The Commonwealth needs to go back to the drawing board on plans for a nuclear waste dump and put all options back on the table, the South Australian government says.
Following the Federal Court’s move to set aside a decision to build the dump on SA’s Eyre Peninsula, Deputy Premier Susan Close said it was important for the Commonwealth to take a cautious approach to where the facility might best be located.
“I think it’s important they start from the beginning about where it’s most suitable,” she said.
“Where is the material coming from, where is the geological stability and where is the community acceptance?”
Dr Close said the previous coalition government had botched the process, exaggerating the urgency for the facility and excluding the Indigenous community.
“As a result, it’s come a cropper in the court, as it should have,” she said.
The deputy premier said given the level of angst surrounding the Kimba location in SA, it would be best to start from scratch.
The previous government decided to build the dump at Napandee, near Kimba, in November 2021, when it announced it had acquired 211 hectares of land with the proposed facility subject to heritage, design and technical studies…….
But the proposal faced strong opposition from the Barngarla traditional owners and environmental groups.
Earlier this year the Barngarla went to the Federal Court seeking a judicial review of the government’s declaration and on Tuesday Justice Natalie Charlesworth upheld one of their four grounds.
She said the only appropriate order was to set aside the whole of the declaration made by former resources minister Keith Pitt.
The Barngarla Aboriginal Determination Corporation welcomed the decision, describing the fight against the dump as crucial to First Nations people around the country.
Resources Minister Madeleine King said Labor had worked with the Barngarla people in the last term of parliament to ensure they secured the right to seek judicial review of the decision to acquire the site and that she would review the judgment. 2023 https://au.sports.yahoo.com/start-scratch-call-nuclear-dump-072229979.html
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has undermined its mission to foster stability, becoming a vessel of U.S. power. Where NATO goes, war is most likely — Australia should take note, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
SINCE THE end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has distinctly strayed from its original purpose. It has become, almost shamelessly, the vessel and handmaiden of U.S. power, while its burgeoning expansion eastwards has done wonders to upend the applecart of stability. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
A continent was thereby destabilised. The true beneficiaries proved to be the tapestry of warring rebel groups characterised by sectarian impulses and a voracious appetite for human rights abuses and war crimes.
The Ukraine War has been another crude lesson in the failings of the NATO project. The constant teasing and wooing of Kyiv as a potential future member never sat well with Moscow, and while much can be made of the Russian invasion, no realistic assessment of the war’s origins can excise NATO from playing a deep, compromised role.
The Alliance is also proving dissonant among its members. Not all are exactly jumping at the chance of admitting Ukraine. ………………………………………
– Biden did draw the logical conclusion that bringing Kyiv into an alliance of obligatory collective defence during current hostilities would automatically put NATO at war with Moscow.
With such a spotty, blood-speckled record marked by stumbles and bungles, any suggestions of further engagement by the Alliance in other areas of the globe should be treated with abundant wariness.
The latest talk of further Asian engagement should also be greeted with a sense of dread.
‘The Indo-Pacific is important for the Alliance, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security. Moreover, NATO and its partners in the region share a common goal of working together to strengthen the rules-based international order.’
With these views, conflict lurks.
The form of that engagement is being suggested by such ideas as opening a liaison office in Japan, intended as the first outpost in Asia. It also promises to feature in the NATO Summit to take place in Vilnius on 11 and 12 July, which will again repeat the attendance format of the Madrid Summit held in 2022.
That new format featuring the presence of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea – or the AP4 – should have induced much head-scratching. But the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Washington’s beady eyes in Canberra, celebrated this ‘shift to taking a truly global approach to strategic competition’.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is also much in favour of such competition, warning member states of Beijing’s ambitions.“We should not make the same mistake with China and other authoritarian regimes”, he suggested, alluding to a dangerous and flawed comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan.
Cautioned Stoltenberg:
“What is happening in Europe today could happen in Asia tomorrow.”
One of the prominent headscratchers at this erroneous reasoning is French President Emmanuel Macron. Taking issue with setting up the Japan liaison office, Macron has expressed opposition to such expansion by an alliance which, at least in terms of treaty obligations, has a strict geographical limit. ……..
In 2021, Macron made it clear that NATO’s increasingly obsessed approach with China as a dangerous belligerent entailed a confusion of goals:
Said Macron:
“NATO is a military organisation; the issue of our relationship with China isn’t just a military issue. NATO is an organisation that concerns the North Atlantic, China has little to do with the North Atlantic.”
Such views have also pleased former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, whose waspish ire has also been trained on the NATO Secretary General.
In his latest statement, Keating condemned Stoltenberg as ‘the supreme fool’ of ‘the international stage’.
Declared Keating:
‘Stoltenberg, by instinct and by policy, is simply an accident on its way to happen.’
China, Keating said,
“… represents 20 per cent of humanity and now possesses the largest economy in the world… and has no record for attacking other states, unlike the United States, whose bidding Stoltenberg is happy to do”.
The undertakings made by Australia regarding the AUKUS security pact promise to be monumental. Much of this is negative: increased militarisation on the home front; the co-opting of the university sector for war making industries and defence contractors; and the capitulation and total subordination of the Australian Defence Force to the Pentagon.
There are also other, neglected dimensions at work here: the failure, as yet, for the Commonwealth to establish a viable, acceptable site for the long term storage of high-grade nuclear waste; the uncertainty about where the submarines will be located; the absence of skills in the construction and operational level in Australia regarding nuclear-powered submarines; and, fundamentally, whether a nuclear-powered Australian-UK-US submarine (AUKUS SSN) will ever see the light of day.
One obstacle, habitually ignored in the Australian dialogue on AUKUS, are the rumbling concerns in the US itself about transferring submarines from the US Navy in the first place. These concerns are summarised in the Congressional Research Service report released on May 22, outlining the background and issues for US politicians regarding the procurement of the Virginia (SSN-774) submarine. “One issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD’s AUKUS-related legislative package for the FY2024 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] sent to Congress on May 2, 2023.” This includes requested authorisation for the transfer of “up to two Virginia-class SSNs to the government of Australia in the form of sale, with the costs of the transfer to be covered by the government of Australia.”
A laundry list of concerns and potentially grave issues are suggested, and the report is clear that these are not exhaustive. They are also bound to send shivers down the spine of the adulatory Canberra planning establishment, so keen to keep Washington interested. There is, for instance, the question as to whether the transfer of the Virginia-class boats should be authorised as part of the 2024 financial year, or deferred “until a future NDAA.”
There is also the matter about how many submarines should be part of the request, whether it remains up to two as per the current request, or larger numbers. With those numbers also comes the dilemma as to what vintage they will be: those with less than 33 years of expected service life, or newly minted ones with the full 33-year period of operational service. (We can already hazard a guess on that one.)
The issue of cost also looms large. What will Australia, for instance, pay for the Virginia-class vessels, and furthermore, the amount that would be needed as “a proportionate financial investment” in Washington’s own “submarine construction industrial base.” Such a potentially delicious state of affairs for US shipbuilders, who will be receiving funds from the Australian purse to accelerate ship-building efforts.
Other issues suggest questions on operational worth. What would, for instance, be the “net impact on collective allied deterrence and warfighting capabilities of transferring three to five Virginia-class boats to Australia while pursuing the construction of three to five replacement SSNs for the US Navy.” The transfer of US naval nuclear propulsion technology would come with its “benefits and risks” and should also be cognisant of broader implications to US relations with countries in the Indo-Pacific, not to mention “the overall political and security situation in” in the region.
The report takes note of sceptics who claim this “could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the US Navy would.” This is a rather damning suspicion. Will Australian sailors either have the full capacity and skills not only to use the weaponry in their possession, but actually comply with US wishes in any deployment, even in a future conflict?
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The report is particularly interesting from the perspective of assuming that Australia will retain sovereign decision-making capacity over the use of the vessels, something that can only induce much scoffing. “Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in US-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests.” On that score, the report notes remarks by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles made in March 2023 that are specifically underlined to concern Congress. Of specific interest was the claim that “no promises” had been made by Australia to the United States “that Australia would support the United States in a future conflict over Taiwan.”
This is a charming admission that members of the US Congress may well be pushing for a quid pro quo: we authorise the boat transfer; you duly affirm your commitment to shed blood with us in the next grandly idiotic battle.
There is also a notable pointer in the direction of whether an individual SSN AUKUS should even be built. Sceptics, it follows, could argue that it would be preferable that US nuclear submarines “perform both US and Australian SSN missions while Australia invests in other types of military forces, as to create a capacity for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.”
This is exactly the kind of rationale that will confirm the holing of Australian sovereignty, not that there was much to begin with. But those voices marshalled against AUKUS will be able to take heart that Congress may, whatever its selfish reasons, be a formidable agent of obstruction. President Joe Biden, his successors, and the otherwise fractious electoral chambers certainly agree on one thing: America First, followed by a gaggle of allies foolishly holding the rear.
Now, it appears that Australia is becoming yet another naval base for the deployment of US and British fleets in the Asia-Pacific Region, including the basing of US nuclear submarines in 2026, without any hope of restoring economic ties with China and, consequently, the prior level of welfare in the near future. This is in addition to paying “compensation” under the guise of investing in unfeasible defense plans.
Equipment for the country’s ground forces “arrives with depressing regularity,” years behind time, and substantially over budget, according to a report issued on April 19 by the British Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee. For instance, the programs, which provide new Ajax armored fighting vehicles and Morpheus tactical communication and information systems, have faced significant difficulties. According to the MPs’ assessment, the issue is made worse by underfunding of the defense budget expenditures and the pound’s declining purchasing value in relation to the dollar.
Ten days later, on April 28 this year, the Royal Navy informed the public about the decision to decommission the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, launched just four years ago (in 2019), to be used as a donor for spare parts for the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier of the same class. According to the Royal Navy, the $3.72 billion aircraft carrier has docked more frequently than it has participated in naval operations, and the most recent maintenance cost $42 million.
This dispiriting news came just a month after the leaders of the US, the UK, and Australia had disclosed their ambitious long-term plans to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Canberra on the basis of British technology, which will cost the Australian budget $245 billion.
When it comes to extremely sophisticated projects like nuclear submarines, it seems inconceivable that the parties involved would be so irresponsible as to neglect to evaluate the contractors’ capacity to meet their obligations. Still, if you trust the claims made by senior US, British, and Australian officials, the opposite is true in the case of AUKUS. Canberra would never have consented to work together on submarine design and construction with Great Britain’s waning technological strength otherwise. The example of the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier shows that not only is Great Britain unable to complete a big naval project, but it is also facing significant technological difficulties in order to satisfy present ambitions for defense construction and equipment upgrades.
In the realm of economic crime, assigning work to a contractor who is known to be unable to perform is fraud, money laundering, or corruption.
In the context of Anglo-Saxon big politics, this appears to be retaliation against a certain sector of Australia’s elites for Canberra’s departure from a coordinated approach to restrain the PRC back in the day. This is primarily about the carefree era when Australia and China’s trading and economic relations remained unbroken, providing Canberra with significant revenue from exports to the PRC of a wide range of items, from wine and agricultural products to hard coal and other minerals.
Now, it appears that Australia is becoming yet another naval base for the deployment of US and British fleets in the Asia-Pacific Region, including the basing of US nuclear submarines in 2026, without any hope of restoring economic ties with China and, consequently, the prior level of welfare in the near future. This is in addition to paying “compensation” under the guise of investing in unfeasible defense plans.
All nations, including India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, and some ASEAN members that have been invited to participate in the AUKUS, should take a closer look at this alliance.
Bakhtiar Urusov, a political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense asked Congress to authorize the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia as part of the trilateral AUKUS agreement with the U.K.
Three legislative proposals, submitted on May 2 and first posted online Tuesday, would greenlight the sale of two Virginia-class submarines to Australia, permit the training of Australian nationals for submarine work and allow Canberra to invest in the U.S. submarine industrial base………………
“Importantly, the proposals spell out a clear path forward to facilitate the transfer of Virginia-class submarines to Australia while ensuring we have the necessary authorities to accept the Australian Government’s investments to enhance our submarine industrial base capacity and provide training for Australian personnel.” – Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee’s sea power panel
AUKUS stipulates that Australia will buy at least three and as many as five Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s as part of phase two of the agreement, giving Congress more than a decade to authorize the sale. This year’s proposal, which the Pentagon hopes will become part of the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, asks that Congress approve just two of those submarines “without a deadline to consummate the transfers and without specifying the specific vessels to be transferred.”
The proposal argues that this “small amount of flexibility is necessary” since the transfers depend on Australian readiness to operate the submarines, which will involve developing Australia’s submarine industrial base through training and appropriate shipyard infrastructure.
To that end, a second legislative proposal would authorize U.S. defense service exports directly to Australia’s private sector in order to train its own submarine workers……..
The Pentagon states in the legislative proposal that those funds would be used to “add a significant number of trade workers” that will help address “the significant overhaul backlog” for the Virginia-class submarine. Australian monies would also be used for “advance purchasing of components and materials that are known to be replacement items for submarine overhauls” and “outsourcing less complex sustainment work to local contractors.”
Congress is also making its own investments to expand the U.S. submarine industrial base as the Navy ultimately aims to build two Virginia-class and one Columbia-class submarines per year. Courtney helped secure $541 million in submarine supplier development and $207 million in workforce development initiatives as part of the FY 23 government funding bill.
Austal USA, the American subsidiary of Australia-based Austal, plans to open a new facility at its shipyard in Mobile, Alabama to begin construction on nuclear submarine modules for General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut, which produces both Virginia and Columbia-class submarines. Austal expects it will need 1,000 new hires in Mobile to staff that facility.
At Electric Boat, the prime contractor for the Virginia- and Columbia-class submarine programs, the hiring need will be even greater. The company currently employs more than 19,000 people, after hiring 3,700 new workers in 2022, according to local newspaper The Day. But the company needs to hire 5,750 new workers this year, to manage attrition and to help grow the workforce to about 22,000 to handle the increased workload.
A new nuclear arms race is accelerating, but Australia won’t be doing much about this threat to global survival. This week’s budget confirms the death of Labor’s nuclear disarmament diplomacy. Former diplomat Philip Dorling explains.
At his AUKUS submarine announcement on 14 March 2023, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spoke of Australia’s “proud record of leadership” in nuclear non-proliferation. On 17 April Foreign Minister Penny Wong trumpeted Labor’s “proud history” of championing practical disarmament efforts”.
Labor does have a history of disarmament and non-proliferation leadership. In the 1990s Foreign Minister Gareth Evans was an outstanding diplomatic activist with Australia playing important roles in negotiation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Evans argued before the International Court of Justice that the use and threat of nuclear weapons is illegal. The Canberra Commission produced a landmark report charting steps to achieve the elimination of nuclear arsenals.
Dollars for diplomacy
Foreign Minister Wong is the latest custodian of Labor’s tradition of middle power disarmament diplomacy. But what are Labor’s priorities now? Well, at the end of the day, money talks and in Tuesday’s Federal Budget the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) picked up an extra $74.6m for nuclear diplomacy.
Of that, $52.7m is for DFAT to provide “international policy advice and diplomatic support for the nuclear-powered submarine program.” Another $21.9m will go to the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) to support the establishment of safeguard arrangements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the AUKUS project.
All the new money is to support AUKUS.
AUKUS safeguards
For the AUKUS project to proceed within the framework of Australia’s non-proliferation obligations, Australia must negotiate a special arrangement with the IAEA to allow the use of highly enriched uranium in submarine reactors. We already have a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) with the IAEA that covers civilian nuclear activities. Article 14 of the CSA allows for negotiation of an arrangement with the IAEA to oversee the use of nuclear material for non-explosive military purposes, i.e. nuclear naval propulsion.
It’s challenging to combine the safeguards transparency with the secret world of nuclear submarines; but the Australian Government and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi appear confident an arrangement can be agreed to enable the IAEA to provide credible assurances that submarine fuel is not being used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
The Government has already affirmed that Australia will be provided with complete, sealed reactor units from which the removal of any nuclear material would be extremely difficult. The reactor fuel will “not be in a form that can be directly used in nuclear weapons without further chemical reprocessing, requiring facilities that Australia does not have and will not seek”. Australia’s wider non-proliferation obligations, including acceptance of IAEA inspections anywhere, anytime will remain in place.
A few days before the 14 March AUKUS announcement, Albanese and Wong wrote to Grossi to open formal negotiations. ASNO Director General Geoff Shaw also forwarded “preliminary design information” to the IAEA.
Diplomatic dogfight
However despite what DFAT describes as Australia’s “impeccable non-proliferation credentials”, the negotiations are already politically contentious with China claiming AUKUS “poses serious nuclear proliferation risks”. Beijing alleges Australia is “coercing the IAEA Secretariat into endorsement on the safeguards issue”. Chinese diplomats are demanding an “intergovernmental process” involving all IAEA members with any new arrangement “jointly discussed and decided by the international community”.
Australia’s government doesn’t want AUKUS derailed. We’re relying on advice from the IAEA in 1978 that states an Article 14 arrangement can be negotiated with the IAEA Secretariat before being provided to the IAEA Board of Governors for “appropriate action”. Australia would like Grossi to simply submit the negotiated arrangement to the Board as information. However the Board may insist on subjecting the arrangement to its approval. China and Russia will demand that, and they’ll likely vote against any arrangement regardless of its terms. IAEA Board approval is by no means assured. Even if the Board does approve, China won’t leave the matter there. A fractious dispute could drag on for years.
That’s why $74.6m has been committed to AUKUS diplomacy. This large and complex campaign will involve negotiation with the IAEA Secretariat and engagement with the 35 countries on the IAEA Board, indeed with all 176 members. Australia will be funding plenty of IAEA projects, seminars and workshops. In terms of diplomatic effort it’s equivalent to running for election to a seat on the United Nations Security Council, only more controversial and already actively opposed by China and Russia. All this comes with big opportunity costs.
A new nuclear arms race
The international situation is deeply worrying. Tension between China and the United States over Taiwan continues to rise. There’s already a naval arms race of which AUKUS is a small part, but the bigger strategic shift is manifest with China’s expansion of its nuclear forces. Construction of hundreds of new silos for a greatly expanded strategic missile force raises the prospect that Beijing is seeking an arsenal much closer to parity with the US.
At the same time, Russia has suspended the New START nuclear arms treaty which will expire in 2026. Moscow’s development of new and potentially destabilising delivery systems makes the future strategic calculus more uncertain. In turn, the prospect of three way nuclear arms competition with China and Russia has led to calls in the US Congress for an expansion of US nuclear forces.
Australian diplomats express concern about “the opaque nuclear arsenal build up in our region”. Others are less coy about the nuclear danger. Veteran foreign policy analyst Professor Joseph Siracusa recently warned that “We are literally on the eve of destruction .
The demise of Labor’s disarmament diplomacy
Labor’s national platform commits the government to move to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a recent agreement produced under UN auspices to advance nuclear disarmament. Albanese championed Labor’s 2018 commitment to sign the TPNW. In June last year a large group of former Australian Ambassadors and High Commissioners urged the new government to follow through and join the TPNW as demonstration of “a principled foreign policy … that advances the global common good”.
The United States has no enthusiasm for the TPNW and DFAT worried that the new Labor Government would be receptive to something that could complicate AUKUS, especially ensuring bipartisan support in the US Congress.
They needn’t have been concerned. Labor’s pledge to join the TPNW was a dead letter the moment Labor’s leadership signed up to the nuclear submarine project. DFAT submissions released under FOI show Wong agrees that TPNW isn’t a priority. She massaged Labor rank and file concerns by sending Labor backbencher Susan Templeman as an observer to the first TPNW states parties meeting in Vienna in June 2022. But as DFAT noted, “our attendance as an observer did not represent a decision to join the TPNW.”
Questioned in March by independent MP Zoe Daniel about the backflip, Albanese again referenced Labor’s “proud history” of disarmament efforts, but wouldn’t commit to joining the TRNW.
Lost opportunity
Australia could be working with TPNW countries to put an international spotlight on the dangers of a new nuclear arms race. Realistic and practical measures that could be pursued include those proposed by former ASNO Director General John Carlson; pressing nuclear weapon states for “no first use” commitments, a cap on existing arsenals, no modernisation or new weapons and a draw down towards minimum deterrence capabilities.
However with AUKUS dominating the agenda, there isn’t any room for the middle power diplomacy once practiced by Gareth Evans. Instead, Australian diplomats are busy defending our nuclear submarine pact. At a recent meeting in Geneva on nuclear risks, Australian spent nearly as much time and effort rebutting Chinese allegations about AUKUS as what was devoted to substantive issues.
The Government’s budget allocation to DFAT shows they know they have a long diplomatic fight on their hands. It will suck the life out of Australian disarmament diplomacy. We’ll be talking ad nauseam about AUKUS while a nuclear arms build-up makes the world much less safe.
Labor’s disarmament activism is dead, cannibalised by AUKUS.
Philip Dorling has some thirty years of experience of high-level political, public policy and media work, much of that at the Australian Parliament.
He has worked in the Australian political environment from most angles, in both the national and state levels of government including as a senior executive; as a senior policy adviser for the Federal Labor Opposition and for cross bench Senators; and as an award-winning journalist in the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) this week, Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave his most extensive comments on the plight of Julian Assange since coming to office in May 2022. Albanese feigned concern for the WikiLeaks publisher, but defended the entire anti-democratic framework of “national security” secrecy under which he is being persecuted.
Albanese is in London for the coronation of King Charles. He is also holding discussions with the British government, centring on AUKUS, the aggressive militarist pact between the two countries and the US, aimed at preparing for war against China.
In the same city, Assange has been incarcerated in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison for more than four years, most of that time on remand. The sole purpose of his detention is to facilitate a US extradition request. The American government is seeking to imprison Assange for up to 175 years for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and its global diplomatic conspiracies.
Albanese’s comments have been presented widely as his “strongest” in defence of Assange. Throughout his prime ministership, Albanese has sought to avoid even mentioning the WikiLeaks publisher, even though Assange is an Australian citizen and the world’s most significant political prisoner.
Albanese’s long silence, which included his tenure as opposition leader, was clearly a product of political hostility to Assange and WikiLeaks. But as demands for the Labor government to defend Assange grew, Albanese and his colleagues changed tack. They could not speak openly about Assange, supposedly because that would compromise unspecified “quiet diplomacy” they were conducting on his behalf.
Documents obtained via freedom of information requests by lawyer Kellie Tranter have not turned up a single trace of this “quiet diplomacy.” That includes correspondence between the relevant Australian government bodies and its counterparts in the US and Britain.
In the ABC interview, Albanese repeated his refrain that “enough is enough” in relation to the Assange case and “this matter needs to be brought to a close.” These formulations are deliberately ambiguous. They do not even indicate how the case should be “brought to a close,” much less demand that the Biden administration drop the prosecution.
Albanese added: “It needs to be worked through, we’re working through diplomatic channels, we’re making very clear what our position is on Mr Assange’s case.” But again, it is not at all “clear” what the Labor government’s position actually is. Moreover, almost a year of purported “quiet diplomacy” has not altered the course of Assange’s persecution by one iota.
Asked about this, Albanese replied: “I know it’s frustrating. I share the frustration. I can’t do more than make very clear what my position is.” He claimed that the US government was “clear” on Labor’s position, but would not even commit to raising Assange when Biden visits Australia later this month.
Albanese expressed “concern” for Assange’s health, but did not indicate he would do anything about it. It is over three years since hundreds of doctors first warned that the deterioration of Assange’s medical condition could result in his death behind bars, and demanded he be released from Belmarsh Prison.
In the comments that some Assange supporters have presented as most hopeful, Albanese stated: “I think that when Australians look at the circumstances, look at the fact that the person who released the information [Chelsea Manning] is walking freely now, having served some time in incarceration but is now released for a long period of time, then they’ll see that there is a disconnect there.”
Again, this is miles away from a demand that the Biden administration end its prosecution, or a defence of a persecuted Australian journalist. It is more in the manner of, “it is unfortunate that this is occurring, but what can one do?”
That was, in fact, the entire thrust of Albanese’s remarks. Labor had raised the issue, he claimed, made its “position clear” and Assange’s fate was in the hands of Britain and the US. That is diametrically opposed to the repeated aggressive diplomatic and legal interventions Australian governments have previously mounted to free citizens imprisoned abroad.
The fraudulent character of Albanese’s purported defence of Assange was underscored by the fact that his comments were immediately endorsed by opposition Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton. Dutton, a former policeman, is an extreme right-wing figure, who speaks most openly for the repressive state forces that are seeking Assange’s destruction.
Above all, Albanese’s remarks were aimed at placating the growing public support for the WikiLeaks founder and subordinating it to a “quiet diplomacy” that could not be any quieter. Among some prominent Assange supporters, Albanese’s remarks have had their desired effect. They have proclaimed that the Labor government has now demonstrated its commitment to Assange’s freedom, presenting this as a fact to be celebrated.
Such positions, it must be stated, are a self-deluding fantasy that obstructs a genuine fight for Assange’s freedom, lets those involved in his persecution off the hook and creates favourable conditions for a US extradition. Unfortunately, it is not hard to envisage such individuals proclaiming one “victory” after another, right up until Assange is dispatched to his US persecutors.
Several questions must be posed: If Albanese were waging a determined struggle for Assange’s freedom, would he be fawning over King Charles and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the figures who hold the key to Assange’s cell? Would he be preparing to roll out the red carpet for Biden when the US president visits Australia in several weeks? Would he not make demands of the British and US governments, as Australian administrations have when defending other persecuted citizens?
Those who promote the illusion that Assange’s freedom will be granted by one or another benevolent faction of the establishment, without any genuine political struggle, invariably detach the attempted US extradition from its broader political context.
As the WSWS has explained, the US is pursuing Assange, not only as an act of retribution. It is seeking to establish a precedent for the suppression of social and political opposition, especially opposition to war. This forms part of a broader turn to authoritarianism by governments around the world, amid the deepest crisis of the capitalist system since the 1930s.
The imperialist powers are preparing for another catastrophic world war. That is the significance of the US-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, along with Washington’s confrontation with China, which is viewed as the chief threat to American imperialist hegemony.
Australia, under Albanese, is on the frontlines of these war preparations. Last month, Labor endorsed a Defence Strategic Review, calling for Australia’s largest military build-up since World War II. The review is explicit that this is in preparation for a US-led war against China.
As in the last century, war is incompatible with democratic rights. It requires the suppression of anti-war opposition, because governments are aware that workers and young people are hostile to militarism, and that the program of war will intensify a resurgence of the class struggle that is already well underway.
This basic point was essentially made by Albanese himself.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed frustration at the United States’s continuing efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange, saying: “There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”
The 2023 Defence Strategic Review has recommended Australia adopt a new strategic conceptual framework dubbed ‘National Defence’ that incorporates a ‘strategy of denial’. This approach is tied to a broader concept of ‘collective security’ in the Indo-Pacific and is aligned with America’s framework for ‘integrated deterrence’ of China. ‘National Defence’ is consistent with American force structure designs to develop the northern Australian expanse as an increasingly important base of operations for force-projection.
From ‘Defence of Australia’ to ‘National Defence’
The recommendation by the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) to abandon the long-standing strategic doctrine known as ‘defence of Australia’ (DoA) has been met with approval by the Albanese government, even as the doctrine had been previously eviscerated to conform with the requirements of the US alliance.
DoA reached its zenith with the release of the 1986 ‘Dibb Review’ that recommended a shift in Australia’s defence strategy from dependent expeditionary combat to ‘self-reliant’ protection of the continent and the air and maritime approaches to Australia. This was to be achieved by adopting ‘an essentially defensive posture in our region’ and employing a ‘strategy of denial’ with strike capabilities strictly limited in range to accomplish that objective………………………………….
However ………… long-standing aspirations for Australia to be an influential ‘middle power’ in international affairs, or more accurately, a ‘sub-imperial power’, which required undertaking regional ‘burden sharing’ responsibilities to preserve ‘stability’ on behalf of the US-led global order.
………………. A major turning point came in late 2001 when the Howard government committed Australia to America’s ‘global war on terror’. ……………….
……. While DoA and ‘self-reliance’ remained official strategic guidance, operationally the Australian Defence Force (ADF) largely came to serve as an adjunct to the US military.
DoA has now been jettisoned entirely by the DSR in favour of ‘National Defence’, a new strategic conceptual framework based on the prospect of higher-level direct threats to Australia’s ‘national interests’ arising from US-China competition………….. This entails abandoning a ‘balanced’ force in favour of a force structure that is ‘focussed’ on preparing for major war – with China.
…………………….. Today, it is the supposed threat to the ‘rules-based order’ that functions as the new ‘domino theory’, where legitimate concerns about Chinese assertiveness in long-standing territorial disputes in the South China Sea is imagined as a direct military threat to Australia and our ‘national interests’.
………… maintaining a ‘balance of power’ has long been a euphemism in Australian political discourse for sustaining American military dominance or ‘primacy’…………..
……………….. achieving ‘balance’ translates into an agenda for Australia to work even more closely with the United States, and key American security partners like Japan, to further encircle China militarily.
…………………………………..Unlike the strategic approach articulated in the 1986 Dibb Review, the ‘strategy of denial’ adopted by the DSR is tied to a broader concept of ‘collective security’ in the Indo-Pacific and is aligned with America’s framework for ‘integrated deterrence’ of China. It is consistent with American force structure designs to develop the northern Australian expanse as an increasingly important base of operations for force-projection
………..The biggest change foreshadowed by the DSR is to the Army, which will have its infantry fighting force dramatically scaled back and be optimised for littoral operations and enhanced long-range fire.
……………………………… This is the great strategic folly of AUKUS. It will equip the ADF with a potent capability to strike the Chinese mainland and, in coalition with the United States, play a frontline role in hunting China’s nuclear-armed submarine force and its critical second-strike nuclear deterrent capability.
While AUKUS risks contributing to an existential nuclear threat to China, the DSR reassures Australians that we remain safe from nuclear annihilation under the protection of America’s ‘extended nuclear deterrence’, for which there are no credible assurances, and in efforts to pursue ‘new avenues of arms control’, of which there are none, except that which the Albanese government has yet to join – the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – despite assurances by the Labor Party to the contrary
Finally, climate change is belatedly recognised as a significant national security issue in the DSR, but largely as a distraction that risks detracting from Defence’s primary objective of defending Australia against China…………………..
The DSR overstates the threat China poses to Australia, appears wilfully blind to the risks of nuclear escalation inherent in the defence strategy it recommends, and understates the existential threat of climate change which it fails to confront. What’s more, ‘National Defence’ dictates an acute focus on preparing Australia’s armed forces to integrate in a substantial way with American force structure plans to carry out what should be utterly unthinkable: a high-end war with a nuclear-armed China that risks wreaking a global catastrophe. https://johnmenadue.com/labors-serial-betrayal-of-australia/
Make no mistake, the Albanese government knows that in joining the US fight against China, Australia will be left defenceless on American withdrawal. And only a dodo could not know this risk is high. Maybe the government doesn’t appreciate that war for America is different. It is the war which matters, not the result. “Winning” is incidental.
Thinking deeply about Australia’s future is simply beyond the Albanese/ Wong/ Marles triumvirate.
Originally my editor requested a survey of Australia’s media response to the government’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR) – tackily released during the ANZAC devotions. It became clear that this was a trivial exercise. The bulk of our mainstream print, TV and radio accepted the tenet that Australia should treat China as an emerging military threat, and spend heavily against the prospect of war. None challenged it.
A sane assessment would find that China presenting a military threat to Australia is fabrication – to rival that of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Thereby America itself has become a great danger to Australia. Its propensity for conflict and brutal self-interest is amply evidenced, over decades. To Washington’s strategists, Australia exists foremost as another object to be exploited for their world wide web of wars. With some distinguishing attributes. We are an ally which profitably pays it way, eagerly, for which the US is un-obligated. Meaning the US can freely entwine Australia in a war with China, then just go home when things get tough, responsibly in its view. As it does, with practised facility.
Despite our hapless, shameful experiences and ever-mounting evidence of America’s implacable hegemony our governments increasingly have conflated Australia’s interests with America’s.
Once Australians rightly could have expected a Labor government to be discerning of our unique interests. But we have to go back to Hawke and Keating to be confident of it. When America’s interests would not swamp our own. Today, it matters not which major political party holds the reins. Bipartisanly, our leaders are preparing Australia for war against the fresh superpower of China. At America’s instigation. While America complains that it lacks the resources for the job, and must rely critically upon allies. And the massive stakes unique to Australia are subordinated to those US interests.
How could anything else rate higher as an issue for Australia?
The seeds of betrayal
We are told by Defence Minister Marles that the DSR comes at a “watershed moment” and that “Australia has lost ten years of warning time.” That is, Australia should have been preparing for war long ago. In fact, Labor created the watershed moment more than ten years ago,………………………………………
Perhaps those years of Labor hand-sitting while our defences were being turned over to US objectives might have been tolerable, if the Albanese government had set about securing Australia’s interests upon gaining power. But the opposite has unfolded. Labor is accelerating spending for war.
Those with long faith in Labor had assumed that the lie of a China military threat to us would be scrutinised once the LNP government fell. Intelligence advice had to be assessed independently. Because on official Pentagon advice to the US Congress China’s forces are stretched just in trying to meet America’s threat to its periphery. But no, Labor didn’t want to know. Instead of getting to the heart of the matter promptly, a defence review was commissioned. And that same conflicted intelligence apparatus provided the foundation for it. Thereby another year has slipped by, in war preparation.
“The review’s outcome was set before it started by the politics of Labor signing up in a matter of hours to carry Scott Morrison’s Anglophone burden. Paul Keating’s charge remains unanswered that Labor’s defence policy was set by wanting to provide no target when blindsided by Mr Morrison’s submarine adventure.”
Unsurprisingly, the stench of political duplicity intensified as the review proceeded.
America’s wars are not about winning
The big betrayal is Labor’s doubling down on the path to war once in power. It is clear now that this was always the intent. What is new in the DSR is that finally a government admits that Australia is entirely dependent on the US:
4.7 However, Australia does not have effective defence capabilities relative to higher threat levels which can only be achieved by working with the United States…..
Make no mistake, the Albanese government knows that in joining the US fight against China, Australia will be left defenceless on American withdrawal. And only a dodo could not know this risk is high.
Maybe the government doesn’t appreciate that war for America is different. It is the war which matters, not the result. “Winning” is incidental. There is always Stateside to come home to. What matters is disempowerment of the adversary – degradation of state, polity, economy, infrastructure and population. That is grist-to-the-mill for the US State Department. Constantly played out by lounging analysts on buttoned leather sofas in the palatial “map room” at Foggy Bottom. Australia’s fate is amongst those gamed there, incidentally.
Even if it did, there can be little doubt now that the Albanese government has chosen to look straight ahead. It has Australia comfortably settled on America’s accelerating train to war with China. To meet a vigorous superpower on its home ground. The war is unwinnable. Impossible to imagine the residual mess. Which will endure in many dimensions for us. But that is of no matter to America. Who in the government knows, or would care?
Here is the future which the Albanese government is steering Australia into. Without a whimper within the Labor party. Thinking deeply about Australia’s future is simply beyond the Albanese/ Wong/ Marles triumvirate. Creative dimensions such as our former ambassador in Beijing Dennis Argall has espoused are beyond Labor.
The way out
While our nation is engulfed in a spiral to war, Foreign Minister Wong has demonstrated no capacity to protect it. In opposition Wong claimed to appreciate the effect of conflict with China. But now talks merely of “lowering the heat” while lining up stoically behind Marles’ indulgent militarism. Paralysed by politics.
Australia’s prospects are unthinkable. We have no alternative but to embrace wider geostrategic options. To give self-interest and self- belief a real shot.
That new road will be complex to map. And long. Our nation no longer possesses the administrative machinery critical for an independent State. Intelligence is compromised, foreign policy and defence gutted, politicised and Americanised. Fixing that is the basic first step. No doubt the nation still possesses independent, experienced, cultivated minds up for it. We can grow up. Again. https://johnmenadue.com/labors-serial-betrayal-of-australia/
While no threat from China exists, media propagandists are trying to ignite a war the likes of which we’ve never seen. John Pilger reminds us that we need to raise our voices before it’s too late.
“IN 1935, the Congress of American Writers was held in New York City, followed by another two years later. They called on ‘the hundreds of poets, novelists, dramatists, critics, short story writers and journalists’ to discuss the ‘rapid crumbling of capitalism’ and the beckoning of another war………………………………………………
The journalist and novelist Martha Gellhorn spoke up for the homeless and unemployed, and “all of us under the shadow of violent great power”. ………………………….
On 7 March, the two oldest newspapers in Australia – The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – published several pages on “the looming threat” of China. They coloured the Pacific Ocean red. Chinese eyes were martial, on the march and menacing. The Yellow Peril was about to fall down as if by the weight of gravity.
No logical reason was given for an attack on Australia by China. A “panel of experts” presented no credible evidence; one of them is a former director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a front for the Defence Department in Canberra, the Pentagon in Washington, the governments of Britain, Japan and Taiwan, and the West’s war industry.
There is no threat to Australia. None. The faraway “lucky” country has no enemies, least of all China, its largest trading partner. Yet China-bashing that draws on Australia’s long history of racism towards Asia has become something of a sport for the self-ordained “experts”. What do Chinese-Australians make of this? Many are confused and fearful.
The authors of this grotesque piece of dog-whistling and obsequiousness to American power are Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott, “national security reporters” I think they are called. I remember Hartcher from his Israeli government-paid jaunts. The other one, Knott, is a mouthpiece for the suits in Canberra. Neither has ever seen a war zone and its extremes of human degradation and suffering.
How did it come to this? Martha Gellhorn would say if she were here. Where on Earth are the voices saying no? Where is the comradeship?
The voices are heard in the samizdat of this website and others. In literature, the likes of John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers and George Orwell are obsolete. Post-modernism is in charge now. Liberalism has pulled up its political ladder. A once somnolent social democracy, Australia, has enacted a web of new laws protecting secretive, authoritarian power and preventing the right to know. Whistleblowers are outlaws, to be tried in secret. An especially sinister law bans “foreign interference” by those who work for foreign companies. What does this mean?
Democracy is notional now; there is the all-powerful elite of the corporation merged with the state and the demands of “identity”. American admirals are paid thousands of dollars a day by the Australian taxpayer for “advice”. Right across the West, our political imagination has been pacified by PR and distracted by the intrigues of corrupt, ultra-low-rent politicians: a Johnson or a Trump or a Sleepy Joe or a Zelensky.
retired U.S. military figure” generally means someone who used to be paid by the U.S. government to advance the interests of the U.S. empire, and is now paid by corporations and/or foreign governments to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.
Among the American swamp monsters hired by Canberra is the Obama administration’s spy chief, who has an established track record of lying and manipulating to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.
Australia has been paying insiders of the U.S. war machine for consultation on how to run the nation’s military, a massive conflict of interest given that Washington has been grooming Australia for a role in its war agendas against China.
For those who don’t speak imperialist, “retired U.S. military figure” generally means someone who used to be paid by the U.S. government to advance the interests of the U.S. empire, and is now paid by corporations and/or foreign governments to advance the interests of the U.S. empire.
These corrupt warmongers rotate in and out of the revolving door of the D.C. swamp, from government to war-industry jobs to punditry gigs to influential think tanks and then back again into government, advancing the interests of the U.S. empire the entire time and growing wealthy in the process.
This dynamic allows a permanent constellation of reliable empire managers to continually exert influence around the world in support of the U.S. empire, regardless of who gets voted into or out of office in the performative display of electoral politics. It’s a big part of why U.S. foreign policy remains the same regardless of who’s officially running the elected government in Washington, and it’s a big part of why the media and arms industry which support the U.S. war machine keep playing the same tune as well.
Among the American swamp monsters Australia paid for consulting work is the Obama administration’s spy chief James Clapper, who has an established track record of lying and manipulating to advance the interests of the U.S. empire:
In 2013 Clapper committed perjury by telling the U.S. Senate under oath that the NSA does not knowingly collect data on millions of Americans, only to have that lie exposed by the Edward Snowden leaks a few months later.
In 2016 Clapper played a foundational role in fomenting public hysteria about Russia with the flimsy ODNI report on alleged Russian election interference, which remainsriddled with massiveplot holes. He would later go on to repeatedly voice the opinion that Russians are “almost genetically driven” toward nefarious and subversive behavior.
In 2020 Clapper signed the infamous and now fully discredited letter from former intelligence insiders saying the Hunter Biden laptop story was likely a Russian disinfo op, falsely telling CNN that the story was “textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work” and that the emails on the laptop had “no metadata” on them.
Also among the American military consultants paid by Australia is a man we just discussed the other day, William Hilarides, who will be telling Australia how to reconfigure its navy because apparently no Australians are available for that job. We now know that according to the released Pentagon documents Canberra has already paid Hilarides almost $2.5 million since 2016 for his consulting work.
This information was originally reported by The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones, who last year also broke the remarkable story that a former U.S. navy admiral named Stephen Johnson had actually served as Australia’s deputy navy secretary, a position which needless to say is not normally open to foreigners.
……………………………………… Australia has always seemed like a fairly irrelevant player on the world stage because of its impotent subservience to Washington. But it’s becoming clear it is exactly because of Australia’s blind subservience to Washington that Australia is worth paying attention to, since that relationship may well end up giving the nation a front-row seat to World War Three.
Australians are going to have to wake up to what’s being done and the abominable agendas the nation is being exploited to advance. Australians are being groomed for a military confrontation of unimaginable horror, one which absolutely does not need to take place, all in the name of something as trivial as securing U.S. planetary hegemony. Australians have got to start saying no to this, starting right now.
A thorny trans-Tasman citizenship issue has been resolved, but Prime Minister Chris Hipkin’s Brisbane trip showed nuclear sensitivities are set to linger between New Zealand and Australia.
……………………….questions then centred on an emerging long-term issue – Australia’s planned acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines – questions Albanese was unwilling to answer.
At a joint press conference on Sunday afternoon, after a citizenship ceremony where more than 200 Kiwis pledged allegiance to Australia, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he had discussed with Albanese his country’s new Aukus pact.
The pact between Australia, United Kingdom and the United States, will have Australia acquire nuclear-propelled in the coming three decades.
“New Zealand, like Australia, is clear eyed that there is a challenging strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hipkins said.
……………….Albanese, asked twice at the press conference about New Zealand’s possible involvement in Aukus, veered away from answering the question, talking instead about the Pacific Island Forum and both countries co-operating on climate change.
New Zealand maintains a strong nuclear-free stance, and Hipkins on Sunday said he welcomed Albanese’s reassurance Australia remained committed to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Marshall Islands’ Hilda Heine, Palau’s Tommy Remengesau, Tuvalu’s Enele Sopoga Kiribati’s Anote Tong say the “staggering $368 billion” allocated for the deal flies in the face of Pacific island countries which are crying out for support for climate change.
They accuse Australia and its two allies of triggering an arms race and demonstrating a complete lack of recognition for the climate change security threat faced by the island nations.
Former Kiribati President Anote Tong said Australia and its allies need to do more consultations with the Pacific before the plan develops further.
LONDON, April 8 (Xinhua)http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/VOICES/16215442.html The United States, Britain and Australia have been pressing ahead with nuclear submarine cooperation despite being widely questioned, which creates nuclear proliferation risks and undermines the international non-proliferation system, the Chinese Embassy in Britain has said.
In response to a question concerning the trilateral Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) cooperation on nuclear submarines, the embassy said on Friday that such cooperation will exacerbate the resurgence of the Cold War mentality, trigger a new round of arms race, and further provoke regional security and military confrontation, seriously jeopardizing regional peace, stability and prosperity.
The Asia-Pacific is now the most dynamic and fastest growing region in the world, which hasn’t come easily, the embassy said in a press release. “The AUKUS cooperation is designed to serve the U.S. geopolitical agenda to introduce group politics and Cold War confrontation into the Asia-Pacific with military deterrence. It is aimed at creating a NATO-replica in the Asia-Pacific, which runs counter to peace and stability in the region.”
The AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation marks the first time for nuclear weapon states to transfer naval nuclear propulsion reactors and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapon state, it noted.
As the current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system is incapable of ensuring effective safeguards, such cooperation poses serious nuclear proliferation risks, seriously compromises the authority of the IAEA, and deals a blow to the agency’s safeguards system, the embassy said.
“If the three countries are set on advancing the cooperation, other countries will likely follow suit, eventually leading to the collapse of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” it said.
China urges the three countries to heed the call of the international community and regional countries, discard the outdated zero-sum Cold War mentality and narrow geopolitical mindset, earnestly fulfil their international obligations and do more things that are conducive to regional peace, stability, unity and development, the embassy said.
“This serves the fundamental and long-term interests of regional countries as well as the three countries themselves,” it said. “The UK is not a country in the region and it is unwise to overstretch itself.”
Antinuclear 