The sweetest words in the English language: I told you so. French submarines, the first of which were scheduled for delivery in 2034 under a $90bn program with France’s Naval Group – before the contract was ripped up by the Morrison government – were lethal and affordable. Now we know that the US is very Continue reading »
AUKUS
Instead of actually engaging in measures to promote peace, the AUKUS governments are feeding us a racist notion that three Anglo nations targeting China from thousands of kilometres away are needed to ensure it. Text of talk given to IPAN (Independent and Peaceful Australia Network) forum “AUKUS and military escalation: Who pays and who benefits”. Continue reading »
AUKUS has become a stillborn project. Vassal states, satellites – in other words the butlers of international relations, the minders of the royal stool – are a rarely respected lot. In Australia’s case, being Washington’s butler is hardly like being Jeeves to Bertie Wooster. Jeeves is, after all, a near omniscient being, a confidant who Continue reading »
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Whatever else he might have been, Sir Walter Scott was no clairvoyant. Deeply cemented into Scottish history and folklore, his long narrative poems are now largely forgotten. But this single line captures the essence of AUKUS, where a cocktail of strategic conceits Continue reading »
As opposition to AUKUS grows, the nuclear submarine project does not stand up to expert scrutiny. There is no doubt that opposition to the AUKUS agreement is growing within the Australian public. The more people see through the secrecy and obfuscation; the more they learn about the project’s far-reaching implications for them and the nation, Continue reading »
The Australian government has decided to ignore critics of Aukus in parliament and the community. Rather it has moved to embed the idea of Aukus directly into the Australian psyche. We Australians consider ourselves a straightforward lot. We prefer to speak our minds simply and honestly. We do not readily embrace ideas such as weapons Continue reading »
Thucydides has Pericles, the great Athenian statesman and strategist, observe that “Mastery of the sea is no small matter”. The Defence Minister should have been mindful of Pericles’ words as he launched the Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet (ELSCF). Or he might have recalled Pericles’ caution that “I am far more afraid of our own Continue reading »
Our leaders have rendered us America’s pawn, contractually. Australia has abrogated the right to choose peace with China. Dumbly. Unnecessarily. Deceitfully. For political ends. We once had a leader who put Australia’s security before the desires of a distant, powerful protector. What is the prospect of chancing upon another of Curtinian quality? Periodically, it is Continue reading »
Community opposition to the AUKUS project finds expression in a Sydney suburb. Back in March 2023, a public meeting was held in the Town Hall of the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, under the title “Can War be Avoided or Will Our Peace be Shattered?”. That meeting took place just a few days after the AUKUS Continue reading »
It was bound to happen in one form or another. The AUKUS arrangements were a guarantee of it. The ‘it’ in question is the alleged discovery and lamentation that, possibly, “Australia has one of the weakest research security frameworks in the developed world.” Redress is demanded and of a draconian character; not to do so Continue reading »