Forced Posture: has Australia already ceded military control to the US?

by Michelle Fahy  Aug 13, 2024,  https://michaelwest.com.au/forced-posture-has-australia-already-ceded-military-control-to-the-us/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-08-15&utm_campaign=Michael+West+Media+Weekly+Update

The war of words between Defence Minister Richard Marles and Paul Keating belies how the US bid for military control of Australia has been underway for over a decade, supported by both the Coalition and Labor. Michelle Fahy and Elizabeth Minter explain the Force Posture Agreement.

 The Albanese government has not explained the full picture in its rejection of Paul Keating’s concerns about Australia’s defence policy. The former Labor prime minister said on ABC’s 7:30 last Thursday that AUKUS was likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States: “AUKUS is really about, in American terms, the military control of Australia.”

The next morning deputy prime minister Richard Marles claimed Keating’s remarks were “not a fair characterisation” and that Keating’s remarks were not news.

Unmentioned by either Keating or Marles was that America’s bid for military control of Australia has been under way for more than a decade, with the enthusiastic support of both Coalition and Labor governments. As we write this, the US is spending $630 million as part of an extensive militarisation of the Australian Top End to suit its purposes.

Furthermore, five days ago, after the annual Ausmin (Australia-US Ministerial Consultations) talks, it was announced that the US was planning more frequent deployments to Australia of long-range B-52 bombers, which can carry nuclear weapons. 

When asked last year whether Australia would allow US aircraft operating out of Tindal air base in the Northern Territory to carry nuclear weapons, the response of Foreign Minister Penny Wong was simply: “We understand and respect the longstanding US policy of neither confirming or denying.”

Compare that stance with that of Malcolm Fraser’s government. As John Menadue explained in a recent podcast “The Americanisation of our public policy, media and national interest”, then prime minister Fraser stood up in Parliament and insisted that no US aircraft or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.

As Menadue said: “This is our territory, this is our sovereignty, [yet today] we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.”

Unimpeded access for the US

A critical piece of evidence regarding Australia’s sellout is the little-known Force Posture Agreement (FPA) with the United States, which the Abbott Coalition government signed in 2014, building on agreements made with the US by the Gillard Labor government. Her government allowed up to 2,500 US marines to be stationed on a permanent rotation in Darwin, and increased the number of military aircraft that could fly in and out of the Top End and use Australia’s outback bombing ranges. 

The FPA provides the legal basis for the extensive militarisation of Australia by the US. In short, it permits the US to prepare for, launch and control its own military operations from Australian territory: “United States Forces and United States Contractors shall have unimpeded access to and use of Agreed Facilities and Areas for activities undertaken in connection with this Agreement.”

Defence Minister Marles has been effusive in his support for the force posture agreement and the control the US has been given over Australian soil. 

Just last week, he announced that: “American force posture now in Australia involves every domain: land, sea, air, cyber and space.” Yet the longstanding Outer Space Treaty, which each AUKUS ally has ratified, reserves outer space for purely peaceful purposes. 

Two months after Labor won office in May 2022, Marles was in Washington DC announcing that Labor would “continue the ambitious trajectory of its force posture cooperation” with the US. 

He added that Australia’s military engagement with the US military would “move beyond interoperability to interchangeability” and Australia would “ensure we have all the enablers in place to operate seamlessly together, at speed”.

While the FPA strongly supports America’s ability to wage war against China, politicians have not explained its significance to the Australian public. Moreover, public consultation on the FPA was virtually non-existent. The Northern Territory government was consulted, while other state and territory governments merely received advice about it.

Defence Minister Marles speaks of the “appreciation for the contribution that America is making to the stability and the peace of the Indo-Pacific region by its presence in Australia”, but numerous critics, including Sam Roggeveen, the director of the Lowy Institute’s international security program and a former Australian intelligence analyst, warn of the risks of bringing “US combat forces, and its military strategy to fight China, on to our shores”.

The FPA allows the following and much more:

• unimpeded access to our airfields and airport facilities for US combat aircraft and bombers;
• unimpeded access to our seaports for US naval vessels, including US nuclear submarines at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia;
• the construction of a US Air Force mission planning, intelligence and operations centre in Darwin as part of $630 million in American spending across the Top End over the next two years;
• the establishment, under US military control, of several storage facilities for aircraft fuel, spare parts and munitions, including 11 giant jet fuel storage tanks near Darwin’s main port, which “will allow the US to run large-scale exercises and operations from Northern Australia”.

AUKUS, in conjunction with the FPA, ensures that Australia’s navy, in particular, will be tightly integrated with the US navy for the purpose of fighting China, and that the two navies can operate as one from Australian ports and waters.

Handcuffed to the US

Australia’s high-tech major weapons systems also make us more reliant than ever on the United States. As respected veteran journalist Brian Toohey reported in 2020, “The US … denies Australia access to the computer source code essential to operate key electronic components in its ships, planes, missiles, sensors and so on.” 

This includes the F-35 fighter jets, which both Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Marles have noted this year form the largest proportion of the Australian Air Force’s fast jet capacity.

The significant erosion of Australian sovereignty did not start with AUKUS. Australians were warned as far back as 2001 of the high costs of our dependence on the US by a Parliamentary Library research paper that stated: “It is almost literally true that Australia cannot go to war without the consent and support of the US.”

The paper also noted that the Australian Defence Force is critically dependent on US supply and support for the conduct of all its operations except those at the lowest level and of the shortest duration.

It is more than dependency though? Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles boasts that “American force posture now in Australia involves every domain: land, sea, air, cyber and space” yet the Albanese government denies that Australia is turning into the 51st state of America.

August 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Resisting AUKUS: The Paul Keating Formula

The venomous icing on the cake – at least for AUKUS critics – comes in the form of an undisclosed “Understanding” that involves “additional related political commitments.” 

The contents of Biden’s letter irked Keating less than the spectacular show of servility shown by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong on their visit to Annapolis for the latest AUSMIN talks. In what has become a pattern of increasing subordination of Australian interests to the US Imperium, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played happy hosts and must have been delighted by what they heard.

August 13, 2024, : Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/resisting-aukus-the-paul-keating-formula/

From his own redoubt of critical inquiry, the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has made fighting the imperialising leprosy of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the United States a matter of solemn duty.

In March 15, 2023, he excoriated a Canberra press gallery seduced and tantalised by the prospect of nuclear-powered submarines, calling the Albanese government’s complicit arrangements with the US and UK to acquire such a capability “the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War one.

His latest spray was launched in the aftermath of a touched-up AUKUS, much of it discussed in a letter by US President Joe Biden to the US House Speaker and President of the Senate. The revised agreement between the three powers for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear Propulsion is intended to supersede the November 22, 2021 agreement between the three powers on the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information (ENNPIA)

The new agreement permits “the continued communication and exchange of NNPI, including certain RD, and would also expand the cooperation between the governments by enabling the transfer of naval nuclear propulsion plants of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, including component parts and spare parts thereof, and other related equipment.” The new arrangements will also permit the sale of special nuclear material in the welded power units, along with other relevant “material as needed for such naval propulsion plants.”

The contents of Biden’s letter irked Keating less than the spectacular show of servility shown by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong on their visit to Annapolis for the latest AUSMIN talks. In what has become a pattern of increasing subordination of Australian interests to the US Imperium, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played happy hosts and must have been delighted by what they heard.

The details that emerged from the conversations held between the four – details which rendered Keating passionately apoplectic – can only make those wishing for an independent Australian defence policy weep. Words such as “Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation” were used to describe the intrusion of the US armed forces into every sphere of Australian defence:the domains of land, maritime, air, and space.

Ongoing infrastructure investments at such Royal Australian Air Force Bases as Darwin and Tindal continue to take place, not to bolster Australian defence but fortify the country as a US forward defensive position. To these can be added, as the Pentagonfact sheet reveals, “site surveys for potential upgrades at RAAF Bases Curtin, Learmonth, and Scherger.”

The degree of subservience Canberra affords is guaranteed by increased numbers of US personnel to take place in rotational deployments. These will include “frequent rotations of bombers, fighter aircraft, and Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft.” Secret arrangements have also been made involving the disposal of nuclear propulsion plants that will feature in Australia’s nuclear powered submarine fleet, though it is unclear how broad that commitment is.

The venomous icing on the cake – at least for AUKUS critics – comes in the form of an undisclosed “Understanding” that involves “additional related political commitments.” The Australian Greens spokesperson on Defence, Senator David Shoebridge, rightly wonders “what has to be kept secret from the Australian public? There are real concerns the secret understanding includes commitments binding us to the US in the event they go to war with China in return for getting nuclear submarines.”

Marles has been stumblingly unforthcoming in that regard. When asked what such “additional political commitments” were, he coldly replied that the agreement was “as we’ve done it.” The rest was “misinformation” being spread by detractors of the alliance.

It is precisely the nature of these undertakings, and what was made public at Annapolis, that paved the way for Keating’s hefty salvo on ABC’s 7.30. The slavishness of the whole affair had made Keating “cringe”. “This government has sold out to the United States. They’ve fallen for the dinner on the White House lawn.”

He proved unsparing about Washington’s intentions. “What AUKUS is about in the American mind is turning [Australia into suckers], locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around … not Australian bases.” It meant, quite simply, “in American terms, the military control of Australia. I mean, what’s happened … is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States.”

Having the US as an ally was itself problematic, largely because of its belligerent intentions. “If we didn’t have an aggressive ally like the United States – aggressive to others in the region – there’d be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone than we are being ‘protected’ by an aggressive power like the United States.”

As for what Australian obligations to the US entailed, the former PM was in little doubt. “What this is all about is the Chinese laying claim to Taiwan, and the Americans are going to say ‘no, no, we’re going to keep these Taiwanese people protected’, even though they’re sitting on Chinese real estate.” Were Australia to intervene, the picture would rapidly change: an initial confrontation between Beijing and Washington over the island would eventually lead to the realisation that catastrophic loss would simply not be worth it, leaving Australia “the ones who have done all the offence.”

As for Australia’s own means of self-defence against any adversary or enemy, Keating uttered the fundamental heresy long stomped on by the country’s political and intelligence establishment: Canberra could, if needed, go it alone. “Australia is capable of defending itself. There’s no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an armada of ships without it all failing.” Australia did not “need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of Americans’ backside.” With Keating’s savage rhetoric, and the possibility that AUKUS may collapse before the implosions of US domestic politics, improbable peace may break out.

August 14, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Revamped AUKUS document reveals how US and UK can walk away from nuclear submarine deal

ABC News, By defence correspondent Andrew Greene 14 Aug 24

In short:

A revamped AUKUS agreement has been tabled in federal parliament revealing the submarine project can be cancelled with a year’s notice.

Under the deal, Australia has also agreed to indemnify the US and UK against any loss or injury connected to nuclear materials transferred here.

What’s next?

The deal will last until December 2075, provided the ANZUS alliance continues and the US and UK remain in NATO.

Australia would foot the bill for any loss or injury caused by sensitive technology and radioactive materials transferred by the United States and United Kingdom for nuclear submarines, under a revamped version of the AUKUS agreement.

An updated document for the trilateral partnership reveals Australia would indemnify the United States and the United Kingdom against such an outcome.

It also reveals the US or the UK could pull out of the submarine deal with just a year’s notice if either nation decides the deal weakens their own nuclear submarine programs

Details of the “understanding” signed by all three AUKUS partners last week in Washington have now been tabled in federal parliament with the agreement to “remain in force until 31 December 2075”.

Article I specifies that the US and UK can transfer “material and equipment relating to conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to Australia” providing this does not constitute an “unreasonable risk” to their own defence and security.

“This is a $368 billion gamble with taxpayers’ money from the Albanese government,” Greens senator David Shoebridge said following the tabling of the document on Monday.

“Article I of the new AUKUS agreement says that if at any point the United States thinks supplying material under the AUKUS agreement to Australia prejudices their defence, they can effectively terminate the agreement and pull out.

“What this agreement makes clear in black and white: If the United States at any point thinks they don’t have enough submarines for themselves, they can pull out of AUKUS 2.0 — why isn’t the Albanese government being honest about the size of the gamble?”

According to the document, “Australia shall be responsible for the management, disposition, storage, and disposal of any spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste resulting from the operation of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Plants”.

The Albanese government has also agreed to indemnify the US and UK against “any liability, loss, costs, damage or injury (including third-party claims) arising out of, related to, or resulting from Nuclear Risks” connected with the project……………….

The head of the AUKUS submarine program has refused to say whether an almost $5 billion government payment to the United States would be refunded if no nuclear-powered boats were delivered to Australia.

The agreement for “cooperation for naval nuclear propulsion” is also contingent on Australia and the US remaining in the ANZUS alliance, along with the US and UK staying as NATO members.

Defence Minister Richard Marles said the agreement “expressly rules out enriching uranium or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in Australia” and prevents AUKUS partners from any activity that would contravene international non-proliferation obligations.

“The Albanese government, alongside AUKUS partners, continues to re-affirm that Australia’s acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines will set the highest non-proliferation standards through the AUKUS partnership.

“The agreement is unequivocal that, as a non-nuclear weapons state, Australia does not seek to acquire nuclear weapons,” Mr Marles stressed.

Last week, President Joe Biden revealed the existence of a new agreement in a letter to Congress in which he said the non-legally binding “understanding” had provided “additional related political commitments”.  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-12/revamped-aukus-document-reveals-how-us-and-uk-can-walk-away/104214398

August 14, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

AUKUS Revamped: The Complete Militarisation of Australia

Marles, the persistently reliable spokesman for Australia’s wholesale capitulation to the US war machine, calls the document “the legal underpinning of our commitment to our international obligations so it’s a very significant step down the AUKUS path and again it’s another demonstration that we are making this happen.”

 US military forces, in short, are to occupy every domain of Australia’s defence.

August 10, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark  https://theaimn.com/aukus-revamped-the-complete-militarisation-of-australia/

There is much to loathe about the AUKUS security agreement between Canberra, Washington and London. Of the three conspirators against stability in the Indo and Asia Pacific, one stands out as the shouldering platform, the sustaining force, the political and military stuffing. But Australian propagandists and proselytisers of the US credo of power prefer to see it differently, repeatedly telling the good citizens down under that they are onto something truly special in being a military extension, the gargantuan annexe of another’s interests. Give them nuclear powered submarines, let them feel special, and a false sense of security will follow.

The August 2024 AUSMIN talks in Annapolis, Maryland, held between US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and their Australian counterparts, Richard Marles (Minister of Defence) and Penny Wong (Foreign Minister)provided yet another occasion for this grim pantomime. No one could be in doubt who the servitors were.

The factsheet from the US Department of Defense on the meeting is worth noting for Washington’s military capture – no other word describes it – and Australia’s sycophantic accommodation. As part of the “Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation,” the US and Australia are to advance “key priorities across an ambitious range of force posture cooperation efforts.” This is merely a clumsy way of describing the deeper incorporation of Australia’s own military requirements into the US military complex “across land, maritime, air, and space domains, as well as the Combined Logistics, Sustainment, and Maintenance Enterprise.” US military forces, in short, are to occupy every domain of Australia’s defence.

The greedy and speedy US garrisoning of Australia is evident through ongoing “infrastructure investments at key Australian bases in the norther, including RAAF Bases Darwin and Tindal” and “site surveys for potential upgrades at RAAF Bases Curtin, Learmonth, and Scherger.” Rotational deployments of US forces to Australia, “including frequent rotations of bombers, fighter aircraft, and Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft” are to increase in number. As any student of US-Australian relations knows, rotation is the disingenuous term used to mask the presence of a permanently stationed force – occupation by another name.

The public relations office has obviously been busy spiking the language with a sense of false equality: the finalising, for instance, by December 2024 of a Memorandum of Understanding on Co-Assembly for Guided Multiple Rocket Systems (GLMRS) – a “co-production”; finalising, by the same date, an MOU “on cooperative Production, Sustainment, and Follow-on Development of the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM)”; and institutionalising of “US cooperation with Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise.” Everywhere we look, a sense of artificial cooperation under the cover of Washington’s heavy-handed dominance, be it cooperative activities for Integrated Air and Missile Defence, or the hypersonic weapons program, can be found.

In this even more spectacular surrender of sovereignty and submission than previous undertakings, Canberra is promised second hand nuclear-powered toys in the form of Virginia Class submarines, something forever contingent on the wishes and whimsy of the US Congress. But even this contingent state of affairs is sufficient for Australia to bury itself deeper in what has been announced as a revised AUKUS agreement. More accurately, it constitutes a touch-up of the November 22, 2021 agreement between the three powers on the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information (ENNPIA).

The ENNPIA allows the AUKUS parties the means to communicate and exchange relevant Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information (NNPI), including officially Restricted Data (RD) as part of what is described as the “Optimal Pathway” for Australia’s needless acquisition of nuclear powered vessels.

In his letter to the US House Speaker and President of the Senate, President Joe Biden explains the nature of the revision. Less cumbersomely named than its predecessor, the new arrangements feature an Agreement between the three powers for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear Propulsion. In superseding the ENNPIA, it “would permit the continued communication and exchange of NNPI, including certain RD, and would also expand the cooperation between the governments by enabling the transfer of naval nuclear propulsion plants of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, including component parts and spare parts thereof, and other related equipment.”

The Agreement further permits the sale of special nuclear material in the welded power units, and other relevant “material as needed for such naval propulsion plants.” Transferrable equipment would include that necessary for research, development, or design of naval propulsion plants. The logistics of manufacture, development, design, manufacture, operation, maintenance, regulation and disposal of the plants is also covered.

Tokenistic remarks about non-proliferation are then made in Biden’s letter. The powers, for instance, commit themselves to “setting the highest nonproliferation standard” while protecting US classified information and intellectual property. This standard is actually pitifully low: Australia has committed itself to proliferation not only by seeking to acquire submarine nuclear propulsion, but by subsidising the building of such submarines in US and UK shipyards.

Marles, the persistently reliable spokesman for Australia’s wholesale capitulation to the US war machine, calls the document “the legal underpinning of our commitment to our international obligations so it’s a very significant step down the AUKUS path and again it’s another demonstration that we are making this happen.”

Obligations is the operative word here, given that Australia is burdened by any number of undertakings, be it as a US military asset placed in harm’s way or becoming a radioactive storage dump for all the AUKUS submarine fleets. Marles insists that the only nuclear waste that will end up on Australian soil will be that generated by Australia. “That is the agreement that we reached with the UK and the US back in March of last year, and so all this is doing is providing for the legal underpinning of that.”

Given that Australia has no standalone, permanent site to store high-level nuclear waste, even that undertaking is spurious. Nor does the understanding prevent Australia from accepting the waste accruing from the fleets of all the navies. Given the cringing servitude of Canberra, and the admission by the Australian government that they have made undisclosed “political commitments”, such an outcome cannot be ruled out.

Always reliably waspish, former Australian Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating gavehis assessment about the latest revelations of the AUSMIN talks. “There’ll be an American force posture now in Australia, involving every domain.” The Albanese government had “fallen for the dinner on the White House lawn.” That, and much more besides.

August 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment