Pearls and Irritations

Australia and Germany are quite literally a world apart, and expecting to find many parallels between the two countries might appear counter-intuitive. But as secondary powers in the Anglo-American sphere of influence, many of the resulting challenges the two nations face are indeed identical. Most significantly, the severe curtailment of national sovereignty by a foreign power.

Australia’s and Germany’s paths into the global power structure of what is today referred to as “The West” were quite different. In the first half of the 20th century, Australia was but one of the Dominions of the British Empire, one of the world’s great powers. Germany, for 70 years was, one of the world’s great powers itself. The Second World War meant a significant loss of status for both, with the British Empire financially ruined and Germany militarily, economically, and socially devastated. At the same time, the United States emerged from the Second World War as the global hegemon with Europe as its principal sphere of influence, permanently relegating Great Britain, its Dominions and Germany to nations of a subordinate rank.

Formal Alliances

Once under the umbrella of the United States, the imperatives of the Cold War would express themselves in Australia in much the same way as they did in Germany. The two nations, which had just fought on opposite sides of the great war, were now both tied into a complex network of treaties and alliances, binding them to the US and securing anti-communist conformity. Australia signed the ANZUS agreement in 1951 and joined SEATO in 1954; West Germany was brought into NATO in 1955.

Intelligence Ties

Intelligence agencies, modelled after Britain’s MI5 and MI6, were created in both countries, staffed with anti-communist hardliners, and integrated into the Anglo-American intelligence network. In Australia, ASIO and ASIS were founded in 1949 and 1952 respectively and became part of the long-secret Five Eyes Alliance intelligence sharing network between the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. In Germany, the domestic and foreign intelligence agencies – like all major German institutions – were created under allied occupation, which lasted until 1955. The Organisation Gehlen was founded in 1946 (one year before the CIA) and the Verfassungsschutz in 1950. Key personnel in the creation of these agencies, like Reinhard Gehlen and Paul Dickopf, were literal Nazis and long-time CIA agents.

The intelligence agencies lacked transparency and governmental oversight right from the start. The foundation of the Five Eyes Alliance, the UKUSA Treaty from 1946, was not known even to Australian prime ministers until the ‘70s. In Germany, Gehlen’s spy ring reported directly to the Americans until the allied occupation ended. Only then did his organisation come under German federal supervision and was renamed Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Gehlen then reported to Adenauer’s Chief of Staff, Hans Globke, another prominent Nazi.

Given the Australian and German intelligence communities’ origins, it is unsurprising that their democratic control and national loyalty were often in doubt. As a consequence, ASIO was raided in 1973 on suspicion of withholding critical information, accused of domestic terrorism, and at other times, of betraying Australia to the Americans. Similar suspicions existed in Germany where Willy Brandt’s right hand man, Egon Bahr, noted in his memoirs that at least until the ‘60s nobody knew whom the BND was really working for. The German intelligence agencies, on their part, were repeatedly involved in scandals from illegal eavesdropping on journalists to plutonium smuggling and false flag terrorism. One salient example – the bombing of a German prison by the Verfassungsschutz in 1978 – was conducted under the auspices of then Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht, father of Ursula von der Leyen.

Military Integration

The formal alliance framework and the far-reaching intelligence ties were complemented with the permanent presence of US troops on Australian and German soil. The strategic military installations in both countries locked Australia and Germany into the vast global network of American bases allowing the United States to project its power worldwide and committed them also physically to the cause of the Cold War and beyond. Key installations like Pine Gap and Ramstein guaranteed Australian and German complicity in all American bombing campaigns from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe and the US Drone War.

Officials of both countries had to contend with the fact that, once in the country, US troops are there to stay, regardless of the end of the occupation and reunification (in the case of Germany) or the end of the Cold War. In regards to US military presence in either country, public opinion was generally ignored. The protests of Australian and German citizens against the American bases and the stationing of weapon systems, even if decades-long (Pine Gap) or with participants numbering in the millions (NATO Double-Track), were inconsequential. In the case of Germany, even when a resolution to withdraw US nuclear weapons from German soil was passed in the Bundestag (Germany’s parliament) in 2010, no action was taken. The Merkel government simply ignored it.

Sovereign Interference

Once Australia and Germany were fully integrated into the western power structure under American leadership, US interference in their domestic and foreign affairs was constant and widespread. Illegal surveillance, media manipulation, and funding of political parties occurred in both countries. In Australia, US interference additionally included the opening of fraudulent institutions like the CIA’s Nugan Hand Bank, which reportedly was engaged in arms smuggling, drug-running, and money laundering and, at other times, culminated in the overthrow of the Whitlam Government in 1975.

In Germany, surveillance was at least as widespread, though technically not “illegal”, as Konrad Adenauer (Germany’s first chancellor) had permanently signed away the privacy rights of German citizens in several NATO agreements as early as 1955. The US also interfered with German trade, monetary policy, stole German archives of historical importance (Operation Rosewood), conducted human experimentation and torture, and via NATO, maintained a network of covert paramilitary units across Germany (Operation Gladio). The German Gladio units were almost certainly responsible for the largest terrorist attack in West Germany’s history: the Oktoberfest Bombing, with 13 deaths and 221 injured.

Persistent Ties

The Cold War may have ended 35 years ago, but the western power structure under US leadership endured, and Australia and Germany continue to be part of it. US military bases on Australian and German soil remain. So too do the close intelligence ties and US influence on Australia’s and Germany’s sovereign affairs. The resulting parallels continue to be extensive. Not only do Australia and Germany allow and actively co-fund US-funded think tanks to influence their domestic public opinion, but they also pour billions into US proxy wars and the US’ arms industry, uphold the US’ worldwide sanctions regime, and, on occasion, make public shows of fealty, such as sending warships into the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea to antagonise China.

US geopolitical imperatives continue to outweigh sovereign rights in Australia and Germany alike. For Australia, the most pertinent example of this is AUKUS. This tripartite deal with the US and the UK was announced in 2021 and was poorly received by Australian Defence experts, former high-ranking Australian officials, and Australia’s neighbours alike. In order to join AUKUS, Australia cancelled a $90 billion deal with France for 12 submarines, instead agreeing to a $368 billion deal for 8 submarines from the US, severely damaging its diplomatic relations with France in the process.

The viability of the deal was almost immediately in question, with US Congress currently projecting that the AUKUS production goals are unattainable. An alternative, which would simply have the US operating submarines out of Australian ports, leaving Australia without any submarines of its own while still paying the $368 billion to the US, is already put forth. In the end, AUKUS appears to offer few tangible benefits to Australia, its national defence or its national interests. What it will do though is to keep Australia from developing its foreign affairs independently, and instead commit it to the American cause for the foreseeable future; precisely the purpose of AUKUS according to its main architect, US Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell.

For Germany, recent US interference has been more dire still. Not only are there good reasons to believe that the US committed an act of war against Germany by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, but it then managed to capitalise on the German sense of energy insecurity by selling Germany its LNG at four times the US market price. Inexplicably, Germany was neither able to conduct a proper investigation into the sabotage, nor did it opt to at least take advantage of the remaining still functional Nord Stream pipeline string. The German government instead allowed the energy prices to spike, sending Germany into recession and rapid deindustrialisation.

At the same time, the US dragged Germany into what, at this point even the New York Times calls, is a proxy war with Russia. A reluctant Germany then got strong-armed into sending tens of billions in military and financial aid, while abstaining from any kind of meaningful peace initiative, to support a drawn-out war in Europe that is diametrically opposed to its own national interests. Since October 7th, Germany has also been the second largest weapons supplier to support Israel’s assault on Gaza. As a result, 79 years after the end of the Second World War, German tanks are once again attacking Kursk and Germany once again is party to what the UN considers a genocide.

The Australo-German Conundrum

For Australia and Germany, being in the American camp ever since the Second World War has come with significant benefits. The post-war economic integration into the western system under American leadership, made them part of the First World and two of the countries with the world’s highest standard of living. At the same time, being a US ally also came at the cost of national independence and with the commitment to prioritise the US’ cause for global primacy over the sovereign needs of people and country.

This bargain may have had some justification while the United States still was a uniquely powerful country which could guarantee its allies peace and prosperity. But with today’s United States sabotaging Australia’s and Germany’s trade relations, syphoning off their national wealth through arms deals, and stirring up conflicts with Russia and China, which, in the case of Russia, it is in the process of escalating into a war with full-blown NATO (and therefore German) participation, it is hard to argue that the costs of being a US ally do not outweigh the benefits.

US influence motivated Australia to pick a fight with China and squander 40 years of good will and economic benefit and has Germany deindustrialise in support of a war against Russia which ruins a relationship that took decades of skilled post-war diplomacy, Willy Brandt’s famous genuflection, and Gorbachev’s largesse, to rebuild. Nations that can be made to act so decisively against their own best interest cannot be considered sovereign or democratic. And with the established political class complicit in, and the national media steadfastly supportive of, the American cause, Australia’s and Germany’s ability to avoid even greater calamity in the near future should be very much in doubt.

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