of swift action that gave a nation tactical advantage in combat. Potential hold-ups combined with the public release of confidential intelligence would lead to greatly increased risk for Australian soldiers, it was argued.

The ASPI submission expressed “grave concerns about any mandated requirement for pre-notification of deployment, as it would put ADF personnel at addition risk and damage Australia’s national security.” The Department of Defence submission said that further democratic control could “lead to potential implications for the ADF’s operational security” and “the ADF’s relative strategic and tactical advantages over adversaries”.

At one point in the hearings, Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John pressed members of ASPI to provide specific examples of instances in which parliamentary approval in other countries had brought harm to military personnel.

ASPI and Defence duck the questions

Dr Alex Bristow, ASPI’s Deputy Director of Defence, Strategy and National Security, said he would prefer “to stick to examples that are relevant to Australia”and referred to the argument made in ASPI’s submission that “comparisons between democratic systems are fraught with risk of misinterpretation and false equivalence”. He parried repeated attempts by Senator Steele-John to redirect him towards providing specific examples.

Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association, said that “the countries that have these types of restrictions, generally speaking, are Western European NATO countries, that haven’t been in a serious war since 1945”. After asking for a fourth time, the Senator requested that the participants take the question on notice, saying that he’d prefer “to be actually engaging in a debate around actual tangible examples, rather than a theoretical discussion.”

The question was asked again in a later session with Department of Defence personnel. The department’s acting deputy secretary of strategy, policy and industry Stephen Moore said that there was “evidence on the public record where restrictions that have been placed on countries’ militaries have resulted in their ability to operate effectively with partners.” When asked if he’d share those examples, Moore said that he would “leave that to the committee to look at” as “it would be impolite” to point these examples out.

Are we America’s Gurkhas?

Another point of contention concerned the effect of parliamentary war powers on Australia’s standing as an ally. The Department of Defence submission argued that parliamentary approval “could undermine the confidence of our international partners as a reliable and timely security partner in support of regional and global stability, with significant diplomatic impacts.” Similar arguments were made by members of ASPI during the hearings.

The precise nature of this concern was called into question by Professor Clinton Ferdandes, who said, “I hope they don’t mean that, just as Britain has the Gurkhas, the Americans have us. If that’s what they mean, their view should be rejected in favour of Australian sovereignty and parliamentary authorisation.” Gurkhas are soldiers from Nepal and Northeastern India who have regularly served in the British military over the last 200 years.

Fernandes has previously argued that war powers reform has long been stymied by Australia’s sub-imperial relationship with the US. “Australian strategic planners understand that [not giving the Australian parliament war powers] means a reduction in sovereignty, but they accept it because it achieves a higher objective — upholding US imperial power,” he told MWM earlier this year.

Fernandes also argued that countries such as Germany, Norway and the Netherlands have remained partners of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) despite having higher levels of parliamentary approval. “If a NATO member is attacked, there’s no parliamentary debate … but if you need to send troops to Afghanistan, or renew a commitment to Afghanistan, then the Netherlands’ parliament has to first approve it,” he said.

Compromise and consensus

At several points in the hearings, the committee members and guests explored the idea of broadening democratic participation in military matters without legislating a requirement for parliamentary approval.

“We could have legislation that would require the executive to consult parliament and seek its support prior to the executive making the final decision,” said Scott MacInnes, a retired Barrister and Solicitor, government lawyer, former part-time consultant to The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

“This wouldn’t affect the ability of the executive to make the final decision, but it would give the executive the opportunity to seek the wisdom of parliament … and that, I hope, would aid its decision-making capacities,” said Mr McInnes, who still considers a requirement for parliamentary approval to be his preferred option.

Senator David Fawcett made several references to a 2018 JSCFADT policy proposal called “Contestibility and Consensus”, which recommended the establishment of a statutory Joint Parliamentary Committee on Defence to improve engagement between the Parliament and defence force. At the hearings, it was argued that such a body could receive confidential intelligence with regard to potential military information.

Some speakers, including MacInnes and Fernandes agreed that the “Contestibility and Consensus” proposal deserved further consideration. However, McInnes said that such a body should be “additional to, and not instead of, the requirement for parliamentary scrutiny.”

Professor Fernandes said that if such a body received confidential information, “everybody in parliament could then watch and see, if those who have actually heard the intelligence and seen the intelligence, how are they going to vote? And that’s how everybody else would vote.”

The committee gave no indication of when it was planning to release its final report.

https://michaelwest.com.au/war-powers-inquiry-just-as-britain-has-the-gurkhas-the-americans-have-us/

READ FROM TOP.

WE KNOW THAT INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES LIE. THE US HAVE BEEN EXPERTS FOR YONKS AT THIS, CULMINATING INTO THE "SADDAM HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" FALLACY. PRESENTLY, THE DECEIT IS ABOUT THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE CONFLICT WHICH IS STAGE-MANAGED BY DISINFORMATION FROM THE PENTAGON/THE WHITEHOUSE/THE CIA ETC TO FEED THE MEDIA IN THE WEST. THEY ARE USING VERY WELL CONSTRUCTED LIES FOR THE "PROPAGANDA", BUT LIES THEY ARE.

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/45958

By Gus Leonisky at 12 Dec 2022 - 9:35am
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maaaaate!!!!!..........

Mike Green has visited Australia many times and four months ago he moved his family to live here but he hasn’t been able to bring himself to call anyone “mate” yet: “I still have trouble saying it. It doesn’t trip off my tongue.”

The well-known US scholar and former White House official covers his lack of cultural fluency by calling people “man” instead. The new head of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney has been persuaded of the authenticity of “mateship” nonetheless

When former Australian ambassador to Washington Joe Hockey kicked off a “mateship” campaign a few years ago as a piece of alliance diplomacy, Green found it “a bit contrived”.

But now he says his most pleasant surprise since relocating “is how quickly my family and kids and I have been embraced into communities, sports, social circles. We knew Australians were friendly but it’s really been remarkable.

“It’s obvious that mateship is real and it’s quick and strong and one result is that my kids are absolutely loving school and sport.” His kids are 15 and 12. Wife Eileen Pennington works as senior gender adviser to the Asia Foundation. Not that there aren’t some tricky adjustments to make.

“The hard part for the kids is that elite US schools really emphasise self-advocacy – ‘I believe’ or ‘I think’. In Australia, you do that, you’re a tall poppy.”

But if he’s confirming those two cultural stereotypes, he’s challenging a couple of others. His experience getting a driver’s licence “was so positive I wanted to do it again”, something you won’t catch locals saying.

More seriously, Green has found Australians to be in denial about the extent of racism here. This, he says, is the most unpleasant surprise since arriving: “I find that Australians are very, very aware of racism in the US and frequently discuss it and the US does have a much larger problem.

“In Australia, I’m surprised at how people are unwilling to see racism and to admit that it’s a problem.” He cites work by one of the academics at the centre, David Smith, in explaining that the US “arbitrates racial issues very visibly in the courts and in politics” while “in Australia when debates do surface – over the Voice to parliament now – it’s striking that they are less open”.

Green’s job at the US Studies Centre is to help Australians better understand the US and the alliance. The Japanese-speaking, bagpipe-playing black belt in the Japanese swordcraft of iaido quips that it was easier explaining Kim Jong-un to Americans in his last jobs.

He worked as the Japan chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, as well as director of Asian studies at Georgetown University.

So what does Australia need to understand better? Three points. First, Green thinks that pessimism over US democracy is misplaced: “I’m an optimist because I’m historically minded. US democracy has been a 250-year struggle” defined through three wars on US soil in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the War of 1812 and the civil rights movement.

And the US midterm elections last month showed a nation moving away from anti-democratic Trumpism: “Candidates who challenged the Constitution were defeated, with the sole exception of J.D. Vance”, who contested a Senate seat in Ohio.

“It was a repudiation of anti-democratic candidates across the board. We’ll see with Donald Trump but even some of his supporters said he was deflated” by the results.

Green was one of 50 former senior Republican national security officials to sign a 2016 open letter declaring they would not vote for “dangerous” and “reckless” Trump.

Green had served as the senior Asia policy adviser in George W. Bush’s White House. A registered independent, he had earlier worked in the Pentagon in the Bill Clinton administration, reporting to Kurt Campbell, who is today in the Biden White House as Indo-Pacific co-ordinator.

Second, Australians should know that the US today puts a greater value on Australia as an ally than at any time in recent decades. He says: “When you asked Americans whether the alliance with Australia made America safer, typically 40 to 45 per cent said yes. This year, that was almost two-thirds.”

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