Antinuclear

The Quiet Surrender of our Nation’s Sovereignty

28 July 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, https://theaimn.net/the-quiet-surrender-of-our-nations-sovereignty/

It is our melancholy duty to inform Australians of the quiet surrender of our nation’s sovereignty

I. Introduction: The Mask and the Man

What they see is a Prime Minister. What I see is a party animal – trapped in a role he was never prepared to play. He knows how to win power. He doesn’t know how to wield it. And when he fails, he blames everyone but himself.

The Albanese government has presided over a quiet but systematic surrender of Australian sovereignty. Through AUKUS, through the integration of Australian forces into American military structures, through secret arms deals, and through a failure to interrogate the strategic consequences of our alliance commitments, Australia is being transformed from an independent nation into a junior partner – a vassal state without voting rights.

This is not a deepening of alliance. This is a strategic surrender.

II. AUKUS: The $368 Billion Abdication

The AUKUS nuclear submarine deal is the clearest example of this failure. Australia will commit $368 billion to acquire nuclear-powered submarines – equivalent to more than $30 million per day across three decades.

But the deal is plagued by problems:

• Deliverability: The United States shipyards cannot meet production targets, averaging only 1.1 to 1.2 Virginia-class submarines per year, far below the required 2.33.
• Cost blowouts: Australia will commit nearly $10 billion to subsidise US and UK naval shipyards.
• Strategic uncertainty: Former foreign minister Gareth Evans has warned that AUKUS will place Australia’s sovereignty at “serious risk,” with submarines effectively becoming “an extension of U.S. military power.”
• A “junior partner” trap: Former Defence Department analyst Dr Andrew Gaczol told a public inquiry that Australia will become a “junior” partner to the United States and lose its strategic independence. According to Dr Gaczol, “The Australian political class and defence policy community still think it’s our melancholy duty to support the military commitments of our great and powerful friends, even if they conflict with Australian interests.”

III. The US-Israel Military Merger: Australia’s Involuntary Integration

In July 2026, the US House of Representatives passed a $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by a vote of 216 to 212.

Section 219 of the Act establishes a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” requiring the Pentagon to appoint an executive agent to “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research.” The provision “would all but fuse the two countries’ armed forces together” across multiple domains, including biotechnology, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and cyberwarfare.

Representative Jennifer McClellan condemned the provision as one that “undermines our sovereignty and lacks any form of oversight.”

Why does this matter to Australia?

The Australian Defence Force has long achieved interoperability with the US military. Israel has achieved interoperability with the US since 1981. If the US and Israel move from interoperability to integration, the two degrees of separation between the ADF and the IDF are reduced to one.

Australia is being integrated into Israel’s military system through the American link. We are being drawn into a conflict not of our choosing, through a chain of obligations we never consciously accepted.

IV. Australia’s De Facto Participation in the Iran War

The evidence of Australia’s entanglement is already clear.

A. Intelligence Sharing

In March 2026, Australia deployed an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft and 85 ADF personnel to the UAE. The aircraft provides “long-range reconnaissance capability” to “secure the airspace above the Gulf.” Defence officials have confirmed that reconnaissance information obtained by the Wedgetail is also provided to US allies including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar.

While the government insists the role is “defensive,” the intelligence is fed into the Joint Air Operations Center (CAOC), which is under the command of US Central Command – and the US is waging an offensive war against Iran.

B. Embedded Troops

As of June 2026, 729 ADF personnel are embedded with US and UK armed forces. Some Australian personnel were aboard a US submarine that sank an Iranian frigate in the Indian Ocean. The Defence Chief defended this involvement as “in our national interest to have our people on board US Virginia Class submarines training, learning and understanding.”

C. Arms Supplies

Australia has been supplying Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) to the UAE. The government has also issued 322 defence export permits to Israel since 1 January 2017. As Greens Senator David Shoebridge noted, Australia has “one of the most secretive and unaccountable weapons export systems in the world.”

V. The Logic of Sovereignty Concession

The chain of sovereignty loss is clear:

1. US-Israel Integration (NDAA Section 219) →
2. Australia-US Integration (AUKUS, interoperability agreements) →
3. Australia’s de facto military integration with Israel through the US →
4. Australia’s strategic autonomy is diluted, and military decision-making is influenced by external forces.

Each link in this chain was forged without parliamentary debate. As the AUKUS inquiry has noted, the Federal Parliament “never held a thorough debate on the agreement,” exposing “a clear democratic deficit” in Australia’s largest strategic commitment.

VI. The Political Class: Incompetence or Complicity?

The Albanese government’s approach to national security is defined by caution, message control, and risk aversion – not by strategic vision.

• On AUKUS: The government has refused to interrogate the $368 billion deal, despite “substantial reservations” that have “not abated.”
• On the Iran war: The government insists Australia is not involved in “offensive operations,” but our assets are providing intelligence that enables offensive operations.
• On arms exports: The government has fought to keep arms exports to Israel secret, only being forced to disclose information by Federal Court order.
• On the NDAA: The government has remained silent on Section 219 – a provision that directly compromises Australian strategic autonomy.

Incompetent people, once in power, are more dangerous than bad people because:

• Bad people can be brought down.
• An incompetent person will remain there, constantly causing destruction, yet appearing “unblamed” after each failure.
• VII. Conclusion: The Cost of Silence
• Australia’s political class and defence policy community still believe it is their “melancholy duty to support the military commitments of our great and powerful friends, even if they conflict with Australian interests.”

But a new world order is coming. Australia has a choice: position itself for that new order, or desperately cling to a slipping world order.

Through AUKUS, through Section 219, through secret arms deals and uncritical alliance commitments, we are choosing the latter.

The chain of sovereignty concession is tightening. And the Australian people are being told nothing.

The question is not whether Australia will be dragged into a war not of its choosing. The question is: when that war comes, will we have any say in whether we fight?

Dedicated to my beloved wife and confidante – who taught me to see the person behind the mask, and to trust what I see.

July 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Ceases to be a nuclear power’: The high-stakes deal the new UK PM inherits

SBS News,  21 July 2026 By Yasmine Alwakal

Andy Burnham has inherited a major AUKUS commitment with Australia. Whether Britain can deliver it is another question

IN BRIEF

• On Monday, former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham succeeded Keir Starmer as the United Kingdom’s prime minister.
• Experts say the change in leadership could impact the UK’s investment in defence but is unlikely to impact AUKUS.

Labour leader Andy Burnham has become the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade — but experts say it remains unclear how the former mayor of Greater Manchester will approach the country’s most important strategic partnership with Australia.

Newly departed UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered a high-profile split with his defence secretary, John Healey, over a perceived failure to properly fund the department.

Burnham now inherits Starmer’s £298bn ($573b) defence spending commitment over the next four years, £4.7b ($9b) of which is unfunded and will need to make up part of Burnham’s first budget.

Experts have said that, while Burnham is unlikely to renegotiate the AUKUS agreement, defence is likely to play a central position in the new UK leader’s job description, given the growing threat of Russia to NATO members.

Jennifer Parker, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, told SBS News that policymakers in Australia will be watching Burnham’s approach to foreign affairs closely.

“I think there are broader questions about the implications of Andy Burnham’s views on defence and the defence investment plan in the UK … [but] in many ways, AUKUS is critical for the UK,” Parker told SBS News.

The UK, alongside Australia and the United States, entered into trilateral AUKUS security agreement in 2021.

The deal is divided into two key pillars: Australia’s acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability and the development and delivery of advanced capabilities such as underwater drones.

In July 2025, Australia also entered into a bilateral agreement with the UK dubbed the Geelong Treaty. The 50-year agreement enables the cooperative design, building, operation, sustainment, and disposal of nuclear-powered submarines known as SSN.

Will Burnham deliver on the UK’s AUKUS commitments?

Since 1968, the UK has been a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is recognised as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Parker said since the end of the Cold War the UK has operated ballistic missile submarines called SSBNs:

“Now, you need to have SSN’s — attack submarines — to be able to protect your ballistic missile submarines. AUKUS, for the UK makes designing, building and operating SSN’s cheaper. So, it makes it easier.”

That’s why she believes the UK, whether led by current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer or the incoming Burnham, will continue to uphold its AUKUS commitments.

“If the UK can’t achieve AUKUS … the long-term impact is quite significant in terms of the UK ceases to be a nuclear weapons power. Which really changes its global status.”

According to the Australian government, the UK will deliver its first SSN’s by the late 2030s. Defence Minister Richard Marles said the first class of Australian-built submarines is intended to enter service by the early 2040s…………………………………………………………………..

Parker from the Lowy Institute also believes the Australian government will watch to see if the UK takes “strides” to address what she described as capability constraints facing UK submarine industrial bases………….

“As much as I’m confident they’ll make it [AUKUS] work, whether they’ll make it work within the stated time frames is genuinely an open question.”

The UK’s defence committee has launched an inquiry into its military resilience and preparedness. It follows a July report by its defence ministry, which found that 47 out of 49 major defence projects in the UK were delayed or over budget.

In a statement, Dan Jarvis, the newly appointed defence secretary, said:

“Many projects had been announced with insufficient or no funding at all. The consequences were profound: limited availability of warships and aircraft, an army facing a recruitment crisis, morale weakened and renewal of our nuclear deterrent delayed.” https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/andy-burnham-aukus-submarine-deal-australia/j38e9qzzf

July 23, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

The hypersonic hypocrisy of Pacific nuclear politics

Jeremy Rose.https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/07/the-hypersonic-hypocrisy-of-pacific-nuclear-politics/?utm_source=pi_news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-2026-07-08

Australia and New Zealand rightly criticise China’s nuclear-capable missile tests in the Pacific. Their silence on repeated US tests exposes a glaring double standard.

In March, the US launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Travelling at speeds of more than 24,000 kilometres an hour, it landed near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands 6,700 kilometres away 24 minutes later.

Minuteman III missiles can deliver up to three separate nuclear warheads, each more than 20 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

On 3 March, 2025, the Marshall Islands formally announced its intention to join the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone by signing the Treaty of Rarotonga.

Searches of the NZ Herald and Stuff websites for stories about the missile test, and the signing of the treaty come up empty.

And yet, on Tuesday, both the NZ Herald and The Post led with news that China had test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile in the Pacific. Neither report made any mention of the 15 ballistic missile tests fired into the Pacific by the USA since 2021.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong, were both quoted as saying the Chinese missile test went against the intent of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

“The Pacific Islands Forum leaders have made clear that they want the Pacific to be an ocean of peace. We believe this test is inconsistent with that objective,” Wong said.

Wong isn’t wrong.

In 2024, Kiribati publicly criticised an earlier test of a Minuteman III missile that also landed in the Ronald Reagan Space and Missile Test Range located near the Kwajalein Atoll. As the name suggests, the tests are a regular occurrence.

A statement from the President’s office, reported by RNZ, said Kiribati objected equally to China and the US using the South Pacific for test-firing nuclear-capable missiles.

“Kiribati continues to advocate for the cessation of weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean and urges global cooperation to ensure the peace, security, and stability of our shared environment. We remain committed to protecting the peaceful future of the Pacific and safeguarding the well-being of future generations.”

It’s a thought – almost – echoed by Winston Peters in his response to the Chinese test: “This missile was fired into the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone established by the Treaty of Rarotonga. China’s action goes against the object and intent of that Treaty.”

You’ll search long and hard to find any similar criticism of the US missile tests by Ministers Peters and Wong. That’s despite the people of the Marshall Islands themselves and the leaders of neighbouring countries making it clear any testing of ballistic missiles in the Pacific goes against the spirit of the Treaty of Rarotonga.

The Chinese missile test is widely being reported as a response to Australia and Fiji’s signing of the Ocean of Peace Alliance the previous day.

Without confirmation from China, it’s impossible to know for certain, but it seems likely that the alliance – which New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has expressed interest in signing up to – is seen as a ratcheting up of military tensions in the South Pacific.

When it comes to the “object and intent” of the Treaty of Rarotonga, mentioned by Peters, few if any of the signatories would have countenanced one of their members purchasing nuclear-powered submarines.

But in 2023, Australia announced it was doing just that with the planned purchase of three nuclear submarines at an estimated cost of more than A$300 billion (about 15 times the combined GDP of the Forum countries excluding New Zealand and Australia).

Shortly after the announcement, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Damukana Sogavare told the UN General Assembly that his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free and put the region’s nuclear legacy behind us… We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The legacy Sogavare mentions is nowhere felt more keenly than the Marshall Islands, where the US carried out 67 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1946 and 1956, resulting in sky-high rates of thyroid cancer.

The US has paid out just US$150 million in compensation despite the internationally mandated Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal having awarded over US$2 billion in personal injury and property claims.

A survey by the Asia New Zealand Foundation earlier this year found that just 23 per cent of New Zealanders viewed China as a threat, compared to 35 per cent who saw the US as one.

The US has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads with 1,700 actively deployed; China has 620 with 34 deployed.

China has a long-standing policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, while the US refuses to rule it out.

When our leaders claim to be supporting Pacific countries in their commitment to a nuclear-free Pacific by rightly criticising China’s missile tests while steadfastly refusing to criticise the USA’s regular testing of intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, they’re indulging in hypersonic hypocrisy.

July 12, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Cooperation yes, uranium no: planned uranium sales to India would facilitate certain nuclear waste and risk and possible nuclear weapons

Dave Sweeney | Nuclear Free Campaigner, Australian Conservation Foundation | www.acf.org.au, 9 July 26

In response to news of a major uranium deal between Australia and India, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dave Sweeney said:

“There are serious and unresolved concerns about plans to elevate Australian uranium sales to India.

“For more than a decade there has been a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India but regulatory concerns have constrained exports.

“A Joint Standing Committee on Treaties examination of the deal in September 2015 recommended a series of clear steps occur before any Australian uranium was supplied to India.

“It said important changes and checks and balances were needed, including independent review of India’s nuclear regulatory regime, improved safety standards, the full separation of India’s military and civil nuclear facilities, improved nuclear decommissioning planning and comprehensive on-site inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“These concerns remain relevant today. There are compelling reasons for Australia not to send uranium to India.

“Australian uranium would fuel radioactive risk and waste and potentially allow the diversion of domestic uranium reserves to fuel India’s nuclear weapons program in an already tense region.

Some in the Indian government basically have admitted as much, including the former head of New Delhi’s official National Security Advisory Board, K. Subrahmanyam who outlined to the Times of India that given ‘India’s uranium ore crunch, it is to India’s advantage to categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapon-grade plutonium production’.

“Australia regularly cites the importance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet India – a nuclear weapons state – is not a signatory to the NPT. 

“Australia should not facilitate atomic exceptionalism or risk in the region.

“Like Australia, India’s energy future is renewable, not radioactive. That is the policy area that the Australia and Indian prime ministers should be preferencing”.

July 11, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Pacific nuclear survivors urge Australia to sign and ratify UN treaty banning nuclear weapons ahead of key conference

Australia is the only state party to a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty in any region of the world that has claimed to be protected by the nuclear weapons of another state.

Andrew Mathieson, July 3, 2026, https://nit.com.au/03-07-2026/25161/pacific-nuclear-survivors-urges-australia-to-sign-and-ratify-the-un-treaty-banning-nuclear-weapons-ahead-of-key-party-conference

A delegation of Pacific nuclear survivors joined Indigenous advocates in Canberra on Wednesday to call on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to sign and ratify an international disarmament agreement which aims to comprehensively ban and eliminate nuclear weapons in the region.

Members of the Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons invited members of the Pacific civil society to Australia’s Federal parliament to lay bare the human and environmental toll of tests over several decades.

The Australian parliamentary friends forms a bipartisan, cross-party forum, which currently is comprised of 47 of the 226 MPs across both houses and from all sides of politics, who meet and interact with nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation proponents to discuss treaty matters and their ongoing issues.

They were also reportedly joined this week by Anangu-Yankunytjatjara woman and second-generation nuclear test survivor, Karina Lester, who recently spoke with National Indigenous Times about the impact on her family of the 1953 British nuclear tests at Emu Field in remote South Australia.

She urged mobs that were “tested on, mined on, threatened with nuclear waste dumps or feared the impacts on their people, country and culture” to find their voice and speak up at the public inquiry that had commenced last month in Melbourne.

Australia has not yet signed or ratified the treaty which the United Nations first established as a resolution in 2017.

The invitation to multiple Pacific islander representatives coincided with two significant anniversaries falling on the first two days of the month: the 80th year of the first US test detonation on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands followed by the 60th year of the first French test detonation at Mururoa Atoll, Mā’ohi Nui in colonial French Polynesia.

‘Powerful nations can have consequences that last for generations’

Pacific civil society members lined up to plea to Australian MPs from the Labor Party, the Liberal-National coalition, the Greens and Independents.

“The experiences of the Marshall Islands and other Pacific communities remind us the decisions made by powerful nations can have consequences that last for generations,” the spokesperson for a concerned Marshall Islands Student Association, Samuel Barton, told the gathering.

“We ask the world to remember our history, stand with survivors, pursue nuclear disarmament, and place human dignity, justice, and peace at the centre of global decision-making.”

The UN general assembly first decided nine years ago to convene a conference to negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons.

The Australian government announced in 2023 that it was “considering the treaty systematically and methodically, as part of (Australia’s) ambitious agenda to advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament”.

According to the Labor government’s national defence strategy published two years ago, “Australia’s best protection against the increasing risk of nuclear escalation is (the) US extended nuclear deterrence and the pursuit of new avenues of arms control”.

But this implicit endorsement of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the government has also admitted.

‘Australia must match its history with urgent new action’

Australia is the only state party to a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty in any region of the world that has claimed to be protected by the nuclear weapons of another state.

Reverend James Bhagwan, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, said that in a region of increasingly militarisation that signing the treaty “would be a clear commitment to a nuclear-free free Pacific and a genuine ocean of peace”.

Merewalesi Tuilau, speaking on behalf of the Fiji Veterans and Families Association, added the Pacific “demands and deserves complete freedom from nuclear weapons and their threat – not simply management, but total elimination.

“Australia has shown it can lead,” Mr Tuilau said, “Australia must match its history with urgent new action”.

‘We want nuclear weapons testing to be relegated to history’

The anniversaries of the dual detonations in the Pacific were acknowledged after Labor member for Macquarie Susan Templeton put forward a motion to push the government to signing the treaty ahead of its ALP national conference later this month.

“With the legacy of nuclear testing still felt deeply in Australia, our region, right across the world, we want nuclear weapons testing to be relegated to history,” she said.

“I will continue to advocate for the importance of sustained international commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, including the Treaty on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and also the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

The Canberra event was a part of a wider lobby and advocacy tour that also took in Sydney and Melbourne, sharing heartfelt testimony from Indigenous communities affected by nuclear testing and calling for a Pacific region that is “decolonised, demilitarised, de-nuclearised and decarbonised”.

Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons call on “victim assistance, environmental remediation, and international cooperation and assistance” to address ongoing and unresolved humanitarian, human rights, and environmental impacts from nuclear weapons.

July 7, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

The tragedy of AUKUS

AUKUS is a grotesque demonstration of the singular inability of Australian governments to question the value of these arrangements or the wisdom of America’s strategic outlook, especially when it comes to the Asia-Pacific region. All this at a time when US hegemonic power is in visible decline, and when such compliance will carry ever greater risks and financial costs.

And not the slightest attempt to consult with the public, let alone initiate a genuine national conversation on Australia’s security options, in what is a period of far-reaching change that is transforming both the regional and global landscape.

Joseph Camilleri, June 19, 2026, https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/06/the-tragedy-of-aukus/

In his submission to the AUKUS Public Inquiry, Joe Camilleri argues revoking AUKUS must be part of wider reassessment of Australia’s place in the world.

The decision to become a party to the AUKUS security agreement stands as one of the saddest decisions ever made by an Australian government.

It was a decision made for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way, with unfortunate outcomes in the last five years and dire consequences looming in the years ahead.

Will the submarines be delivered on time? Will they have the desired state-of-the-art capabilities? Will they deliver the desired number of jobs? These are no doubt relevant questions, but they hardly go to the heart of the matter.

What is it that makes the AUKUS pact such an ill-considered and harmful policy initiative?

The entire decision-making process from its birth to the present has been thoroughly undemocratic. The discussions that led to the agreement in September 2021 were conducted in complete secrecy. And since then, government has said or done little to take the Australian public into its confidence. The costs, be they economic, environmental, diplomatic or cultural have not been seriously addressed, nor have the alleged benefits, nor how the project will proceed in practice, nor indeed how future decisions will be made and by whom. All this has been justified by repeating the time-worn and utterly duplicitous mantra of national security.

The first statement announcing the establishment of AUKUS told us that the intention was ’to meet the challenges of the 21st century’, but with great care taken to leave the nature of these challenges unspecified. The partnership, it was claimed, would ‘deepen cooperation on a range of security and defence capabilities’, but little was said as to why enhanced defence cooperation was needed at this time, and even less as to what such cooperation would achieve in practice. Yet, within hours of being briefed the then leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese affirmed Labor’s full support for AUKUS.

In the years that followed little has been said as to the function of the submarines, or the objectives to be served by trilateral defence cooperation. The concluding sentence of the Joint Leaders statement of March 2023 bears quoting in full:

We believe in a world that protects freedom and respects human rights, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states and the rules-based international order. The steps we are announcing today will help us to advance these mutually beneficial objectives in the decades to come.

The question ‘how was this to be done?’ was left conveniently unaddressed.

The closest thing to an explanation of Australia’s underlying strategy was the reference by Defence Minister Richard Marles to the ‘complex strategic landscape’ that now prevailed in the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region and what he described as ’the biggest conventional military build-up that we have seen since the end of the Second World War’. In subsequent statements, Marles made it clear that the offender was China. As a trading island nation, Australia had no option but to enhance its capacity ’to project with impact’.

In the days that followed, countless words have been uttered inside and outside Parliament, but to this day the justification offered for the AUKUS partnership remains riddled with ambiguity, inconsistency and evasion. At no time has it been made clear:

• What are the specific strategic contingencies for which the submarines are intended?
• How does AUKUS fit within Australia’s broader security policies?
• What alternative security strategies were evaluated?
• What are the assumptions regarding China’s future behaviour that underpin the AUKUS decision?

And not the slightest attempt to consult with the public, let alone initiate a genuine national conversation on Australia’s security options, in what is a period of far-reaching change that is transforming both the regional and global landscape.

The democratic deficit becomes even more troubling, given the failure to consult the First Nations despite the fact that AUKUS implementation, including submarine operations, infrastructure, training, industrial production, weapons support and maritime transit, will affect a large part of Australian land and seas. The simple fact is that AUKUS carries far-reaching implications for:

• Native Title rights recognised under Australian law
• Land rights under legislation such as the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act
• Indigenous interests in sea country and coastal waters
• Heritage protection relating to sacred sites and cultural landscapes
• Rights to consultation regarding the economic, environmental and cultural implications of land use and development projects.

As a consequence of the unfortunate experiences associated with earlier defence projects, Indigenous communities are especially concerned about the likely impact of AUKUS-related activities. These concerns cannot be adequately addressed piecemeal as individual facilities are about to be developed. An immediate and systematic assessment of Indigenous rights, needs and preferences with the full participation and oversight of Indigenous communities is the only viable approach. The consultation should extend to the very rationale of the AUKUS project, since it will impact so many spaces across Country, over which, let’s not forget, the First Nations have never ceded sovereignty. When dealing with the larger questions posed by the AUKUS adventure, a dose of Indigenous wisdom would not go astray.

The rationale for the AUKUS pact rests largely on the frequently insinuated assumption – never openly stated or adequately explained – that China poses a major threat to Australian security. This assessment rests on a questionable understanding of Chinese interests and intentions, and the methods by which China seeks to expand its influence regionally and globally.

Labor, it is true, has managed to stabilise somewhat the parlous state of relations with China, including the resumption of ministerial visits between the two countries, which eventually led to Albanese’s visit to Beijing in November 2023. Importantly, most Chinese trade sanctions imposed on Australian products in 2020–21 have been lifted.

However, after four years in office, the Albanese government still depicts China as a rising power whose aggressive posturing is matched by a much expanded capacity to flex military muscle.

China, it is true, has steadily increased its military spending, which rose from $286 billion in 2020 to an estimated $312 billion in 2025. Similarly, it has expanded its military presence both in the South China Sea and around Taiwan. None of this suggests that either its military spending or its ability to project military power regionally, let alone globally, are on a scale remotely comparable to that of the United States.

Successive US administrations have nevertheless used China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and the heightened tensions in relation with Taiwan to justify an expanded US naval presence on China’s doorstep, a position Australian governments have seen fit to support. AUKUS is therefore best understood as an expression of US strategic priorities, and Australia’s participation in AUKUS as yet another demonstration of Australia’s longstanding alignment with the United States.

Simply put, Australian governments remain wedded to the view that Australia’s security ultimately depends on protection by the United States. AUKUS begins to make sense once it is seen to be part of an overarching strategic orientation that includes ever higher levels of interoperability with the US military, multifaceted defence cooperation greatly facilitated by the 2014 Defence posture agreement, intimate links with US intelligence operations, and heavy reliance on the acquisition of expensive US military hardware.

AUKUS is a grotesque demonstration of the singular inability of Australian governments to question the value of these arrangements or the wisdom of America’s strategic outlook, especially when it comes to the Asia-Pacific region. All this at a time when US hegemonic power is in visible decline, and when such compliance will carry ever greater risks and financial costs.

The root of the problem lies in the addiction to imperial power that holds sway in the minds of many among Australia’s political, bureaucratic, military and intelligence elites. They see themselves as having unique access to an exclusive and powerful club that confers not just safety, but status and privilege – once the British club, now the American club. They have reluctantly accepted the demise of the former, but are not reconciled to the slow but steady decline of the latter. They feel most comfortable when connected to the anglophone world and, at best uneasy, when dealing with the East. This is the meaning and tragedy of AUKUS.

Senior Labor ministers, with an eye on the next election, see no value in provoking the ire of the security establishment that includes influential voices in the armed forces and the various security and intelligence agencies but also powerful elements in the civil bureaucracy, the media, think tanks and an array of other pressure groups, not least the defence industry.

Ultimately, the greatest cost of AUKUS and associated entanglements is not the financial outlay, but the continued entanglement with an imperial power in decline. Technological sophistication, high levels of military spending, and the flexing of military muscle on a global scale do not readily translate into military victory or political control.  The deadly and largely ineffectual war on terror, the disastrous war in Iraq, the protracted conflict and humiliating retreat in Afghanistan, the unholy mess in Libya and Syria, and the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East, not least the folly of the Iran war, all point to the fragility and limits of US power.

The AUKUS misadventure is a highly damaging distraction that prevents Australia from addressing the crucially important task of assessing and responding to the pressing regional and global threats ahead.

Revoking the AUKUS agreement is an urgent necessity. Such a step, however, must be part of wider reassessment of Australia’s place in the world. Australia as a nation needs to pause and consider the very meaning of security in the light of the profound geopolitical, environmental, economic, technological and cultural transformation currently under way. The militarisation of security discourse and practice poses new and unprecedented dangers.

The overemphasis on military threats needs to give way to notion of human security where the accent is on reconciling divergent histories, interests and grievances within and between countries, rather than on fuelling arms races between expanding and ever costlier military arsenals.

What Australia needs more than ever is to strive for a security policy framework founded on three key principles: common security (Australia cannot be or feel secure unless its Asian and Pacific neighbours also feel secure); cooperative security (security can be achieved only when countries act in concert, bringing to the table diverse energies, resources and insights); comprehensive security (there is more to security than protection from external military threats – security also includes economic, cultural and ecological security).

Crucial to this enterprise is finding a pathway to a substantive and durable Australia–China security and cultural dialogue – to be developed in close consultation and cooperation with Asian and Pacific neighbours.

Conveying this perspective and recommendations that flow from it to the Australian government and more generally to the Australian parliament may serve some useful purpose. But such an exercise is unlikely to achieve a great deal in the short-to-medium term. The more pressing need is to address this assessment of the road ahead to the nation as a whole, and to the diverse organisations that make up Australia’s civil society.

In the light of the AUKUS fiasco, the urgent challenge before us is to cultivate an informed, respectful and ongoing national conversation about Australia’s place in the world, and the contribution it can and should make to its own security in tandem with the security of its neighbours, the security of the entire human family, and, of course, the security of the planet.

June 28, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Wong and Marles were left waiting in the wings in London – it’s further proof Aukus was never anything more than a political stunt

Allan Behm, 16 June 26, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/16/uk-defence-minister-john-healey-resignation-wong-marles-aukus-exposed-political-stunt

All the flimflam and palaver amount to nothing in the face of domestic realities. Perhaps the UK’s John Healey has done us all a good turn.

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The resignation of the UK defence minister John Healey, along with the armed forces minister Al Carns, has driven another nail into the coffin of Keir Starmer’s prime ministership. This was no inadvertent injury to the prime minister but a signal on Healey’s part that he’s a leadership candidate – or at least a deserving member of any new prime minister’s cabinet. It’s very calculated: Healey is too smart to do anything by accident.

No less inadvertent is the damage he has inflicted on the prospects of the increasingly ill-fated Aukus nuclear submarine proposal. By leaving the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, and the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, waiting in the wings while he got on with the business of domestic politicking, he demonstrated once again what had been clear from the outset: Aukus was never anything more than a political stunt, expendable once it had served its political purpose.

Let’s unpack that.

Conceived in secret and launched by the then prime minister Scott Morrison with maximum political fanfare in September 2021, Aukus was a hurried attempt to meet the quite divergent political objectives of three very distant countries.

For Australia, it was about creating yet another security blanket to wrap us in the arms of great and powerful friends. It was a sad attempt to address the pathological insecurity of occupiers of a vast and distant continent. At the same time, it had the added political benefit of wedging Labor on the grounds that it was perceived as “weak” on national security. Labor met that challenge head-on by accepting the idea lock, stock and barrel – a curious example of the reverse wedge.

For Britain, it was about restoring some of its strategic credibility after its feckless Brexit decision, parading its imagined role as a European player with a global footprint. It was also about grabbing a flow of cash from gormless antipodeans to pay for the Band-Aids needed to treat the gaping holes in its national submarine construction capacity, now so disabled that it will take tens of billions to restore the UK’s submarine deterrence capability – if that’s even possible.

And for the hapless former US president Joe Biden it was about demonstrating America’s ability to lock its allies into strategic dependency while retaining both the UK and Australia as critical logistic and support partners in its efforts to maintain its ability to intervene militarily on a global scale. It was cynical and self-serving and for that reason alone easily survived the transition to the Trump administration.

So when two closely allied ministers are left cooling their heels in London wondering why on earth they’re there, the political fragility and the policy inadequacy of Aukus is exposed once again. When the retention of national political power in the face of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is at stake, flimsy international agreements are simply cast off. All the flimflam and palaver about shared values, enduring friendship and the international rules-based order amount to nothing in the face of hard domestic political realities. Just ask Donald Trump.

From the outset, the politics of Aukus have been totally unsupported by policy – an “emperor’s clothes” situation where a single event can expose the intrinsic flimsiness of the entire enterprise. Here we are, five years on, still waiting for the fundamental policy principles on which Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines might be justified. This is not to suggest that they can’t be justified: simply that they haven’t been.

Where are the answers to the basic questions? Why? What are the options? How? At what cost? Are there alternatives? Are there complementary actions? What are the downstream effects?

Australia has a long and dismal history of political initiatives that lacked robust policy structures to support them. Aukus is yet another symptom of a rush of blood to the head. We know that the US under secretary of war for policy, Elbridge Colby, entertains serious doubts about the policy viability of Aukus submarines. The Congressional Research Service clearly shares his concerns, noting as it does the inability of the US naval construction industry to meet the demands of the US Navy, not to mention the expansion needed to provide additional builds for the Royal Australian Navy. Fobbing Australia off with second-hand older Virginia-class submarines is hardly an advertisement for Marles’s vaunted “optimal pathway”.

So perhaps Healey has done us all a good turn by showing, once again, that Aukus is not about policy at all but just an act of large-scale political theatre. As all wise politicians know only too well, once the political purpose has disappeared, the show’s over.

 Allan Behm advises on international and security affairs at the Australia Institute in Canberra

June 18, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

How Zionist Lobbying Has Reshaped Global Politics

Australia has its own history of Zionist lobbying and political interference – a history that remains largely unexamined in mainstream discourse.

The Australian example is particularly instructive because it reveals how the machinery of influence operates even in a country geographically distant from the Middle East, with no historical responsibility for the conflict, and no strategic interest that would justify the degree of alignment with Israeli policy.

The mechanisms are similar: campaign donations, community lobbying, and the weaponisation of antisemitism accusations to silence critics. Australian politicians who question Israeli policy face organised opposition from Zionist organisations. The media environment is shaped by the same dynamics of donor pressure and editorial alignment.

13 June 2026 Dr Andrew Klein, PhD, Australian Independent Media

The Branch That Reaches Across Oceans – How Zionist Lobbying Has Reshaped Global Politics

“The branch is not the tree. The tree is still standing. And the tree – the tree is justice.”

The Branch That Reaches Across Oceans

The “Greater Israel” project is not a secret. It is not a fringe fantasy. It is being marketed in London, in Montreal, in New York – real estate roadshows advertising properties in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices warned in November 2025 that “Israel continues to expand its presence and control of territory in Palestine, Syria and Southern Lebanon,” and that Israel’s “constant claims to a borderless ‘Land of Israel’ are incompatible with a just and lasting peace.”

This is not merely a Middle Eastern conflict. It is a global project – one that relies not only on military force, but on an extensive apparatus of lobbying, financial influence, and the suppression of dissent in Western capitals.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that the “Greater Israel” project poses dangers not only to neighbouring countries but also to Europeans: “Even the Europeans are not safe, because the Zionist regime does not hesitate to openly declare its colonial and racist ambitions in forms such as ‘greater Israel’.” Whether one accepts the Iranian framing, the fact that the project is cited by adversaries as a casus belli indicates that it is not a secret.

The scale of political interference is not unique in spirit – it is an extension of historically brutal colonial behaviours, morphed into a new scale in line with modern communication systems. The Roman Empire bribed Germanic chieftains. The British Empire divided and ruled India. But the contemporary Zionist project operates within a rules‑based international order that was supposed to prevent exactly this kind of extraction.

And it operates with the active complicity of Western governments – not because they are powerless, but because their political systems have been captured.

The Machinery of Influence: AIPAC and the American Political System

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is the most visible node in a vast network of lobbying organisations that influence US Middle East policy. A 2024 academic study published in the Hasanuddin Journal of Strategic and International Studies found that “the AIPAC lobby is deeply rooted in US policymaking structures, ranging from vice‑president, and higher‑echelon staff, to parliament members.” The study noted that since 2021, AIPAC has expanded its activities to include direct participation in political campaign contributions, effectively buying access to the highest levels of American government.

The study’s conclusion is stark: “Such overly foreign influence on national policymaking has the potential to harm America’s long‑term relationships and interests in the Middle East if the US can’t make the barrier for foreign interference toward its national interests.”

This is not a fringe argument. Ilan Pappé’s comprehensive study, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic, documents how “over a century of aggressive lobbying changed the map of the Middle East.” Pappé details how pro‑Israel lobbies convinced British and American policymakers “to condone Israel’s flagrant breaches of international law, grant Israel unprecedented military aid and deny Palestinians rights.” Anyone who questioned unconditional support for Israel, “even in the mildest terms, became the target of relentless smear campaigns.”

The mechanism is not subtle. It is the same mechanism that has always operated in systems where political survival depends on campaign contributions. The donor class – in this case, a network of Zionist organisations and aligned right‑wing groups – buys influence. Politicians who comply receive funding, electoral support, and protection from primary challenges. Those who dissent are targeted, smeared, and often defeated.

This is not a conspiracy. It is a system.

The Silencing of Dissent: Academic Freedom Under Attack

The suppression of criticism extends beyond electoral politics into the realm of ideas. A 2024 academic paper in the journal Milel ve Nihal examines how “political lobbying, financial influence, and allegations of antisemitism are strategically employed to establish a cultural hegemony that determines what discourse is acceptable” in US universities.

The paper, titled “Zionism and Academic Hegemony: The Intersection of Power, Knowledge, and Suppression in the United States Universities,” draws on Michel Foucault’s theory of power‑knowledge and Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony to analyse how “Zionist organisations influence higher education frameworks, research priorities, and public discourse.”  This manipulation, the paper argues, “serves to marginalize, silence, or delegitimize critical perspectives that oppose or challenge Israeli policies and actions, especially those related to the occupation of Palestinian territories and human rights violations.”

The paper provides specific examples, including the rescinded job offer to Professor Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois following his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on social media. The case is not isolated. The paper documents “additional examples including the suppression of pro‑Palestinian viewpoints and the punishment of students and faculty who advocate for Palestinian rights at various prominent U.S. institutions.”

The paper concludes that “Zionism’s influence is not limited to isolated cases but creates a widespread atmosphere where academic freedom is restricted.” Universities, “meant to be pillars of free thought and critical inquiry, increasingly become arenas where dissent is suppressed and ideological conformity is imposed.”

The weaponisation of antisemitism accusations is central to this strategy. Criticism of Israeli government policy is routinely conflated with hatred of Jews. The effect is to chill debate, to intimidate critics, and to protect the settlement enterprise from scrutiny. As one reviewer of Pappé’s book noted, the strategy involves “cracked down on dissent in the Labour Party, and relentlessly smeared critics.”

The Australian Connection

The pattern is not confined to the United States and the United Kingdom. Australia has its own history of Zionist lobbying and political interference – a history that remains largely unexamined in mainstream discourse.

The Australian example is particularly instructive because it reveals how the machinery of influence operates even in a country geographically distant from the Middle East, with no historical responsibility for the conflict, and no strategic interest that would justify the degree of alignment with Israeli policy.

The mechanisms are similar: campaign donations, community lobbying, and the weaponisation of antisemitism accusations to silence critics. Australian politicians who question Israeli policy face organised opposition from Zionist organisations. The media environment is shaped by the same dynamics of donor pressure and editorial alignment.

The result is a foreign policy that is not in Australia’s national interest – AUKUS, the uncritical support for US Middle East policy, the silence on Israeli atrocities – but is dictated by a donor class whose primary loyalty is not to Australia.

This is not a fringe observation. It is the conclusion of the same structural analysis that applies to the United States and the United Kingdom. The only difference is scale.

The Geographic Safety Nets

The “Greater Israel” project is not merely ideological. It is infrastructural. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://theaimn.net/how-zionist-lobbying-has-reshaped-global-politics/

June 16, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

A brief history of Australia eating shit on AUKUS.

Australia remains undeterred in ‘welcoming’ AUKUS setbacks left, right and centre.

Charlie Lewis, Jun 3, 2026,
https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/06/03/aukus-setbacks-submarines-defence-richard-marles/

Defence Minister Richard Marles met with US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in Singapore over the weekend to announce a “streamlining” of the AUKUS deal, under which Australia will buy three used Virginia-class submarines rather than two used and one new, as was initially agreed.

Under questioning from the shadow defence minister James Paterson in Senate estimates on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Meghan Quinn said, actually, this was what Australia had wanted all along: “Australia’s position is that we would have always … had a preference for three in-service (submarines).”

Labor’s former industry minister Ed Husic, more able to speak his mind after his post-election ousting, didn’t agree with this take, telling the media: “This deal has changed.”

Husic may be waiting a while if he’s hoping for a rethink. As Australia’s history demonstrates, our government has been willing to swallow a lot without its loyalty to the alliance being the least bit shaken.

It started as it meant to go on. On September 15, 2021, Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris is Johnson — the respective world leaders at the time of Australia, the US and the UK — announced the $368 billion trilateral AUKUS deal.

Morrison spoke of how the submarine pact represented the countries’ mutual “enduring ideals and shared commitment to the international rules-based order” (a commitment that somehow looks even shakier now than it did then). It would later be revealed that Morrison had preemptively caved on local construction, reducing the previous requirement that 60% of the submarines be built in Australia to 40%. 

Biden responded by forgetting Morrison’s name. “Thank you, Boris. And I want to thank that fella Down Under. Thank you, pal. Appreciate it, Mr Prime Minister.”

A side note: Morrison’s now irreparable reputation as a habitual liar (something that only malcontents like us seemed to have previously cared about) was sealed by AUKUS. A month after the deal was announced, French President Emmanuel Macron, whose own submarine arrangements with Australia were torn up to make way for AUKUS, told a press pack that he knew Morrison had lied to him.

Adding to the general sense of humiliation, Biden hung Australia out to dry, claiming that he was “under the impression that France had been informed” of the changes. 

The sense that its arrangements with Australia weren’t exactly front of mind for the US was reiterated in February 2025 when newly reelected president Donald Trump was asked about AUKUS and had to be reminded what the program was.

In August last year, Richard Marles’ office said in a statement that he would be travelling to the United States that week, where, in Washington, D.C., he would meet with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior administration officials.

Except that wasn’t true: despite Marles’ posting of an illusory photo, the Pentagon made it very clear that “there was not a meeting” and that it was “a happenstance encounter”.

The next month, Anthony Albanese would do little better: during his visit to the US, unable to secure a proper meeting with Donald Trump, he was reduced to collaring the president for a selfie.

A meeting was eventually held between Trump and Albanese in October, but the Australian humiliation was not done. A Sky News Australia journalist made sure the topic of then US ambassador Kevin Rudd’s previous criticism of Trump came up, and the abiding memory of the meeting would be Trump, surrounded by nervous giggles, telling Rudd, “I don’t like you either, and I probably never will.”

In April 2025, the newly elected Labour government in the UK launched an AUKUS parliamentary inquiry. In June, the Trump government followed suit, with Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby appointed to conduct the review.

And that was FINE, said Marles: “Our engagement with the Trump administration and across the full political spectrum in the United States has shown clear and consistent support for AUKUS. We look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the Trump administration on this historic project.”

Marles hadn’t, we can only assume, read Colby’s actual views on AUKUS going into the review, which stated that “the benefits are questionable and the viability is also questionable”. In July, Colby announced that the initial deadline of 30 days would not be met.

When asked if this is cause for concern, Albanese insisted: “No, it’s not surprising that that would be the case, and it’s something we expected, something like that. We expected a review from an incoming government, just like the Keir Starmer government did. We expect that those things take longer than just 30 days.”

In September 2025, the review was still not done. Richard Marles told ABC’s RN Breakfast that the US review was a good thing, actually: “As I’ve said repeatedly, we welcome this. It’s an opportunity to look at how we can move forward with AUKUS, how we can improve and do it better.”

In April this year, the UK defence committee delivered its review, finding, among other things, serious issues with worker shortfall in key production areas and a timeframe of at least 20 years to make the necessary upgrades to the Royal Navy to sustain its current boats and the new AUKUS vessels.

The government insisted it was “really comfortable that AUKUS is on track”. 

But among all of these moments of humiliation, our favourite is that which must have befallen the Department of Defence official who pitched the “nuclear-powered submarine propulsion challenge” for high schools.

It was a combination of propaganda and child labour that would have been remarkably tone deaf at the best of times, but it went a step further, launching on the worst possible week to try to make kids think about submarines: when the Titan submersible suffered a “catastrophic implosion” and instantly killed all five passengers on board.

Charlie Lewis is Crikey’s reporter-at-large, focusing on politics, culture, history and the US. Got a tip? Contact him securely on Signal @clewis.25.

June 6, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

The Hand-Me-Down Alliance: Australia, AUKUS and Op-Shop Submarines

3 June 2026 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/the-hand-me-down-alliance-australia-aukus-and-op-shop-submarines/

One can never accuse the Australian political palette of being too demanding, let alone attentive. When it comes to matters of defence, that palette is happy to be deceived, remaining credulous to the notion it is sensitive to good taste and observant of flavours. When it comes to alliances, this especially so. As for the AUKUS agreement, it was clear that the Australian establishment was simply incapable of tasting anything in the way of the rancid or putrid. Of the three participating countries in this doomed ménage à trois – the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia – it was the last of the trio that has been left providing the most while receiving the least.

Centred on two pillars of poor understanding and unequal exchange, the AUKUS agreement is mouldering in unenviable disgrace. The first pillar envisages (dare on use the current tense?) the purchase of SSNs (nuclear-powered submarines) of the Virginia-Class from the United States that may run into three boats, possibly even two additional ones. According to the fatuous and vacuous Australian Submarine Agency’s assessment, the “acquisition will eliminate any capability gap and increase the 3 nations [sic] (Australia, UK and US) ability to deter aggression and contribute to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.” Eventually, the SSN-AUKUS, a hybrid of UK design, US technology and Australian gristle, will also be added to the fleet, a prospect bound to give few joy.

But the docile and the doltish in Canberra do not seem alert to the grumbling mood in Washington that any transfer of these hulks would only take place on exclusive American terms. Doubt about Australian worthiness in using such boats in a war with China if called upon (call it want of skill, call it reluctance); and doubts about the rate of production back home (the annual rate of two Virginia SSNs remains tardily elusive), has made the very idea of conveying such vessels to Canberra improbable.

The latest discussions by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles and UK Defence Secretary John Healey, held on the sidelines of the International Institute of Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, also confirms that the boats, should they ever arrive, will be of the optional, rather than optimal shop variety. They will be second hand goods with a shorter life span and less troubling to let go of by the US Navy. Give the Aussies the hand-me-downs. They’re worth it.

A May 30 joint statement from the ministers was a tedious, tortuous garble that did little to hide the fact that Australia has been degraded and sent packing to the cooler. “The Deputy Prime Minister and Secretaries welcomed the proposed approach to streamline Australia’s acquisition of Virginia-class submarines (VCS), simplifying chain management, operational and maintenance requirements and maximizing cost efficiencies. This approach would enable Australia to acquire three in-service VCs in lieu of a mixture of new and in-service VSs variants.” Without a smidgen to go on, the trio also claimed that “significant progress in the design and delivery of SSN-AUKUS, which will provide the UK and Australia with an advanced warfighting capability” had been made.

It is worth recounting the stages of cloddishness that culminated at this current pass. In 2023, the Australian government accepted the position that the US would sell it three Virginia-class boats in the early 2030s, with the following observation: “The first two will be used but refurbished Block 4 boats with 23 years of remaining life and the third will be a brand new stretched Block 6 boat fitted with the 84-foot-long payload of greatly increased weapons loads.”

Instead of expressing rage and disgust at this diminution of worth, the Australian defence minister has accepted the revised plans with beaming, coprophagic glee. Appended to the stained grin are explanations worthy of immediate sinking. Not having three second-hand SSNs would have seen a situation of one new Virginia-class SSN operating alongside in-service Collins-class submarines and the new SSN-AUKUS boats. This unpardonably dreamy nonsense, anticipating that all three boat varieties would be sharing the sea at the same time, at least allowed Marles to yearn for a simpler world of equipment. The word “simple,” it would seem, is his favourite word of the moment. In remarks to reporters, he observed that a “simpler pathway” had presented itself. “It will mean that the Virginia-class submarine that we are acquiring will be all of the same type of. And I cannot overstate the significance of that, both in terms of the submariners who are operating them, but also the people who are working on them to sustain those submarines.”

In Australia, the opposition defence minister, James Patterson, had least had the decency to demand “a proper explanation from the government – more than just a single sentence in a joint statement.” The Greens Senator David Shoebridge, was less accommodating to the servile capitulation from Marles. “We’re not just over a barrel with the United States – we have literally said to them they can name the price, they can give us the biggest lemon in the fleet – three of them – and Richard Marles will give that blank cheque to the US.”

All the signs of demented decay and facile strategic thinking are there in this pact. The need to extend the life of the Collins-class submarines. The likelihood that the United Kingdom will be unable to stomach its side of the bargain. The continued bleeding of the Australian purse for American and British submarine building. And the deeply troubling sense that, when the time comes, the United States will go to war with China, expecting Australia to muck in. Given that Canberra has contrived and connived to turn Australia into an increasingly attractive garrison for adversaries to target, the room for escaping the orbit of an avoidable catastrophe, be it financial or military, is rapidly shrinking. Marles is unabashed by it all. “Chasing simplicity is at the heart of why we have pursued this.” A simplicity that well qualifies for the “bloody fool” category, one soon to be explored by a public inquiry that promises to be a real hoot.

June 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Peter Garrett to head independent inquiry into the Aukus submarine pact

By Tom McIlroy Political editor, June 2, 2026, https://www.inkl.com/glance/news/peter-garrett-to-head-independent-inquiry-into-the-aukus-submarine-pact?first_login=true&section=personalized

he former environment minister Peter Garrett will lead an independent inquiry into the Aukus defence pact, launched by a group of Labor veterans and public figures concerned proper scrutiny has never been applied to the $368bn defence plan.

Garrett, the Midnight Oil frontman and longtime environmental campaigner, will be the lead commissioner on the five-month community-based investigation, being launched on Tuesday.

It will hold public hearings and take written submissions before delivering a final report by 30 October.

Labor agreed to support the deal for Australia to acquire nuclear submarines in collaboration with the US and the UK, negotiated under the Morrison government and announced in 2021. As part of the agreement, Australia is funding upgrades to the US defence industrial base and will start receiving secondhand nuclear submarines in 2032.

The UK parliament held a year-long review into the trilateral partnership and, after an inquiry by the Pentagon in 2025, Donald Trump agreed to support it.

But some within Labor, including the former prime minister Paul Keating, as well as civil society groups believe Aukus is not in Australia’s best interest.

Garrett said the new inquiry – supported by trade unions and non-profit organisations – would consider if the subs can be delivered on time and on budget, how nuclear waste will be managed and if Australia’s defence and strategic interests are well served by the deal.

He has previously lashed Aukus, saying the plan “stinks” and represents “the most costly and risky action ever taken by any Australian government”.

“This inquiry is doing the job that a proper parliamentary inquiry should be doing,” Garrett told Guardian Australia.

“How is it that there’s been inquiries about the submarine program in other countries and we haven’t had a full parliamentary inquiry here?”

A group of commissioners will be named to lead the inquiry, convened under the auspices of the Australian Peace and Security Forum.

Critical to its deliberations will be the rise of China and the prospect of conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.

Nuclear non-proliferation issues, employment and environmental consequences are also among the inquiry’s terms-of-reference.

Despite the Albanese government expressing confidence since winning government in 2022, on Sunday the defence minister, Richard Marles, announced Australia would buy three secondhand American Virginia-class submarines, instead of at least one brand new vessel from the US.

He said the change – announced after talks between Marles and his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, in Singapore – was about Australia placing “a premium on simplicity” and not about challenges in submarine production for the US navy.

Marles conceded there would be no “fundamental” shift in the cost but operating two models of the American-made submarines would be more costly and complicated.

The government’s preferred measure of the total cost is 0.15% of GDP over the lifetime of the deal.

The first Virginia-class nuclear sub from the US is due to arrive in Australia in 2032, with another arriving every four years, before the Australian-built model is ready for operations. The bespoke SSN Aukus model is due to come online in 2042.

Australia has not identified a permanent storage site for the nuclear waste generated by the submarine fleet, including the high-level radioactive waste from the reactor core and spent fuel, which will remain toxic for thousands of years.

In 2023, Marles committed to publicly outlining a process for identifying a waste site “within 12 months”. But no plan, or site, has yet been identified.

Starting as early as 2027, US and UK nuclear-powered submarines will begin rotations at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. An east coast base is also expected to be built.

To cover capability gaps before the Aukus fleet arrives, Australia is extending use of 30-year-old Collins-class submarines for an extra 10 years.

As part of the second pillar of the agreement, Marles announced plans for the three countries to develop new weapons systems and sensors for underwater drones, to protect undersea cables, conduct surveillance and strike enemy targets.

June 3, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

‘Critical time’: Minister’s ominous nuclear warning as US looks to resume tests

Australia has delivered a message on nuclear weapons that could put Canberra at odds with the US and Donald Trump.

Benedict Brook in New York, April 29, 202 https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/critical-time-ministers-ominous-nuclear-warning-as-us-looks-to-resume-tests/news-story/2f432583102962402e8b922db84eeb8e

Australia has said “all nations” – including the US – should refrain from nuclear weapons testing after Donald Trump announced plans to potentially start exploding nukes for the first time in more than three decades.

Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Matt Thistlethwaite said the globe was entering a “critical time” where limits on weapons of mass destruction are being eroded

He is in New York this week representing Australia at a United Nations review of efforts to stop the spread and use of nuclear weapons.

Mr Thistlethwaite also told news.com.au that on the sidelines of the meeting he had held “frank conversations” with nations such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore to get “assurances” on fuel supplies to Australia.

‘Critical time’ for stopping nuclear weapons

The UN’s Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) entered into force in 1970 and now has 191 signatories, with notable exceptions being nuclear nations India, Pakistan and Israel.

The aim of the treaty is to stop the spread of nuclear arms and push for disarmament.

But New START, the last agreement to prevent the US and Russia from building more bombs, expired in February.

There are now concerns that a global nuclear arms race could be on the cards.

On Monday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the New York meeting, “for too long, the treaty has been eroding.”

“The drivers of (nuclear) proliferation are accelerating.”

There’s little expectation the conference will notably change that gloomy outlook.

Critical time’

Asked if Australians should be concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons, Mr Thistlethwaite told news.com.au the New York review “does occur at a critical time.”

“We’ve got increasing uncertainty in the global geostrategic situation, particularly around the Middle East and Ukraine, and there’s increasing tension within the Asia Pacific region.

“We’re going to make sure that Australia plays a role in de-escalation, supporting peaceful outcomes and upholding the international rules.”

“We want to see a world where the spread of nuclear weapons is prevented … and we’ve been a loud voice in ensuring that nations shouldn’t be involved in testing nuclear weapons anymore.”

No nation should test nukes – including US

But one louder voice doesn’t seem to be on the same page as Australia.

In October, Donald Trump said the US would resume nuclear weapons testing “on an equal basis” with other nations.

“That process will begin immediately,” he said.

Mr Trump’s comments have led to confusion about what new US nuclear testing might involve.

The last country to explode an actual bomb was North Korea in 2017. The US and Russia haven’t tested nuclear weapons since the early 1990s. But Vladimir Putin claimed recently that Russia had tested a nuclear-powered torpedo that was capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Would Australia be against the US resuming tests with actual nuclear bombs?

“We’re against all nations testing nuclear weapons,” Mr Thistlethwaite said, who did not mention the US by name.

“We know Maralinga (the UK’s 1950s nuclear weapons testing site in Australia) had a lingering effect on the Indigenous community.

“We want to make sure that we don’t see those situations in our region again, or indeed anywhere in the world.”

Iran nuclear role ‘not appropriate’

There was uproar at the UN NPT conference when Iran was announced as one of 34 vice presidents of the event.

Assistant Secretary for the US Bureau of Arms Control and Non-proliferation Christopher Yeaw told the conference it was an “affront” that Iran had been appointed to the role.

“(It is) indisputable that Iran has long demonstrated its contempt for the non-proliferation commitments of the NPT.

Iran’s role was “beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this conference,” he was reported by Reuters as saying.

Ms Thistlethwaite said Australia had “expressed its concern and opposition” to Iran’s elevation.

“That wasn’t the appropriate move, and we’ve expressed our support for the United States position”.

‘Frank conversations’ with oil nations

Mr Thistlethwaite added that he had meetings with countries on the fringes of the event, including those critical to Australia’s energy security.

“An important part of this trip is working with our international partners on securing Australia’s fuel supplies,” he said.

“Most of our refined oil products come through Southeast Asia, so I’ve had meetings with (South) Korea, Singapore, Japan, Vietnam … to reiterate the importance that open trade and supplies continue to get through.

“It’s been heartening to have those frank conversations with those partners, to get those assurances regarding continued fuel supplies and to ensure that they remain trusted partners for Australia.”

Mr Thistlethwaite mentioned Australia’s trump card with nations that export oil – Australia’s abundance of liquid natural gas (LNG), which many countries need just as keenly.

“We’re a big supplier of LNG exports to countries in the region, and we’ve been making sure that we reiterate that fact that we’re a reliable supplier that will continue and the relationship with those important fuel partners is in a pretty strong position.”

May 5, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Israel: The most dangerous nation on Earth

By George Grundy | 22 April 2026, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/israel-the-most-dangerous-nation-on-earth,20955

Israel’s escalating actions and influence over U.S. policy are framed as the trigger for a global crisis, with Australia set to bear the economic fallout, writes George Grundy.een enough to say it with absolute certainty: the Israeli army is the most depraved army’ ~ Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur.

“The [IDF] is the most moral army in the world” ~ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘I have seen enough to say it with absolute certainty: the Israeli army is the most depraved army’ ~ Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s influence over U.S. President Donald Trump may be the defining reason why America made the catastrophic decision to go to war with Iran, which is why the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, which in turn explains why Australia seems poised to experience an unprecedented oil shock.

Many economists forecast that our economy is about to grind to a halt, perhaps for months, so Australians must be clear-eyed about the role Israel has played in this disaster.

The prevailing view in Western politics, media and society has, for many decades, been that the Middle East is a “tough neighbourhood” (implicitly absolving Israel of blame for its occasional bouts of brutality), and an assumption that the “only democracy in the region” was committed to peace and, ultimately, a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

This was and remains an absolute fiction. Even the most casual glance at a map showing the shrinking landmass of Gaza and the West Bank (particularly since 1967) makes clear that the two-state solution was a lie, a fig-leaf allowing successive Israeli governments to expand territory and further immiserate the hapless Palestinians.

Yet what was an ongoing and immoral delusion moved from disaster to catastrophe, following the atrocious attack by Hamas in October 2023. Prime Minister Netanyahu appears to have viewed the atrocity as an opportunity to implement the long-held Zionist goal of establishing a “Greater Israel”, the first stage of which was to be the complete obliteration of Gaza.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has attempted to walk a fine line in his relations with Israel, recognising a Palestinian state but risking significant political damage by inviting Israel’s President to our shores.

Albanese’s clinging to established international dogma, whilst a betrayal of his past beliefs, might be acceptable in earlier times, but global tectonic plates are shifting at a pace unmatched since perhaps 1945.

Australians of all political persuasions should rightly consider whether Israel is indeed a moral player on the world stage and whether our country should continue to align itself with a regime that has:

• Used snipers to deliberately target infants and children in Gaza, killing thousands and creating the largest group of childhood amputees in modern history. Israel has subsequently blocked the distribution of prosthetic limbs for survivors.
• Dropped bombs on civilians sheltering in tents, burning people alive. An Australian doctor said she delivered a baby by C-section from a nine-month pregnant woman with no head, following an Israeli strike. In late 2023, the IDF forced staff out of a Gaza hospital at gunpoint and left newborn babies to starve and die. Every hospital in the territory has now been destroyed.
• Killed at least 80,000 in Gaza (the true number is probably much higher), targeting children, medical and power facilities, schools, mosques, hospitals and ambulances, water purification, journalists and civic leaders, whilst stopping nearly all aid and medicine from entering — actions clearly aimed at devastating every aspect of civil society and starving the population. A genocide, in other words.
• Attacked and killed UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. Used banned white phosphorous and cluster munitions while destroying countless villages, and carried out clear acts of ethnic cleansing that have left over a million people displaced, including around 370,000 children. Oxfam has stated that Israeli tactics used in Gaza are now being exported to Lebanon, a nation now suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises on Earth.
• Tortured and murdered Palestinian children. The IDF buried captured Palestinian children alive in mass graves, after tying their hands behind their backs. An 18-month-old Palestinian child recently taken into custody by the IDF was returned with cigarette burns on its legs, having been tortured to get a confession from its father.
• Institutionalised the practice of “double tap” attacks, whereby an initial bombing is followed by subsequent attacks on the same location, killing first responders and medics. Just last week, Israel carried out a “quadruple tap” in southern Lebanon, killing those trying to help the injured over and over again.
• Trained and used dogs to rape Palestinian detainees and prisoners (according to B’Tselem and EuroMed Human Rights Monitor). In fact, sexual torture of Palestinians is so widespread that it has been described as “organised state policy”. One UN report highlighted the use of rape with bottles, metal rods and knives.

This is far from an exhaustive list. There is much, much more, often filled with unimaginable horror and moral degeneracy. As defined by Australian law, Israel is a terrorist state and carries out war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law almost daily.

Recently, Israel passed a law allowing capital punishment for Palestinians found guilty of “terrorism-related” crimes (which, given how Israel practices law against Palestinians, could mean nearly anything). The law only applies to Palestinians — an Israeli convicted of the same crime is not subject to it, and judgment will be carried out by martial law, with no due process, clemency or appeal process.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir proudly posted a video of the proposed execution chamber in which convicted Palestinians will be hanged. Armed Israeli forces have begun the practice of putting numbers on the hands of displaced Palestinians in the West Bank.

As the IDF has advanced across southern Lebanon, they have explicitly warned Christian and Druze leaders not to harbour Shiite Muslims in their homes — Jewish troops forcing one particular religious group of people out of Lebanese society, potentially searching for them in their attics. Anyone with a knowledge of history should see the historical resonance of these monstrous practices.

Race-based execution laws, genocidal destruction, institutionalised rape, pogroms in the West Bank, military expansion in nearly all directions. A network of at least 16 torture camps, where thousands are held, often without charge. Were it not such a forbidden comparison, we might spot similarities to another fascist regime in the 1930s.

Those making the connection are hardly from the fringe. Almost half of Britons in one poll said they believed Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews. Ehud Olmert, a former Prime Minister of Israel, signed a letter describing settler violence in the West Bank as ‘Jewish terrorism’.

Political scientist John Mearsheimer recently said:

“If there were Nuremberg trials, right, where the Israelis and the Americans were brought before the court, President Trump, along with President Netanyahu and many of their advisors, would be hanged.”

Imagine this horror was being carried out by any nation on Earth not named Israel. Ask yourself what poses the greater threat — Iran, which until Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement was clearly not developing a nuclear bomb, or Israel, wildly attacking everyone in sight, led by a genuine maniac and possessors of the world’s only undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Far from operating the most moral army in the world, overwhelming evidence shows that Israel is now an entirely rogue state, raping, starving, torturing and murdering its prisoners, bombing its neighbours indiscriminately, annexing nearby territory and goading its patron, America, into actions that could easily lead us to a new world war.

Israel is hardly shy about its intentions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently gave a speech in which he said, “There will be expansion in Gaza that will extend our borders. In Lebanon, to the Litani, in Syria, Mount Hermon, parts of the north, south, and east.” This would represent a “Greater Israel” plan, stretching (one might say) from the river (Litani) to the (Mediterranean) sea.

Such is the insanity of the time in which we live that voicing this same expression in Queensland will land you in prison, while it is so widely used by Israeli politicians that it’s literally in the Twitter (X) bio of the Prime Minister’s son.

Yet, despite heartening protests in Tel Aviv, poll after poll shows that a majority of Israelis support this endless militarism. Young Israelis are more right-wing, religious and conservative than their elders. An eventual end to Netanyahu’s appalling leadership seems unlikely to reform Israeli society.

An unprecedented oil shock is nearly at Australia’s shores. It’s likely to be the most devastating event for this country since the Second World War and when it arrives, Australians should remember that the crisis originated in the White House situation room on 11 February, when Netanyahu finally convinced a gullible American president to carry out his decades-long wish for an attack on Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a violent extremist, a fugitive from justice at the International Criminal Court, who cannot enter even the commercial airspace of many countries for fear of arrest. It was Netanyahu who convinced Trump to catastrophically withdraw from the JCPOA, Israel that is primarily responsible for the catastrophe currently re-shaping our world and Israel who will be culpable, should a worldwide famine ensue.

Israel is the single greatest threat to world peace today. The past comfy assumptions about global partnerships are gone. Australia should join the growing list of nations that want nothing to do with this belligerent, fascistic country.

May 4, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Caps Off: How Mark Hammond’s Appointment Completes Labor’s Capture by Uncle Sam and the AUKUS Boondoggle

18 April 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/caps-off-how-mark-hammonds-appointment-completes-labors-capture-by-uncle-sam-and-the-aukus-boondoggle/

Look at the photo[on original] Anthony Albanese, grinning in his USS Vermont baseball cap like a kid who just won a free submarine from the Pentagon’s lucky dip. Beside him, Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, now our incoming Chief of the Defence Force, in his crisp “Chief of Navy” lid, the two of them bonded like old mates who’ve just kayaked Sydney Harbour together over Christmas and strolled San Diego in matching Souths Rabbitohs caps. It’s not subtle. It’s not strategic. It’s surrender cosplaying as mateship.

This week Albanese confirmed what insiders have long known: Hammond, the submariner true-believer who once tried and failed to charm Paul Keating out of his withering contempt for AUKUS, will run the entire ADF from July. Another submariner, Rear Admiral Matthew Buckley, takes Navy. The navy now owns the top two defence jobs while the $425 billion defence spend over the next decade funnels the lion’s share into undersea warfare “anchored by the AUKUS submarine program.”

Translation: the US military-industrial complex just got the keys to the Australian treasury, delivered by a Labor government that once pretended to care about sovereignty.

Keating, to his eternal credit, wasn’t buying the sales pitch back in early 2023. Picture the scene: Hammond, briefcase locked to his wrist, submarine photos ready for the reveal, deploying the full arsenal of Pentagon charm on a man who had already watched one generation of Americans promise the world and deliver the bill. Keating told Marles and Hammond straight that AUKUS is “failed by design.” You can only keep about one-third of a submarine force at sea against a peer enemy. The rest is just expensive metal rusting in dry dock

Hammond’s real mission was never to convert Keating. It was to lock in the man who matters: Albanese. Kayak dates, Rabbitohs solidarity, San Diego photo-ops. The power couple of Australian defence was born. Keating went back to his piano.

And even if the submarines arrive, a proposition on which the actuaries are not taking bets, who exactly is going to crew them? Australia has been scrambling to find qualified submariners for years. The training pipeline is thin, the retention rates are worse, and nuclear submarines demand a level of crew specialisation that takes a decade to build and about eighteen months of a better offer to lose. We are proposing to operate one of the most technically demanding weapons platforms in human history with a workforce we currently cannot fill for the vessels we already have. The recruiters are working weekends. The submarines, theoretically, arrive in the 2030s. The crews, theoretically, materialise sometime after that. In the Pentagon’s spreadsheet this is presumably listed under “Australia’s problem.”

It’s an absurdity that needs the comic genius of Clarke and Dawe to illuminate. My goodness, here they are…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Then there is the small embarrassment that nobody in the AUKUS salesroom wants to dwell on: submarines are yesterday’s technology. The oceans that once hid them are filling up with sensors, autonomous underwater vehicles, satellite-linked surveillance arrays, and drone systems that can stalk a nuclear submarine across an ocean with the patient indifference of a search algorithm. The acoustic and thermal signatures that once dissolved into the depths are now readable. Add the tyranny of distance that always makes Australia’s strategic situation unique, and we are a long, slow bicycle ride from any plausible theatre of war. By the time a Virginia-class boat lumbers north from Perth or Garden Island, the conflict it was sent to influence has already been decided by hypersonic missiles, drone swarms, and electronic warfare conducted at the speed of light. The submarine arrives, metaphorically speaking, to find the furniture already rearranged and the Americans writing the after-action report.

Meanwhile, every serious military analyst watching Ukraine, watching the Persian Gulf, watching the drone campaigns rewriting the rules of engagement in real time, is drawing the same conclusion: cheap, expendable, autonomous systems are eating the lunch of expensive, crewed, prestige platforms. A drone costs thousands. A Virginia-class submarine costs $3.4 billion American, arrives late, requires a crew we don’t have, takes weeks to reach a fight, and can be tracked by technology already proliferating across the Indo-Pacific. We are buying a Rolls-Royce, with a target painted on its roof, for a road that no longer exists.

Michael Shoebridge of Strategic Analysis Australia put the broader problem bluntly: “Hammond’s elevation signals the Albanese government doubling down on its single bet on AUKUS and deepening Australia’s military reliance on the US as the key source of resupply for everything our military would need to fight an actual war. While Europe, Canada, and every other US ally are frantically rethinking assumptions in the age of Trump’s “America First,” cheap drones, and missile shortages, Australia stands lonely in its refusal to admit the world has changed.” Albert Palazzo, former director of war studies for the Australian Army, asks the obvious question nobody in Russell Hill wants answered: “when the person running the entire defence apparatus comes from the service consuming most of the budget, is there any critical oversight at all?”

Binoy Kampmark puts the whole farce with magnificent precision: Australian negotiators resemble “a facsimile of Bertie Wooster in desperate need of the good advice of his manservant Jeeves.”

There is Bertie, enthusiastic, well-connected at the club, constitutionally incapable of recognising a con, signing documents in San Diego while the manservant, who is Washington, quietly pockets the cheque. We have already funnelled $1.6 billion into US naval yards for what amounts to stealthy proliferation that benefits the American military-industrial complex far more than any sovereign Australian capability.

The Virginia-class boats? The US will keep them when it suits, rotate them through our bases under effective American operational control, and leave us holding the nuclear waste, the recruitment crisis, and the bill. Retired Rear Admiral Peter Briggs calls it a “wasteful folly” headed for a “train smash.” Even Malcolm Turnbull, not a man prone to anti-American sentiment on weekdays, labelled Australia the “rich dummy” subsidising Britain’s creaky program.

This is the dark comedy of it all. Labor, the party that once marched against Vietnam and sneered at Yankee imperialism, has become the most compliant vassal in the Anglosphere. Albanese’s “independent” foreign policy is now measured in how enthusiastically we open our chequebook and our bases. Hammond, the perfect courtier with deep Washington contacts and fearless advice that somehow always aligns with the Pentagon, will ensure there is no awkward questioning of the $368 billion black hole.

While the rest of the world pivots to drones, autonomous systems, and missile defence that actually works in actual wars, we are betting the farm on nuclear-powered prestige projects that may never arrive, or may arrive under effective US operational control, crewed by personnel we are still advertising for, travelling very slowly toward a war that ended while we were in transit.

The men who marched against Vietnam are now the men writing the cheques for the Pentagon. The party that was born in the shearing sheds is now the party that holidays in San Diego. The submariners have taken the wheel of a vessel that costs more than any previous generation of Australians could have imagined, moves slower than the conflicts it was designed to fight, and flies, when you look carefully at the fine print, someone else’s flag.

The caps told us everything. We just didn’t want to read them.

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES

April 20, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment