Pearls and Irritations

Australia is a part of a hostile military alliance directed at China. “Interoperability” or “interchangeability” means we’re now a US pawn, tied to its coattails. So that’s the job of every Australian: push for more information, keep talking about why AUKUS is an utter disaster and why it commits us to a costly and dangerous trajectory.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have placed the Doomsday clock at 90 seconds to midnight. New weapons have such destructive power – as we’ve witnessed in the Ukraine, Lebanon and Gaza – that there will be no victor in any war, no one gets out of it with what they want. Wars fought with modern weapons, often remotely, can destroy everything. Anything that makes society function is a target.

Neither Chinese hospitals nor ours can cope with mass casualties. In fact, an FOI request I issued in 2022 covering the period immediately after the Albanese Government was elected, basically for information provided to the Minister for Defence about the estimates of the number of Australian casualties in the event of a war between the US and China, was answered that no documents existed. That reflects the true extent of our preparedness for war. Any avoidable military contest or conflict is folly.

The strategy: deterrence by denial

The high level of defence capability we allegedly need, and our consequent entry In the 21^st century armaments race, is consistent with the strategies referred to in the defence strategy documents that underpin the AUKUS decision [Defence Strategic Update 2020, the Defence Strategic Review 2023 and the National Defence Strategy], specifically deterrence by denial, or as the US refers to it, “integrated deterrence by denial”. The foundation of deterrence by denial is showing an adversary (China) that it would lose in a military contest.

The problem with this approach is that if deterrence fails the next step is war. It invites war. Following this doctrine puts us on a war footing and in a state of heightened readiness. Everyone is deterring one another at huge expense and no benefit to the societies involved, enriching weapons manufacturers and politicians while the people live in constant danger. The doctrine invites progressively escalating deterrence until something or someone triggers open conflict. Then the vast sums invested in armaments or “deterrence” almost guarantees the obliteration of all the parties involved and quite possibly mankind. The end game is unrestrained war between nuclear armed adversaries.

Defence has never been questioned about the soundness of this strategy or its basic assumptions. What happens if it fails? They’ve never been asked to show they’ve seriously considered alternative approaches, whether war fighting dominance is necessary or effective to prevent territorial aggression, or for concrete evidence for the assertion that China seeks regional hegemony.

We do need to be capable of defending mainland Australia but it must be balanced with allocating funding to diplomacy, economic outreach, dealing with the consequences of climate change and all the other important expenditure necessary for a well-functioning, educated and healthy society. We do not require capabilities that make us part of an unbroken chain of US-armed sentinel states encircling and intimidating China.

Why the secrecy?

Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead’s “Capability Enhancement Review” completed ahead of the federal government’s nuclear submarine announcement was never released publicly.

I issued a Freedom of Information request in March 2023 for copies of any advice received by the former Minister for Defence, Peter Dutton, about “conventional submarines being unable to operate in our waters given technology developments as they could be sunk when they came up to recharge diesel generators”. That was the reason publicly given for reneging on the French deal. No documents existed. He was never asked who provided the advice and whether it was formalised.

Being able to stay underwater for months is all well and good, if the submarine can’t be detected. In April 2023, I issued a FOI request for documents provided to Richard Marles relating to detectability of nuclear submarines in a date range you would expect him to have received that advice. Documents existed but they claimed exemption.

Apparently no one in defence believes a transparent ocean is a credible factor in making judgements about undersea capability. Yet others believe that there’s a 75% to 90% chance of oceans becoming transparent by the 2050s.

On top of that, in 2016 the Department of Defence Science & Technology published a report that confirmed that ‘The Australian Government has ruled out the nuclear option since Australia lacks the appropriate infrastructure, regulation guidelines and procedures to successfully build and operate nuclear submarines, and the time required to amass such support systems and skilled people would extend beyond the time frame for replacement of the Collins class fleet.’ Have these problems suddenly been overcome?

In 2023, I issued an FOI for a signed copy of the AUKUS agreement. 5 documents were identified but were exempt. Defence confirmed that AUKUS is an enhanced security partnership and a non-treaty arrangement as such, the documents comprising the arrangement are not public or presented for consideration by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT).

A delivery of nuclear submarines via AUKUS is not likely to occur anyway, so all this probably is a moot.

As for the high cost, the Albanese Government’s “investment” in the Defence portfolio will see overall funding reach $765 billion over the decade, which is more money than there are stars in the Milky Way.

We can’t forget alternative – and I would suggest more critical – demands on our limited budget. The Intergenerational Report found that climate change will cost the economy up to $423 billion over 40 years, $73 billion a year by 2060 even if action is taken to reduce emissions. On top of that the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the Uni of Cambridge simulates the likelihood of climate induced downgrades to sovereign credit ratings with Australia at high risk of losing its AAA credit rating by 2030.

Australia can’t afford to squander over half a trillion dollars on a “promise” to deliver nuclear submarines perhaps 20 years from now, if it’s convenient to the US at the time, when it’s likely that detection technology advances will have substantially reduced their strategic value.

Nuclear waste

What about the nuclear waste we’ll have to store indefinitely if we have nuclear propelled submarines? Safe disposal or long-term storage of nuclear waste has been a perennial issue since nuclear power was devised. Unlike speculative potential benefits from nuclear submarines we know the dangers posed by nuclear waste and we know they persist indefinitely. Has this been given appropriate weight by decision makers? And of course we’re assuming it’s limited to our nuclear waste.

Nuclear submarines use highly enriched, weapons grade uranium which will have to be kept deep underground and monitored for centuries. Weapons grade waste remains radioactive for 20,000 years and at the moment we can’t even agree on a permanent place to store low level nuclear waste.

Bury it in our vast Outback? AUKUS already has a disproportionate effect on First Nations people. It’s clear they weren’t and aren’t being properly informed and consulted – in their own languages – about the likely consequences of AUKUS on their land, sea, communities, skies and customs. Shades of the atomic testing at Woomera after WWII. They have not provided free, prior and informed consent to the militarisation of their traditional lands, or for its use as a dumping ground for highly radioactive waste. That’s why Traditional Owners have every right to be upset and hopefully will contest legislation that declares the Osborne Shipyard and the HMAS Stirling naval base near Perth as designated naval nuclear propulsion facilities, allowing radioactive waste to be stored at both sites.

Justifying AUKUS

Departing Ambassador Caroline Kennedy said AUKUS WAS justified .. just look at China’s ramming Filipino coast guard vessels, the artificial islands it’s now built in the South China Sea, its intimidation in the Vietnamese fishing grounds, its missiles fired over Taiwan and towards Japan. But is China being unnecessarily aggressive with its own massive military build up – giving our intelligence agencies just cause to advise our Australian government to prepare for war?

In August 2022, China fired missiles into the waters around Taiwan during war games to express anger at a visit to Taipei by then-Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi which was seen as highly provocative.

Is China preparing for war?

Our intelligence agencies and analysts seem to confuse – perhaps deliberately – military preparedness with war preparations.

Giving evidence before the US China Economic and Security Review Commission in June 2024, Timothy Heath from RAND corporation said analysts cite evidence of Chinese war preparations but in reality military preparedness is the breadth of their activity. States undertake this to ensure its military can carry out all missions assigned to it. This includes investing in and developing new weapons and equipment, recruiting and training personnel, and planning and preparing for contingencies. Military preparedness is a normal activity undertaken whether or not a country’s leadership believes a war is likely.

Heath points out that more reliable indicators that a country is anticipating conflict can be observed when the entire society prepares for war. There is no evidence that China is carrying out any type of mobilisation for war and little evidence of national war preparation. Heath points out that Xi’s speeches about Taiwan reunification resemble those of his predecessor: any mention of Taiwan occurs right at the end with the focus being on socioeconomic issues, jobs, corruption and inequality. Its defence expenditure is at about 2 per cent of GDP, about average with lesser powers and far less than the US. China’s stockpiling is more likely related to concerns over a more unstable and unpredictable global economy.

There’s also no public enthusiasm for war. Surveys have found that the Chinese public has expressed little support for armed conflict to compel Taiwan’s unification and still less if such war might involve the US. Polls in Australia and the United States reflect similar sentiments. No elites in China support war.

Like most rising powers, China is increasing spending on its military. China’s focus is on the defence of its sovereign territorial integrity, which all countries focus on. In China’s case the need to do so is increased by the US surrounding it with military bases, establishing large regional military alliances and pursuing openly aggressive economic policies

There’s no threat to navigation. The problem is what are called the “exclusive economic zones.” The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982 established what are called “exclusive economic zones.” Two hundred miles offshore, there has to be complete freedom of navigation. But there should be no “threat or use of force.” China and India interpret that to mean no military intelligence operations. The United States disagrees. They say the United States has the right to carry out military and intelligence operations in the exclusive zone.

There are problems in the South China Sea – China’s maritime claims in the region are disputed and so too is its island building – but these issues can be dealt with by “diplomacy and negotiations”.

We also have to improve military to military communication. US and China need to negotiate some common understanding on maritime freedoms and prohibitions. Bear in mind too, that the US isn’t a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but China is.

Anyway, it’s important to keep some perspective. Russia has about 21 military bases abroad, but only a handful beyond the borders of the former Soviet space and China has one military base outside of China. The United States, on the other hand, has about 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Its “security dominance” in the Indo-Pacific hasn’t yet protected anyone; to the contrary, it irradiated the people of the Marshall Islands, devastated Vietnam and Cambodia and gave the nod to Indonesia’s genocidal invasion of East Timor. Some “protective security”!

The United States has China encircled and many of the US’s nuclear weapons are reportedly stationed around Russia. So it’s not hard to understand Russia and China, and now Iran, moving closer together.

The other problem for the United States is its standing and influence in South East Asia. The annual State of South East Asia poll 2024, asked respondents who they should align with and who ASEAN should align with if they had to choose between the US/China; they chose China. The US has taken an enormous hit in the majority of Muslim countries in South East Asia because of its complicity in the genocide in Gaza. People see that as a more important geopolitical conflict than issues in the South China Sea. That loss of standing and influence in the region is entirely of the US’s own making and has nothing to do with China.

Scrapping AUKUS

Only Anthony Albanese knows why he didn’t scrap the AUKUS deal. Perhaps senior public servants from Defence and the intelligence agencies presented persuasive arguments based on flawed assumptions and outdated strategies; perhaps their fear mongering worked. Perhaps he didn’t want to be “CIA’d” a la Whitlam. Perhaps he won’t even be the Prime Minister after the next election, although the alternative isn’t at all attractive.

At the end of the day AUKUS is an intergenerational disaster. It will cause long term detriment to Australia’s security.

AUKUS will prevail under Trump. Trump would look at AUKUS and say, “Now this is my kinda deal!”. Billion dollar prepayments with no definite commitments and an escape clause. Enriching the US military industrial complex and its minions, including both US and “retired” Australian politicians. What’s not to love about it? But if Trump imposes punitive tariffs on Australian goods is there scope for us to withdraw from the AUKUS agreement? It’s a bit hard to answer this when the government conceals the actual terms of the AUKUS arrangement. From what little we know about its terms I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s no easy outers for us, and certainly none like the US has.

The question is whether Australians can sustain the domestic pressure to have the entire AUKUS project carefully examined and scrapped, not because Trump will be President but because AUKUS and other defence decisions have been made without proper explanation and without independent or public examination or scrutiny.

Clinton Fernandes, author and Professor of International and Political Studies at UNSW, rightly points out in his book ‘Sub imperial Power’ that:

‘The public responds rationally to the facts it sees. Inconvenient facts are not censored but are buried all the same, in principle, they are discoverable but in reality they are out of the publics’ awareness because, without regular repetition, no one remembers them. And they have to remain unrepeated and un emphasised precisely because of Australia’s democratic freedoms. If they are front and centre, they would never be tolerated by Australians. This is why a former DFAT Secretary, the late Richard Woolcott, said, ‘We cannot allow foreign policy to be made in the streets, by media or by unions.’

So that’s the job of every Australian: push for more information, keep talking about why AUKUS is an utter disaster and why it commits us to a costly and dangerous trajectory.

Australia is a part of a hostile military alliance directed at China – and Japan will play its own game. “Interoperability” or “interchangeability” means we’re now a US pawn, tied to its coattails. But it’s also true that:

• China is our largest trading partner,
•  there were approximately 152 thousand Chinese international students enrolled in Australia,
• there are now some 1.4 million people with Chinese ancestry living in Australia, comprising 5.5% of the population, and
• Article I of the ANZUS Treaty states that The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international disputes in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
• Over more than 2,000 years, China does not have a cultural history of external aggression. China has not started any wars with other countries. China is encircled by US military bases. China shows no sign of abandoning its long-held position that it will never engage in a nuclear first strike. China has no motive to interfere with commercial shipping which is conveniently conflated with its objections and actions when military ships pass within a 12-mile limit of disputed territory.

No one has identified any motive for China to attack Australia, unless we were participating in a US war against China.

It is praiseworthy that other countries in our region strictly adhere to a policy of non-alignment and refuse to unconditionally ally with any major power.

Australia’s sovereignty

Where does this leave Australia’s sovereignty?

It’s true that much of Australia’s war fighting capability is not self-sufficient. We can’t maintain operational readiness on our own. F-35s can’t stay in the air without software updates from, and information exchange with, the US.

Parts and supplies come from a US-led consortium. You should note that the 15 April 2024 US Government Accountability Office found that F-35 Sustainment: Costs Continue to Rise While Planned Use and Availability Have Decreased. So it’s costing more and doing less.

Australia has shaped its defence policy to be compatible with US foreign, strategic and defence policy and US force structures. All are designed to be compatible with US forces when we operate beside them in whatever theatre of conflict and war they deem essential to maintain their own “international rules-based order”.

But there is still space for the hard diplomatic work. Australian can build opportunities for collaboration fostering long term peace. It can help to establish a non-aligned mechanism that will link major western and non-western powers, which will then provide a mechanism by which countries can seek to moderate some of the US/China tensions and a forum for greater competition among countries, ensuring that countries apart from China/US work towards greater stability and cooperation. Such multilateral efforts will ensure there’s an off ramp if conflict spirals.

On the upside

Elon Musk does business in China. He has a close working relationship with China, he has Tesla factories there.

The intelligence community is reeling and John Bolton is losing his mind over the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to the position of Director of National Intelligence, which probably means she’s a sensible pick. It’s worth noting that she has been publicly outspoken about regime changes wars, the stance towards Beijing and the downsides of escalating tensions with Beijing, the need for cooperative approach on global challenges, and that trade wars with China could escalate into a hot war. She introduced legislation in the past for congressional approval of military action. No wonder Bolton’s apoplectic..

Trump’s respected chief of staff, Susie Miles, has worked as a lobbyist, including for Chinese clients.

So if Trump is surrounded by at least some cool heads there may still be a chance to lower the temperature through diplomacy.

In any case, the aim of any Australian Government should be to support China and United States competing peacefully.

It’s interesting that the National Defence Statement 2023 says that a large scale conventional and non-conventional military build-up without strategic reassurance is contributing to the most challenging circumstances in our region and that China’s build up is occurring without transparency or reassurance to the Indo Pacific region. That’s simply not true.

Back in 1972, while normalising relations between them, the United States and China released a Joint Statement. The China side stated: China will never be a superpower and it opposes hegemony and power politics of any kind.

The Chinese side reaffirmed its position: The Taiwan question is the crucial question obstructing the normalisation of relations between China and the United States; the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China which has long been returned to the motherland; the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere; and all U.S. forces and military installations must be withdrawn from Taiwan. The Chinese Government firmly opposes any activities which aim at the creation of “one China, one Taiwan,” “one China, two governments,” “two Chinas,” and “independent Taiwan” or advocate that “the status of Taiwan remains to be determined.”

The U.S. side declared: “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.”

Then again in 2019 China released its white paper – ‘China’s National Defense in the New Era’ – reiterating that China will never seek hegemony, expansion or spheres of influence. It wasn’t widely reported.

China’s position has been remarkably consistent. There’s simply no evidence that China has any plan to take Taiwan by force or otherwise develop a hegemonic appetite.

China has said that “National reunification is the only way to avoid the risk of Taiwan being invaded and occupied again by foreign countries, to foil the attempts of external forces to contain China, and to safeguard the sovereignty, security, and development interests of our country”, but polls show there’s no appetite in China or in Taiwan to change the current status quo by force.

At the end of the day, Pine Gap, the existence of US bases in Australia and the increasing integration of our militaries will make it hard for Australia to say no to the next request to join a war. We can only maintain public pressure for accountability and transparency and underlying assumptions must be examined and questioned.