- The Guardian
- Issue #2136
Thanks to AUKUS I&A Strategic Communications, we’ve learned that the USS Minnesota arrived in Western Australia on 25 February 2025. AUKUS I&A says the visit is “ kicking off the first of two planned US fast-attack submarine visits to HMAS Stirling in 2025”.
The port visits support the “first pillar” of AUKUS. What’s that?
Pillar One is described by the pro-war and Sinophobic lobby group Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) as the trilateral effort to support Australia acquiring conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines. Minnesota’s visit is partly softening us up so that we’re used to having attack submarines drop in, and partly to train Australian naval officers – as AUKUS Integration and Acquisition put it, the US Navy will “have the opportunity to share and compare procedures, such as weapons handling, with their Australian counterparts.”
It would be funny if AUKUS weren’t such a threat to our sovereignty, budget, and national security that the Commanding Officer of the visiting Submarine, Jeffry “J” Cornielle says that his submarine’s visit will help establish the Australian Navy’s “sovereign, conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine force.” Funny because “sovereign” really isn’t the word for what’s happening here.
If something is sovereign, it belongs to a particular nation. West Australia is our sovereign territory. It belongs to us, and not to other countries.
AUKUS is the opposite of sovereign for Australia. The submarines, if they arrive, will be part of an agreement Australia won’t be able to change. If the US gets into a war, we’ll be along for the ride regardless of whether our government or people want it, and regardless of whether that war is in our national interest or not.
Some AUKUS supporters have argued that the loss of sovereignty is a dead issue, because we’ve given away so much to the US already. We already have US Marines on regular rotation in our country’s north. We already have a spy facility, Pine Gap, parts of which Australians aren’t allowed to set foot in, that provides support to Israel, but not to Arab nations and makes a mockery of Australian claims to be even-handed or uninvolved in the Middle East. So much sovereignty has been given away and won’t return, argue some pro-AUKUS commentators, that there’s no point worrying about giving away more.
It’s a tempting line of argument – it sounds realistic and involves no effort on our part, but it’s wrong. AUKUS has proved several things about Australia.
Firstly that there is no limit to how much a government can sign us up to spend on militarism without paying a political price in our bourgeois parliament; AUKUS will cost us almost half a trillion when it’s finished – even though it’s been admitted that there will be no penalty paid by the US if the subs are late or don’t materialise.
Second, that we have even more sovereignty to lose, or rather give away. Previous attempts to replace Australia’s fleet of submarines all had one feature in common – finishing with Australian ownership of the submarines we bought, whether French or Japanese. AUKUS sees the most expensive part of our navy becoming a working part of the United States military.
Resistance to this is possible and AUKUS is not a sure thing. The US Navy knows this, which is why AUKUS I&A’s press release stresses that the visit will be a chance for US sailors to “interact with and support the local community.”
We are part way through a sales pitch.
Both of our major parties have already signed on the line, but the consent of Australian people can’t be taken for granted.
The Communist Party of Australia actively supports an independent foreign policy. That’s why we actively oppose AUKUS.
