nuclear-news

The AUKUS deal and nuclear submarine plan ties Australia in to any American engagement against China

This pact ties Australia to any US military engagement against China,   https://www.smh.com.au/national/this-pact-ties-australia-to-any-us-military-engagement-against-china-20210916-p58s5k.html

The announced agreement between the United States, Britain and Australia for Australia to move to a fleet of US-supplied nuclear submarines will amount to a lock-in of our military equipment and forces with those of the US, with only one underlying objective: the ability to act collectively in any military engagement by the US against China.

This arrangement would witness a further dramatic loss of Australian sovereignty, as materiel dependency on the US would rob Australia of any freedom or choice in any engagement it may deem appropriate.

Australia has had great difficulty in running a bunch of locally built conventional submarines. Imagine the difficulty in moving to sophisticated nuclear submarines, their maintenance and operational complexity. And all this at a time when US reliability and resolution around its strategic commitments and military engagements are under question.

If the US military, with all its might, could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK-47 rifles in pickup trucks, what chance would it have in a full-blown war against China, not only the biggest state in the world but the commander and occupant of the largest land mass in Asia? When it comes to conflict, particularly among great powers, land beats water every time.

It has to be remembered that China is a continental power and the US is a naval power. And that the US supply chain to East Asia would broadly need to span the whole Pacific from its base in San Diego and other places along the American west coast. Australia, by the announced commitments, would find itself hostage to any such a gambit.

There is no doubt about the Liberals: 240 years after we departed from Britain, we are back there with Boris Johnson, trying to find our security in Asia through London. Such is the continual failure of the Liberal Party to have any faith in Australia’s capacity, but, more particularly, its rights to its own independence and freedom of action.

September 19, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, politics international