By 2028, the next US administration may need to decide between adherence to the AUKUS deal as structured, or ensuring the operational viability of America’s own nuclear submarine force. Is there potential for the US to withdraw from AUKUS?
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Category: Australian focus
Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS
How long can Australian politicians continue with the pretence that the American alliance aligns with the nation’s interests? Trump or Biden? It doesn’t really matter except for determining the path of America’s decline into illiberalism. ANZUS must be exited. The impetus to escape from ANZUS will have to come from the voters.
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Australia’s AUKUS Tributes
At this time of rising living costs, economic uncertainty, and impending climate disaster, subsidising the US and UK submarine construction industrial bases is the obvious priority for the Australian government. With massive taxpayer funds flowing through the government’s hands on the basis of media releases, are there yet to be revealed details that will explain to the taxpayer how these contributions aren’t just tributes?
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The new Pericles: Marles, master of the Seas
Australia’s future maritime warfare capability is now to include the ‘Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet’. Requiring, like the AUKUS submarines, ambitious naval acquisition and construction programs with long lead-times before delivery, serious questions are raised about how the ELSCF responds to assessments of Australia’s strategic circumstances – and of the extent to which it would be just another contribution by Australian taxpayers to US military forces.
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AUKUS: Conroy’s justification of the “greatest industrial undertaking” falls short
Extravagant claims are made about the capability that the proposed AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will give to Australia. The latest from Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy are particularly puzzling.
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Australians need to know what lies beneath the new era of US-Australia strategic cooperation
Prime Minister Albanese has announced new commitments to the United States which have the potential to give American institutions and agencies access to the inside workings of Australian intelligence, research, and business in ways that will not be, and could not be, reciprocated.
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Is Australia’s intelligence function to be colonised by the US?
From the moment it was sworn in, the Albanese government has been swept up in a series of defence arrangements with the Americans with far-reaching implications for Australia’s ability to act independently and in its own interests. The nation’s intelligence function is the latest casualty.
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Could Australia find the courage to end its alliance with America?
A consensus is growing that the US alliance is no longer in Australia’s national interest and the AUKUS partnership should be abandoned. But while the argument for distancing Australian foreign policy from that of America is strong in theory, its practical implementation would be difficult and risky.
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The militarisation of space – can Australia avoid following America?
America’s space policy reveals its hegemonic obsession and exposes the future quandaries for Australia. How will Australia confront the inevitable question of whether to support a peaceful or a militarised exploration of space?
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Will Australia always follow the innocent nation into war?
US foreign policy is underpinned by ideational myths, like that of the ‘innocent nation’, which requires a succession of ‘immoral’ enemies to sustain it. Does Australia fully comprehend the potential implications of the American sense of righteousness and mission?
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B-21s for Australia? Not to defend against a Chinese base in Australia’s nearer region
A recent ASPI report, arguing for Australia’s acquisition of the B-21 Raider long-range stealth bomber, sees the return of the ‘adversary-base-in-the-archipelago’ bogeyman. Hopefully the forthcoming Defence Strategy Review will not similarly rely on wildly improbable assumptions to justify very costly investments.
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US National Defence Strategy reveals Australia’s nuclear deterrence role
On PM Albanese’s watch Australia has, without explanation, agreed to host US B-52H Stratofortress aircraft: “a nuclear stand-off platform with global reach”. The recent US National Defence Strategy provides the missing context, and effectively confirms Australia’s role in American nuclear war planning.
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B-52s at RAAF Tindal commits Australia to America’s nuclear war plans
B-52s are part of the US’s nuclear capability. Basing these aircraft at RAAF Tindal draws Australia into America’s nuclear war planning. How did Australia come to this? And why?
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Australia’s strategic debate must avoid pop psychology and Game of Thrones thinking
Can non-expert distanced observers meaningfully deduce the psychological and moral make up of national leaders? Is a nuclear umbrella a vestige of an outmoded nuclear framework, from an earlier strategic era, without contemporary relevance? Some responses to Professor Paul Dibb.
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Will uncritical faith in America’s future technological dominance be a strategic weakness for Australia?
The rebirth of a lost innovative technological utopia requires a vibrant, stable polity that tolerates debate, dissent, and difference; and supports objective research standards. America looks nothing like this.
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Defence reviews: what are they good for?
The recently announced Defence review looks set to be much more than the promised ‘force posture review’. The opportunity to anchor Australia’s strategy and military posture in a broad appreciation of a significantly changed international environment should not be lost.
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Mr Marles tugs the forelock in Washington
Submission to US strategic objectives is often on display as new Australian Defence Ministers ritually wend their way to Washington to offer up jaded homilies, full of hagiographic accounts of ANZUS and strained assertions of shared values. The new Minister’s recent visit, however, foreshadows a more dangerous abandonment of fundamental elements of national sovereignty.
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Beijing not Madrid, Prime Minister, would be more in Australia’s interests
Australia’s interests are not obviously met by joining gatherings on distant shores with leaders sharing different strategic concerns. The Asia Pacific remains at the heart of Australia’s economic and strategic interests and the crucible where Australia’s prosperity and peace will be forged.
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Proactive Defence diplomacy not American militarism better supports Australia’s security
Credit is due to Australia’s new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for moving swiftly to correct the foreign and climate policy failures of the Morrison era. But shouldn’t there be a similar rethinking and resetting of strategic policy?
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The window for Albanese to assert Australia’s sovereignty is closing
Before the seductive power that security classifications, codeword documents, need-to-know briefings, and the jargon of militarist advisers blunt the critical faculties of ministers, which it almost always does, the new Australian government needs to consider the matter of war.
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