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AUKUS is a tragedy waiting to happen.....

While not yet the majority view, a consensus is growing that the US alliance is no longer in Australia’s national interest and that the AUKUS partnership should be abandoned. The argument for distancing Australian foreign policy from that of America is strong in theory, but its practical implementation would be inordinately difficult and risky. That’s not to deny that greater independence is preferable, just that the scope of the policy challenge cannot be ignored.

 

By Mike Scrafton

 

Michael Keating captures the dilemma well, “Australia cannot be an effective intermediary in promoting a multipolar governance system in our region while it remains an unswerving disciple of America”. According to the Congressional Research Service, “It has been a long-standing goal of U.S. grand strategy to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemon in one part of Eurasia or another”. Essentially, Australia’s freedom to manoeuvre is constrained by the immovable strategic policy of its ally.

The connections and dependencies underpinning Australia’s relationship with America are extremely dense and pervasive and no-one has anything like a full picture of them; and they extend beyond security and foreign affairs. The most overt and formal element of the relationship is the ANZUS Treaty but that has simply provided a framework and entry point for subservience and ingratiation. Over the decades the dependence on the US and the identification by politicians of Australia’s interests with those of America has intensified.

Michael Keating believes “Australia can and should play an important role in establishing a true multipolar system of governance”, while recognising this “will first require Australia to resolve the present contradiction between our foreign and defence policies”. He is right. The first challenge in that process is to have a vision of what an alternative relationship with America might look like from Canberra’s perspective.

Part of the problem for those of us who agree with Keating that Australian should identify its own interests clearly and that “all actions should be determined accordingly”, is that many Australians are convinced that it is deeply in the nation’s interests to be conjoined with the Americans. Amid the relentless ramping up of the China threat by politicians, officials, and the media, Australians will not be easily persuaded otherwise.

The consequences of detaching from the American defence relationship would be significant. Over time Defence could incrementally diversify its procurement to reduce reliance on the American military-industrial complex, and incrementally withdraw from exercises and intelligence-sharing, and gradually reduce US troop rotations. None of which would be simple to manage.

At best a gradual extraction from bilateral defence relations would be awkward and result in remonstrations by the Pentagon. The ADF would no longer have access to cutting-edge technology and military capability would likely decline. At worst ANZUS could be abrogated and the US nuclear umbrella be withdrawn.

Making the public case for such a move would be very hard in current circumstances.

Americans would undoubtedly see an abrupt withdrawing from AUKUS before binding legal commitments were entered into as a betrayal of trust and a clear disengagement from their Indo-Pacific strategy. The reaction could be expected to be furious in Washington and the responses swift and impactful. The track that the Morrison and Albanese governments have taken Australian down on AUKUS make a painless exit impossible and would see serious short to medium term costs.

To step out of the inner circle of American allies, an inevitable consequence of unravelling the American relationship, would also affect Australia’s regional relationships. Downgrading the alliance would not necessarily see “Australia’s standing with other countries in the region” improved as Keating predicts. Australia assuming a leading role in “influencing America to accept the reality of a multipolar region” would be seen by Japan and South Korea as undermining their existential security interests that are inseparably enmeshed with those of the US. An Australian defection would be regarded as weakening their strategic positions. ASEAN countries could be confused by Australia’s switch.

Any hope of Australia influencing US policy post-AUKUS, or in some watered-down version of the alliance, is fanciful. While Keating is absolutely right to say “that America does not seem to recognise the change in its position in Asia”, the reality is that it can’t.

It would not be impossible for Australia to separate from America’s strategic policy and to disengage from American war-planning in East Asia. That said, to do so would be the most difficult policy challenge Canberra has ever attempted. America would not look benignly on an exercise of sovereignty that took Australia out of its sphere-of-influence, and would regard it as a major strategic setback. Considerable coercion and pressure would come on Australia to abandon such a course.

America would be concerned if, as Keating advocates, Australia sought to “play an important role in establishing a true multipolar system of governance” in the region. That would be contrary to America’s perception of its vital interests in Asia. America has to lead and set the rules, and to work toward anything else is to pit yourself against America and its interests. A defection by an ally would be perceived as a loss.

In short, to remain in a formal alliance arrangement with America following withdrawal from AUKUS is inconceivable, and to incrementally withdraw from the alliance is impractical. If Australia pursued a “strategic equilibrium where no country dominates and no country is dominated” it would undermine America’s fundamental strategic premise. Any alliance or partnership would be precluded. It is not possible to support multipolarity in the region or promote a major leadership role for China in rule-making and to have close relations with America.

In sum, resolution of the contradiction between foreign and defence policy can only come by exiting the alliance now by withdrawing from the AUKUS arrangements. However, many Australians would feel vulnerable and exposed following an alliance break-up. It would take a courageous government indeed to do that. But it is in Australia’s national interest.

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/the-courage-to-end-the-alliance/

 

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NO NEED TO DIVE.... AUKUS HAS BEEN OBSOLETE BEFORE IT WAS SIGNED UPON.... THIS IS WHY: ONE CHINA POLICY... CAPICE?

 

“We do not support Taiwan independence.” These were perhaps the most important six words spoken by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his China visit. They signalled the end of several years of deliberate ambiguity, vacillation and provocation in relation to US policy.

Blinken took considered care to clearly restate US adherence to the policy. He said “ On Taiwan I reiterated the long standing US one China policy. That policy has not changed.”

Like President Xi, Blinken opposed any unilateral changes to the status quo and welcomed a peaceful resolution.

In six clear words, Blinken pulled the rug out from under recent US military policy that was increasingly built around the false ideas that Taiwan would be attacked by China and that this would trigger an inevitable China US conflict.

This is a narrative widely promoted in Western media despite President Xi’s frequent statements of his desire for peaceful reunification. The narrative started life as a unlikely potential scenario, but supported by Western media, it was rapidly given the ring of certainty. The media quoted US military staff who put a date by which war with China would have broken out.

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/blinkens-six-words-of-stability/

 

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shaking hand with the viper woman on a good day: count your fingers......

 

 

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shameful aukus......

In an opinion piece published in The Weekend Australian (10 June 2023), Paul Monk offers his response to critics of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement. A central focus of his critique is this open lettersigned by more than 100 academics. As two of the principal co-authors of the letter, we requested a right of reply, but received no response from The Australian’s Opinion Editor. The following is our rebuttal to Monk’s criticisms of the letter.

We do not claim to represent the views of all signatories to the letter, but as two of the principal co-authors, we feel obliged to respond to some of the misrepresentations Monk presents in his some 2000-word response.

Before offering our rebuttal, however, we should begin by establishing some basic facts about AUKUS.

If the agreement is delivered as advertised – and it is a big if – it will constitute the most expensive defence procurement in Australian history by a wide margin.

According to official proclamations, AUKUS will produce the most significant economic transformation of the country since the Snowy Hydro Scheme, and the most profound strategic transformation of the Australia-US alliance since the 1951 ANZUS Treaty.

Even accounting for hyperbole, it seems incredible that such a momentous decision was undertaken by the then Morrison government in secret, endorsed by the then Labor shadow ministry a day before it was announced and without due consideration by caucus, and presented to the Australian people as a fait accompli with no accompanying cost-effectiveness study, documented strategic rationale or parliamentary debate.

Monk, however, finds no issue with any of this, seeing fit only to deride opposition to AUKUS by those ‘critics outside government’.

‘Of course’, he concedes, it is ‘entirely appropriate that the government be asked to clarify the thinking behind these momentous decisions’.

But why should Australians resign themselves to asking polite questions of clarification in retrospect of such a significant decision?

This is a typical elitist attitude to democracy, where the public is expected to observe, not participate, in the important decisions that impact them, even when those decisions hold potentially profound implications for the future direction of the nation.

It is partly this contempt for public participation in policymaking that elicited the open letter by concerned scholars, the purpose of which rests on the following three points, and not those Monk asserts are ‘central to its case’.

First, the letter argues that the government has failed dismally to provide an adequate justification for AUKUS that answers the fundamental question of how it will make Australia safer, particularly when considering the significant risks and costs involved.

Monk doesn’t seem to understand this, falsely claiming that the letter both opposes nuclear-powered submarines ‘simply because they are nuclear-powered’ and rejects outright ‘the idea of buttressing our military capabilities as provocative militarism’.

In fact, the importance of a submarine capability for Australia’s defence is explicitly acknowledged in the letter. And while legitimate questions are raised about the defence benefits of a nuclear-powered submarine capability when compared to a conventional one, the risks and costs are canvassed within the specific context of acquiring such a capability via the AUKUS pathway.

It’s true that Defence has long maintained the requirement for a long-range submarine capability given Australia’s vast geography. Whatever the merits of this argument, the letter does not attempt to dispute this, contrary to Monk’s assertion.

Rather, it makes a narrower point, questioning the apparent need, and highlighting the significant strategic risks, as well as constraints on Australia’s defence autonomy, of acquiring a submarine capability uniquely suited to, and with the expectation of, playing a frontline role in any future US war with China, potentially and mostly worryingly with respect to nuclear warfare.

Monk mischaracterises the letter further when he claims it advocates Australia ‘should’ buy a much larger number of cheaper conventionally powered submarines.

The letter does no such thing.

Instead, it argues that such a momentous and consequential decision demands ‘a proper and forensic public discussion about other options’, borrowing the wise words of Peter Varghese, former head of the Office of National Assessments and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

This is, in fact, the second point of the letter.

That the government has not adequately explained why the prior French-designed diesel-electric powered submarine deal, promised to be ‘regionally superior’, is suddenly so gravely inadequate. Or why AUKUS confers greater defence advantages in comparison to a much larger number of cheaper conventional submarines, as publicly broached by several strategic experts.

Monk is also baffled at the letter’s absence of any ‘scrutiny or criticism’ of China’s actions as ‘the core concerns driving the geopolitical changes’ in Australia and the region. But this is beside the point of the matter that the letter is seeking to address.

There are many legitimate criticisms of China’s behaviour internally and externally, none of which translate into a sound strategic rationale for AUKUS.

This is precisely why the government has resorted to offering vague potential threats to shipping routes and undersea communications infrastructure as retrospective justifications for AUKUS, which the letter explicitly points out are flawed.

Monk adds nothing substantive in his attempt to make a ‘crystal clear’ case for AUKUS.

Instead, he seeks to dismiss and deflect concerns raised in the letter about the potential risk to Australia of creeping illiberalism in our American ally by conjuring an image of Xi’s China as ‘comparable to Nazi Germany’, supposedly destined by the ‘programmatic attitude’ of the CCP to seek to overturn the liberal international order sustained by ‘Pax Americana’.

Monk must suppose enough time has passed to safely resurrect the same hysterical nonsense used to make the case for invading Iraq, when Saddam Hussein was depicted as ‘the new Hitler’ threatening the West with his non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, there are deplorable things about the government of China (along with many other governments Australia officially supports), but that doesn’t necessarily make China a threat to Australia, much less a threat that is addressed by AUKUS.

This brings us to the third and final point of the open letter.

That the government should not proceed with AUKUS until and unless it adequately addresses the questions and issues raised by committing to a robust national debate.

How that debate proceeds, and where it leads, is not for national security elites to determine, or 100 academics for that matter.

It is the responsibility of that same vibrant civil society that Monk sees only fit to deride, and for each Australian to contemplate whether AUKUS is a judicious use of $368 billion of public money.

 

READ MORE:

https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-paul-monk-praises-elitism-derides-australias-vibrant-civil-society/

 

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AUKUS IS A WASTE OF MONEY AND A SHAME ON PHILOSOPHICAL INTEGRITY

 

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By Allan Patience

 

Prime Minister Albanese’s commitment to the bogus AUKUS deal stands in stark contrast to the ethical leadership of the late Simon Crean. At the time, Mr Crean’s opposition to John Howard’s craven commitment to the Iraq war was a rare and beautiful exception to the tradition of old politics in Australia. Can the country find leaders who will free us from the old politics forever?

At the end of the Second World War, all the so-called democracies were dominated by a class of professional politicians coalescing around the established political parties. That class was – and remains to this day – overwhelmingly white, male and middle aged. To the world’s detriment, their politics have been anything but statesmanlike.

This has been the case in Australia from the time of Menzies. Since that time, Australian politicians have preferred to avoid progressive policies while maintaining a listless political status quo. As Donald Horne observed ironically in the 1960s, Australia had become a “lucky country” run by second rate people. That remains true today, except that many of those people are third rate, as the PwC debacle may indicate.

A vibrant manufacturing sector has never been encouraged to flourish in this country. Social policy continues to be mean-spirited and scrooge-like. Education policy is a major promoter of social inequality across the country. Security policy has resulted in clinging fearfully to an increasingly dangerous alliance with the USA. The mal-distribution of wealth in Australia makes the country look like a crony-driven third world economy.

This is the tradition of old politics in Australia, a politics of reacting to crises rather than anticipating them, much less addressing them intelligently. Consider the grotesquely unethical bipartisan approach to asylum seekers, and the abject failure of successive post-war governments to close the gap. The fact that the No case for the coming referendum appears to be gaining traction is evidence that the old politics indicates that Australia is a morally backward country. Peter Dutton is playing a lead role in maintaining our moral backwardness.

Sadly, the tradition of old politics persists with the Albanese government today. Its few attempts at reforms so far have been limited by timidity and incrementalism, rather than making a bold break from the old politics. In fear of the Murdoch mob, it lacks ambition to free Australia from the grip of grifters exploiting regressive tax avoidance schemes and government subsidies to monster industries like the mining sector. And its powerful right wing is dominated by the likes of Richard Marles who is old politics writ large.

Albanese also personifies the old politics. His anxiety about being wedged on issues like the Stage 3 tax cuts is evidence of political weakness. He lacks the self-confidence of a Gough Whitlam or a Don Dunstan, who routinely risked their careers by advocating progressive policy reforms. His commitment to the bogus AUKUS deal stands in stark contrast to the ethical leadership of the late Simon Crean. At the time, Mr Crean’s opposition to John Howard’s craven commitment to the Iraq war was a rare and beautiful exception to the old politics.

The three mainstream parties in the federal parliament – Labor, the Liberals, and the Nationals – are all culturally entrenched in old politics. All of them are facing terminal declines in voting support. Their use-by date is approaching. The Greens are in danger of heading down the same road, while the dupes in One Nation and the United Australia party exemplify the most egregious features of old politics. Younger voters are turning their backs on all of them, in droves. A new generation of voters is demanding new politics.

Amid this chaos, there are glimmers of hope. Consider the impressive group of independents in the federal parliament, the so-called Teals, plus the excellent ACT Senator David Pocock. These people represent the beginnings of a wave of new politics that is beginning to break across the Australian political spectrum, engulfing the old politics. They maintain close connections to the electoral communities they represent; they are not beholden to self-serving party machines; they emphasise social justice, especially women’s equality; their politics are principled and potentially nation-building.

So what will the wave of new politics be like? It’s too early to be absolutely definitive, but there are straws in the wind that point to what is likely to occur as Australia’s political culture becomes more democratic and more socially and economically progressive. The new politics will reflect the thinking of more informed and concerned young voters, even as the numbers of old politics voters are in decline.

Here are just three broad examples of what the new politics could be like.

First, in economic policy, the new politics will want to fashion a robust mixed economy in which public owned enterprises will provide efficient essential services of the highest standard that are not simply focused on profiteering. These will include investing in public hospitals and local health centres, publicly run aged care facilities, a publicly owned national bank, properly resourced government schools, free university education for domestic students, and a publicly owned national airline and other public transport facilities. All of these institutions will compete with similar institutions in the private sector, effectively regulating the latter.

Second, the country’s new politics responses to the ravages of climate change will witness Australia becoming a respected international leader in clean energy provision and a major clean energy exporter, ending the toxic fossil fuel industries in this country forever. It will also see Australia at the forefront of international efforts to deal with climate change, no longer the recalcitrant laggard that it has been under the old politics.

Third and most importantly, the new politics will see Australia becoming a fully independent state in regional and global politics. This will mean ending what is absolutely the worst feature of the old politics by completely withdrawing from the ANZUS treaty, and all the encumbrances that it entails. (The latest encumbrance is Albanese’s invidious commitment to the AUKUS deal.) The new politics will see Australia taking an active role in regional and international organisations that aim for cooperation among states to resolve global conflicts and inequalities, to address human rights issues with integrity, and to work for global peace.

Like it or not, and ready or not, these are the kinds of issues that younger voters are concerned about. The parties of old politics – including the present Labor party – are dangerously out of sync with this thinking. Those voters who anticipated the Albanese government would be a courageously progressive government have so far been disappointed. They are unlikely to be voting Labor next time.

Can the country find leaders who will embrace the thinking of the new politics and free us from the old politics forever? That surely is now the question facing contemporary Australia. Its answer is likely to be found in the election of many more Teals. If that means the death old politics, bring it on!

https://johnmenadue.com/a-new-politics-is-coming-ready-or-not/

 

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Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher

The United States is open to allowing more countries to participate in the technology arm of the monumental Australia-UK-US alliance, known as the AUKUS, but they would have to show they can contribute in meaningful ways, a US official said on June 26.

“We are in conversation with a variety of countries who are interested. And frankly, it goes far beyond just those countries, and we’re grateful for that. The fact that countries are interested in it is a positive, and we will explore those appropriately,” Kurt Campbell, the deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said during the Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

“I think all three countries have made clear that under the appropriate circumstances we would be prepared to work collaboratively with other partners who bring capacity to the challenge,” he added.

According to the official, the perspectives of potential partners in terms of interacting with AUKUS will depend on the benefits they can bring to the association in a specific field. The representative of the US National Security Council did not name the countries with which cooperation negotiations are being carried out but said that there are many interested States.

The Australian broadcaster ABC believes that Canada and New Zealand – which with the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, form the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network – have previously expressed interest in joining the AUKUS at a new stage of partnership development.

For its part, the US Congressional Research Service released a report on June 20 saying that, in addition to Canada and New Zealand, Congress may consider giving the Department of Defense and the Department of State a mandate to expand the AUKUS to include Japan, as recommended by several analysts.

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/06/30/us-announces-intention-to-expand-the-aukus-alliance/

 

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Labor must freeze all AUKUS payments underwriting US Navy shipyards with taxpayer money    By Labor Against War  

ALP rank-and-file activist group, Labor Against War, has called on the Albanese government to immediately freeze all planned AUKUS payments earmarked to underwrite the US Navy industrial shipyards.

 

The call comes after the US announced it has cut its budget for the Virginia-class submarine, slashing its 2025 construction plans in half for the nuclear-powered boats.

This is a potentially lethal blow to AUKUS. In order to have spare submarine capacity to sell Australia used submarines by 2032, the US needs to build at least two submarines every year, up from its average of 1.2 boats.

National Convenor of Labor Against War, Marcus Strom, said: “The Americans can’t afford their own nuclear submarines, so Australia has promised to ship billions to fit-out the US dockyards. Why should the Australian taxpayer foot the bill?

“We are on the hook to the tune of $3bn as soon as next year as a downpayment for subs that might never arrive and be useless on delivery.

“This Labor government managed to junk Scott Morrison’s tax plan. Why would it be so be so stupid to continue with his war plan?”

Last year’s budget earmarked $9bn for AUKUS over the next four years, with billions of that going to the US military industrial base. AUKUS in total will cost at least $368bn.

The government remains unclear as to when payments are due, but defence industry observers expect the first substantial payments to be made next year.

“Even the dimmest cheerleaders for AUKUS must see the writing is on the wall. With Donald Trump looking a possible return to the White House, the US proves time after time it is a completely unreliable ally for the Australian people,” Strom said.

The revelations come on the same day that new polling shows just 20 percent of Australians see the country’s future as primarily being as an ally of the United States.

“The government and opposition are completely out of step with popular opinion on AUKUS and the US drive to militarism in East Asia,” Strom said.

https://johnmenadue.com/labor-must-freeze-all-aukus-payments-underwriting-us-navy-shipyards-with-taxpayer-money/

 

 

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