AUKUS: a collection of views not found in our Washington dominated media
AUKUS: signed and sealed by the Liberal government when it joined the pact in September 2021, the spoils of which have been delivered by the Labor Government in March 2023. The Labor Government and Australia will pay a heavy price for what is being done in our name. We are being humiliated by our own government.
The AUKUS alliance has forever changed Australia’s sovereignty. Foreign policy and diplomacy has been pushed aside by military policy.
US Admirals and Generals regularly visit to pull us into line. Our media hang on their every word.
Our Department of Defence employs US Admirals to ‘advise’ on submarines to attack China. It should be renamed the Department of Attack .
For the first time we will be engaging in the development and ownership of nuclear powered submarines. And for what purpose? Not for our own safety, prosperity or gain. The China threat is manufactured by a failing hegemon, aided by our own media desperate to contain a time stamped world order.
China is not a military threat to Australia or the US.
The hysteria over China has given rise to a new age of McCarthyism displayed in the unforgivable sham of a Red Alert by our own media. Albanese, Wong and Marles said not a word in criticism.
And if this isn’t enough, the eye-watering budget could well have been put to use to tackle our real threat, climate change. The plight of our poor is ignored.
We have been struggling for decades to build bridges to our region. But instead of building bridges we have now become a spear carrier in the region for the US. With AUKUS we are retreating to the Anglosphere.
AUKUS is not about defending Australia. It is about aiding the US in its panic over the economic challenge of China. We have fallen in the US trap. Acting as a proxy for the violent and aggressive US, we have greatly increased our own risks.
There is something seriously wrong when a Labor Government finds its key supporters on AUKUS are the Murdoch Media (Greg Sheridan), the Nine Media Group, Peter Dutton, Andrew Hastie and the United States Studies Centre in Sydney.
Arthur Calwell on Vietnam and Simon Crean on Iraq showed leadership and courage. But Anthony Albanese…!
Our series of articles by some of Australia’s best analysts are collated into an AUKUS collection here, to share a view of the many challenges AUKUS creates for our government, sovereignty and to the Australian people. More articles will be posted as the debacle unfolds.
**Paul Keating**
Paul Keating - Australia locks in Asian Century as subordinate to the US
The Albanese Governments complicity in joining with Britain and the United States in a tripartite build of a nuclear submarine for Australia under the AUKUS arrangements represents the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War One.
**Mike Gilligan**
Keating exposes ministerial incompetence in Albanese Government
Speaking out strongly against AUKUS at the Press Club yesterday, Paul Keatings concern is that Australias security has been laid limp upon the altar of small target politics by the two key Ministers - Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles.
**Brian Toohey**
Nuclear safety agency silent on disposal of AUKUS radioactive waste
At this stage there is little interest in how to dispose of the high level uranium waste from AUKUS SSNs, let alone put First Nations voices to the fore. This is unlikely to change while the nations most prominent journalists see it as their job to promote the dominant military doctrine and boost the demonisation of China, while rubbishing inconvenient interlopers such as the former prime minister Paul Keating.
**Mike Scrafton**
As the government offers new hints at the optimal path for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, the questions about the viability of the project mount. The political pressure to out-muscle the Coalition on national security, if thats what is driving the Labor governments enthusiasm for this impending car-crash, should not be allowed to undermine the national interest.
**Geoff Miller**
It seems that poor old Albanese has been sold a very greedy---though only virtual---pup. Think of the comparison with another Labor PM, Ben Chifley. Albanese doesnt come out of it very well.
**Mack Williams**
Albanese and the subs: a looming Goat Rodeo
Details of the proposed AUKUS submarine deal to be announced next week in San Diego are leaking out all around the world. It seems that it will be much more complicated and expensive than intended at the outset of the path to the Holy Grail of an optimal solution. Already there are ominous signs that the three countries cannot even harmonise their rush into PR to launch the program.
**Jack Waterford**
We dont need subs or war with China
The pussies in Labor are reluctant to differ by a millimetre from the coalition on defence, foreign affairs and national security lest they be accused of treason.
**Caitlin Johnstone**
On war with China, Australia Is caught between a rock and a Pentagon
As part of Australian medias relentless onslaught of war-with-China propaganda, the government-run Australian Broadcasting Corporation just aired a radio segment on RN Breakfast about the newly revealed details on the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, featuring two guests who are enthusiastic supporters of the deal, and hosted by another enthusiastic supporter of the deal.
**Wanning Sun and Minran Liu**
Red Alert: news media Sleep-Walking into US war propaganda
One of the best-known writers on public opinion, Walter Lippmann, tells us that every conflict is fought on two fronts: the battlefield and the minds of people via propaganda. We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemys side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness.
**John Menadue and Aran Martin**
AUKUS and the drive to war with China: Special Issue
A Labor government has puts guns before butter how extraordinary! Today, Pearls and Irritations has taken the unusual step of devoting our issue line up entirely to articles on the drive to war with China and the disastrous commitment of $368 billion dollars of Australias public funding to nuclear submarines.
**Richard Heggie**
Opportunities foregone in AUKUS submarine decision
Rex Patricks analysis of the governments AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine decision (Michael West Media 14 March 2023) illustrates the one-sidedness of this insane deal. Patrick also sets out a rational and cost-effective alternative to the expensive and inappropriate nuclear subs which serves to highlight some of the significant opportunities lost by the wasteful and ill-considered over-spend.
**Greg Bailey**
China threat a distraction from climate change, economic inequity
Whilst much has been made of the extremely intemperate attempt by the Channel Nine newspapers to stir up fear against China, and their lauding of the AUKUS agreements and the massive amounts to be spent on nuclear submarines, little has been said about how this has been a distraction from fundamental issues the country is facing. Not the least of these is the refusal of the Labor government to implement policies that would take it away from the disastrous years of the coalition government.
**Marilyn Lake**
From Yellow Peril to Red Alert
Although it is in Americas interests that we are urged to prepare for war against China within three years, the graphic image that accompanied the Red Alert alert series in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald was designed to speak directly to Australias own deep and distinctive historic fears and sense of geographic isolation.
**Allan Patience**
Paul Keating excoriates AUKUS as exercise in security policy stupidity
There are few who think as clearly, who are as articulate, and who are prepared to speak out in the face of incredible stupidity in Australian politics as Paul Keating. And, as he made clear in his address to the press club this week, AUKUS is nothing if not an exercise in security policy stupidity.
**Tim Dunlop**
But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying centre of the world.
**David Armstrong**
On AUKUS, gallery journalists defend the line
In the Canberra press gallery, policy analysis takes second place to ephemeral politics, as highlighted by the response to Paul Keatings criticisms of the AUKUS submarine deal.
**Percy Allan**
What are the budgetary implications of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal?
**Henry Reynolds**
Penny Wongs faltering foreign policy
Little that was distinctive about Penny Wongs foreign policy has survived the signing of the AUKUS agreement.
**John Lander**
War mongering and the peace rally
Lest we forget the consequences, today we recall the great lie of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq which led to the smashing of that country and the slaughter of hundreds of thousand of innocent men, women and children.
**Roger Bradbury, Anne-Marie Grisogono, Elizabeth Williams and Scott Vella**
Billion-dollar coffins: detection tech to render AUKUS submarines useless
Speaking at a summit in San Diego on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a decades-long strategy to deliver the most costly defence project in Australias history.
**William Briggs**
When a war economy became an industry policy
Anthony Albaneses photo opportunity with president Biden and prime minister Sunak in San Diego must rank as one of the more grotesque and expensive the world has seen. The submarine deal, glowingly described as his moon shot with its $368 billion price-tag is an act of pillage of public money. It might allow him to bask in the warm embrace of the American and British leaders but threatens the sovereignty of Australia, the peace and stability of the region, and the economic well-being of this and future generations.
**Allan Behm**
AUKUS: Submarines on the never never, or castles in the sky?
AUKUS has landed well, sort of.
**Alex Lo**
Diplomacy in Beijing, war pact in San Diego whos the belligerent?
Under the Aukus military accord, Australia and Britain are committing serious self-harm to defend the American empire in the Indo-Pacific.
**Sue Wareham**
Twenty years on, coalition of the willing rebranded
20 years ago, on 20 March 2003, the US, the UK, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq in an illegal act of aggression. As with all wars, we were told this one would be quick. The pretext for the invasion was - despite authoritative doubts raised at the time - claims about the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. There were no such weapons in Iraq, although plenty of them in two of the invading nations. After on-again off-again ADF deployments, the last Australian troops finally left the country in June 2020.
**Tony Smith**
Two decades on, history should condemn the real butchers of Baghdad
The warmongers in the Anglophone countries of Britain, the USA and Australia today cause great concern with their AUKUS treaty and the not very subtle stirring of frenzy against China. It was similar in 2003 except that Iraq was the country being demonised.
**Alison Broinowski**
Here we stand: Twenty years after our first war of aggression
HERE WE STAND: We are standing here, as people were in Melbourne yesterday, to recall one of Australias worst days: the start of our first war of aggression.
**Jack Waterford**
Albanese a pale shadow of Keating, even on subs
Paul Keating did all Australians, and all the world, an important favour over the past week.
**Caitlin Johnstone**
Empire-funded think tanks are not valid sources: notes from The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs.
**John Jiggens**
The AUKUS orchestra, Julian Assange and Iraq
On Saturday, March 18, a small rally to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War gathered in a park outside the Lismore Memorial Baths.
**Dennis Argall**
To justify nuclear submarines as protecting trade routes is nonsense
We just need to look at the facts to see how foolish the assertion is that SSNs have the capacity to prevent disruption to our trade in the event of a war. Forty percent of our exports are to, and 20% of our imports are from, China. Throwing money at submarines weakens the national economy. Investment for war is a global and national negative.
**Mack Williams**
Marles... At least get the spin on the subs right!
As the Government seeks to respond to an increasing number of questions about what it extolls as the game-changing decision to purchase nuclear powered submarines (SSNs) it has been tweaking the spin about the reasons it has taken for this budget shaking decision.
**Scott Burchill**
AUKUS and Military Keynesianism
The nexus between war and capitalism has been extensively explored by historians, particularly those on the political left such as Gabriel Kolko. It is one of the reasons why the term state capitalism, rather than market capitalism, is a more accurate description of the economic structures of advanced industrial societies. War, or more often the threat of it, has long been a necessary economic stimulus.
**Allan Patience**
The myth of Australian sovereignty
As AUKUS propagandising gathers pace, the Australian public is being softened up to believe that whatever else the arrangement entails (and that still mostly remains a mystery), there will be no compromising of Australias sovereignty none whatsoever. History teaches us that such reassurances can be dangerously hollow.
**Noel Turnbull**
Guardian Essential Poll: AUKUS support collapses, 3-in-4 oppose
Reflecting the diminishing public support for the AUKUS deal, a new Guardian Essential Poll has found that only one quarter of Australians support paying the $368bn price tag to acquire nuclear submarines. For decades Australians were gung ho about going to war almost any war. Today despite the best efforts of the Nine Media (Peter Hartcher in particular) and other media they are now far more hesitant.
**Melissa Parke**
Josh Wilsons welcome concern: AUKUS will cost the earth
Comment by Hon. Melissa Parke on AUKUS 22 March 2023. I welcome the speech given by Josh Wilson MP, my successor in the federal seat of Fremantle, in the Australian parliament on 20 March in which he raised concerns regarding the AUKUS agreement. I also welcome the contributions from former Prime Minister Paul Keating last week (15/3) and former Foreign Ministers Bob Carr (17/3) and Gareth Evans in the Guardian (21/3). There ought to be a thorough debate in the parliament and in the community over this deal that is set to cost the earth in more ways than one.
**Kim Carr**
The Federal Labor Caucus did not endorse AUKUS
The $368 billion AUKUS deal raises many more questions than we have had answered to date.
**Richard Tanter**
AUKUS. This is a horror for which I now fear for the lives of my children and their children. Every time a Labor member of parliament or senator puts foot outside their office to appear in public, turns up at a public meeting, we need to ask them: why have you betrayed us? Why have you allowed this to happen? What are you going to do?
**Geoff Raby**
Chinas big foreign policy plays leave Australia in the cold
The Chinese Communist Partys 20th Party Congress in October last year may be seen with the efflux of time as a watershed event, not so much for the extension of Xi Pings tenure in the job, but for subsequent sharp policy resets.
**Ainslie Barton**
ASPI takes exception to media scrutiny
ABCs Media Watch backs down, following complaint from Australian Strategic Policy Institute, after it aired a segment of Channel Nine political reporter Chris OKeefe berating both ASPI and Nine Newspaper over the Red Alert series.
**David Armstrong**
Japan in diplomatic offensive Asian Media Report
In Asian Media this week: Japan woos Global South to counter China. Plus: Xis Moscow visit China plays it cool; Would Anglosphere nations welcome others in Aukus?; US Mid-East power waning; Sri Lanka gets aid, with conditions; media present differing views on China.
**Alison Broinowski**
Out of touch, out of date, or out of their minds?
Our foremost practitioner of the quick and deadly put-down, Paul Keating, copped plenty of blowback after his National Press Club performance on 15 March.
**Mary Kostakidis**
Turning Damocles Sword against the people
In an unprecedented way, Australias government has now risked both the countrys prosperity and safety in the service of a foreign power, with the setting in stone of AUKUS by a Labor government.
**Alex Lo**
A tale of two octogenarian politicians
Former Australian leader Paul Keating still has fire in his belly, while US President Joe Biden appears to be losing his mind and when it comes to Aukus and a nuclear submarine deal to counter China, theyre on opposite sides.
**Daryl Guppy**
Many a joke telling session starts with Have you heard the one about ? The latest joke in the ASEAN region is .the one about AUKUS?
**Barry Jones**
China and the AUKUS submarine deal: unanswered questions
The challenge of 2045 Australia will have access to American nuclear submarines in the early 2030s and by 2045 will have been building its own. But it is not clear what problem will be solved when Australian long-range nuclear submarines are able to traverse the northern Pacific.
**Judy Hemming**
American Fascism: A prior question to the AUKUS arrangements
The criticisms of the AUKUS arrangements announced by the government are entirely warranted, as is the outrage that has accompanied them, but, strangely, they miss a point which should have preceded them. And that has to do with the political complexion of the United States itself; in brief, it faces the world as a troubled and corrupt actor, neither united as a nation, nor even as a state.
**Adam Hughes Henry**
Since 1901, the often-self-appointed gatekeepers of Australias defence and diplomacy have had the greatest difficulty with the idea of accountability.
**David Legge**
Stop preparing to participate in a US war against China
Dear Labor MPs, I write to convey my deep disappointment in the Labor Government, of which you are part, specifically in relation to the AuKUS submarine deal but more generally in relation to military strategy and foreign policy.
**Bronwyn Kelly**
Australia: can we avoid a future that is truly frightening?
The last few months, culminating in the announcement about the AUKUS agreement and the release of the 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report, have probably crystallised for many Australians a realisation that they are headed towards a future that is truly frightening.
**Max Hayton**
AUKUS a test of NZs independent foreign policy
The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal presents New Zealand with a difficult dilemma. On one hand old allies are forming a military alliance to confront an emergent China, ramping up their AUKUS relationship and their rhetoric magnifying Chinas threat. On the other hand is New Zealands long standing carefully nurtured relationship with its major trading partner.
**Maddison Connaughton**
A controversy threatens to blow the alliances nuclear submarine deal out of the water, writes Maddison Connaughton in a new article for Foreign Policy.
**Marianne Hanson**
On 14 March, when the AUKUS nuclear powered-submarine details were revealed, I spent most of the day in the Emergency Department of a hospital in Brisbane, with a family member needing urgent medical care.
The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.
