- The Guardian
- Issue #2130
AUKUS, the euphemistically called ‘security partnership’ between Australia, the US, and the UK, is sold to the public as promoting “a free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable.” A baby of the Morrison Coalition government, it was enthusiastically taken up by the Albanese/Marles Labor government.
The agreement has two Pillars. Pillar 1 focuses on Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered attack submarines and the rotational basing of US and UK nuclear-powered and possibly nuclear-armed attack submarines in Australia and troops. It also involves more powerful missiles and materiel. The US already has a large number of military bases and facilities carrying out surveillance, training, testing, exercises, and stationing of forces across Australia.
The public and our parliamentarians are kept in the dark as to what takes place in these facilities, and are denied access to many of them. The Chinese government’s response to the announcement of AUKUS was that it risked “severely damaging regional peace” and had a “cold-war mentality.” Australia’s forces – land, sea, and air – are already highly integrated in the US war machine and in many instances train and carry out exercises under US command.
Pillar 2 entails the collaborative development of advanced capabilities in six technological areas: undersea capabilities, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and autonomy, advanced cyber, hyper- and counter-hypersonic capabilities, and electronic warfare. It also involves innovation and information sharing. The target is China.
A few facts not widely known by the public: Australia is responsible for the storage and disposal of all nuclear waste from the AUKUS agreement and indemnifies the US and UK from any liability, loss, costs, damage, injury arising from nuclear risks.
Former PM Paul Keating, in an interview with Sarah Ferguson on the ABC’s 7.30 program said, “What’s wrong is that we completely lose our strategic autonomy: the right of Australia, Australian governments, and the Australian people to determine where and how they respond in the world is taken away, if we let the United States and that military displace our military and our foreign policy prerogatives.”
He agreed that increasing the presence of US troops and the broader military presence here makes Australia more of a target. “We are better left alone than we are being protected by an aggressive power like the United States.” He went on to clarify that China has “no strategic designs upon Australia.” “We’re not threatened by the Chinese military.”
“I see Australia as the beachhead to counter China,” said US Congressman Michael McCaul, until recently the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15/01/2025)
The US is in economic decline while China is rapidly making economic gains. The US is losing its grip on world domination with countries of the South forming various partnerships and alliances.
The impact of AUKUS on Australia’s budget will be massive. Australia has already coughed up $10 billion to each of its AUKUS partners to refit their shipyards. The Australian people will pay through cuts to essential social services. The only beneficiaries will be the military industrial complexes of the UK and US conglomerates.
War is the supreme destructive activity of capitalism which can provide seemingly limitless markets, which can raise prices and revive profits, which can use production to produce super profits through war. War consumes weapons and equipment generating further orders; it offers the private sector profits from being integrated in the war machine itself during war, and then it provides billions of more profits from reconstruction programs.
In times of recession, capitalist states like Australia promote war and the threat of war to ensure the protection and expansion of corporate empires and to divert working people from their economic problems.
While the world suffers under the growing economic recession, leading armaments corporations and military contractors are reporting super-profits.
