AUKUS
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Health professions urged to speak up on AUKUS and its threats to health and safety
At first sight there might not seem to be much connection between health and the AUKUS military alliance. But the threats posed by AUKUS to health are multiple and strong, at local, national, regional and global levels. A serious examination of those threats should form an important part of preventive healthcare. Continue reading »
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Universities make astounding discovery: AUKUS lacks a social licence!
A not-so-happy anniversary: Usually, a first anniversary is an occasion for all-round rejoicing and back-slapping. So, it was to be expected that there’d be universal self-congratulation on the first anniversary of Anthony Albanese’s, Rishi Sunak’s and Joe Biden’s announcement on 13 March 2023 that Australia would purchase nuclear-powered attack-class submarines from the US as part Continue reading »
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Dead in the water: The AUKUS SSN delusion
The general theme of delusion and the particular theme of ‘dead in the water’ as they apply to the entire AUKUS arrangements are provocations worthy of taking further. Continue reading »
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“I told you so”: No Aussie subs in 2030s, total reliance on the Yanks
The sweetest words in the English language: I told you so. Continue reading »
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It’s a huge policy failure that Australia can’t defend itself
Not unexpectedly, the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project has run into reality as Virginia class production slows down, leaving Australia with no Defence policy. A huge strategic failure, if endorsed government assessments are believed, which has left Australia vulnerable and dependent on America. Continue reading »
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AUKUS: risks, risks and more risks
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. Continue reading »
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Webs and deceit: The politics of AUKUS
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Continue reading »
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Alice in Aukusland: America first and the stillbirth of ‘Australian’ SSNs
AUKUS has become a stillborn project. Continue reading »
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Hugh White dismantles the AUKUS project
As opposition to AUKUS grows, the nuclear submarine project does not stand up to expert scrutiny. Continue reading »
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Submarines, stealth and STEM – stifling any AUKUS debate
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. Continue reading »
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The new Pericles: Marles, master of the Seas
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 »
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Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China
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? Continue reading »
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Mobilising opposition to AUKUS – The Marrickville Declaration
Community opposition to the AUKUS project finds expression in a Sydney suburb. Continue reading »
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Research security, information restriction, and the universities
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 »
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Russia-Ukraine and a Chinese fear of aggressive Western containment
Ukraine is now being urged to make 2024 a year of consolidation of abilities before launching a new offensive in 2025. But the reality is that Ukraine will NOT force Russia out of its territory, and its time to draw some lessons in regard to the West’s aggressive policies toward China. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and an aggressive US imperium, its reach vast, its mind paranoid
Warmongering think tanks, self-appointed members of the military commentariat, and the whole stable of security-minded cognoscenti in the Anglosphere are terrified about one thing come November 2024. Will AUKUS, that boil on Australia’s policy landscape but boon for the US military industrial complex, be lanced by Donald Trump? Continue reading »
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We are being groomed for war with China
Orchestrated components are coming together to enable the US to recruit Australia in future wars of choice. Our media must begin to ask questions about the crude but successful ways the Australian people are being groomed to provide passive or enthusiastic consent. Continue reading »
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Malcolm Fraser would have agreed with Paul Keating on AUKUS
Like so many Australians, I am very worried by our commitment to AUKUS. I agree strongly with many other critics that we have been placed in peril by our government’s submarine agreement with the US and the UK. Continue reading »
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China and Australia once were allies
With QUAD and maybe JAUKUS, Japan is anxious to recruit us and others as spear carriers against China. The anti-China cause is long standing in Japan. Continue reading »
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Albo is in denial. He seeks protection and reassurance
Instead of thinking through and independently acting in Australia’s best interests, Prime Minister Albanese has followed in the footsteps of his discredited predecessors and outsourced defence and foreign policy to the US. Continue reading »
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A nation for a continent – no thanks
Events of the last three months or so will shape the way large cohorts of the Australian population assess the character, integrity and fitness for office of federal politicians and parties on issues of fundamental importance to them, much as happened during the years of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. But whereas the Vietnam Continue reading »
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AUKUS and US militarisation a concern for NZ sovereignty
As the New Zealand coalition government backs closer alignment with US geo-strategic interests, critics warn of instability and loss of sovereignty in a region militarisation is dividing. Continue reading »
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Doomed frigates: Australia, defence and the problems of procurement
It’s becoming a force of habit. Initially, grand plans and hopes for those in defence. A future weapons program in the offing able to add new capabilities. Much anticipation and the inking of signatures with the relevant manufacturer. Then, mounting costs, technical faults, the disappointment, and revision. In the case of the Future Submarine deal Continue reading »
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AUKUS submarine revelations compel a rethink
US Congressional report argues that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would actually undercut deterrence of China by depleting the US submarine fleet. With the promise of nuclear submarines becoming ever distant, it may be time to reconsider other options. Continue reading »
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Mimetic engulfment: The US has captured the Australian strategic mind
It is now the case that Australia’s alliance with the United States is best described as the Great Harmonisation. On all principal matters of strategic interest – especially in all fundamental aspects of China as the “pacing threat” – the overwhelming impression is that, though Washington and Canberra are spatially separated, they nevertheless speak and Continue reading »
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The Pentagon playing Marles along
Cartoonist Geoff Pryor tees off for the weekend on how we were persuaded to allow Northern Australia to become a US military colony. Continue reading »
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The ‘China Threat’: Can we escape the historical legacy of Anti-Chinese Racism?
How ironic that mainstream newspapers and conservative commentators should lambast former prime minister Paul Keating for living in the past when he denounced the AUKUS agreement and the Labor government’s fulsome support of it. It was, of course, the AUKUS agreement itself, entered into by Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden in 2022, that Continue reading »
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Albanese: The overseas Prime Minister
Prior to his most recent overseas trip to Jakarta, Manila, and New Delhi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been abroad a dozen times. Not bad for a government that’s been in office for just on eighteen months. The next few months will see him flying off again for half a dozen more summits, head to head meetings Continue reading »
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Insulating foreign policy from domestic politics: The legacy of Marise Payne
Marise Payne’s tenure as Australia’s Foreign Minister was rightly marked with criticism. Australia’s international and strategic interests went backwards during her time. But was she really Australia’s worst Foreign Minister as some commentators assert? It’s important to consider the root cause of the damage done to Australia’s national interests: the belligerent interference and harm done Continue reading »
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Australia only has itself to blame for trade woes with China after siding with the US
Australia has no business playing the victim when the lines between strategy and economic interests have become increasingly blurred. Continue reading »
