2023-05-02
The very idea of arming oneself against a major trading partner, who is showing no threat of attack, on account of perpetuating the outdated, colonialist, racist concept of the Anglosphere is beyond ludicrous.
By Tamsyn Heynes, Green Issue Co-editor
An often-revisited topic in the Green Issue and the current talk of the town is AUKUS. The much-lauded UK, US and Australian “Allies” alliance of previous wartimes has been revised and reshaped into the trilateral security pact that is known as AUKUS. Its purpose is to facilitate Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for reasons of security in the Indo-Pacific region ‒ namely, to keep China in line.[i]
The price-tag is exorbitant, could this money be spent better elsewhere? Yes – obviously. Why? Because there is no threat to our national security nor is there a need for Australia to follow US interests and ideologies. There are also pressing needs within Australia that require funding. The unipolar interests of the US as a geopolitical force need not incorporate Australia as we have a separate geopolitical and economic relationship with China (or rather, had – as it is being drastically destroyed).[ii] The AUKUS pact represents neoimperialist aspirations at its worse, wherein Australia plays second-fiddle with nothing worthwhile to gain.
The pact entails that “partners will share ‘military capabilities and critical technologies, such as cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and undersea domains’[iii] – but these advantages are by no means a reasonable bargain for the present and future detrimental effects on Australia. Specifically, the very real threat of nuclear safety (not the bogus, over-played and flogged-to-death ‘threat’ of “attack from the ‘yellow peril”[iv]); the ramifications of the morally poor step of adding to nuclear proliferation by Australia; a lack of transparency of the pact and the ongoing management of its practical execution; the damage to Australia’s global relations outside of the AUKUS players; and, the ramifications and lack of control due to the unprecedented nature of the agreement.
‘Trilateral’ certainly sounds like an equal balance of power between the three players, but as Clinton Fernandes states, “the United States sits at the apex of [this] hierarchically structure[d] imperial system”.[v] Australia continues to be a subimperial power ‒ first under British rule, now under the US.[vi] Is it not time to throw off the yoke? This pact threatens Australia’s sovereignty and is a greater concern to our national security than any outside attack.[vii]
This is “not an inclusive order created for the benefit of humanity”. These “international orders … entrench the power of powerful states and help them exclude … subdue” … “[o]stracise and outcompete rivals”.[viii] The ‘rules-based international order that [AUKUS] is working to uphold, … best serves [Australia’s] national interests’[ix] – supposedly. Despite being a subimperial power, Australia is not a downtrodden and exploited colony in this arrangement – it is a beneficiary[x] – but are we really benefitting when it threatens sovereignty and consolidates us into a submissive position?[xi] What are the real benefits for us? The Allies ‘ruling the world” is not morally justifiable (it never was) – unless you are of the persuasion that imperialist, white, outwardly Christian nations should rule the world, as has been the practice for the last 400 years (let us not forget the human breeches of humanitarian and environmental justice throughout those centuries).
In a nation where mining billionaires and multinational conglomerates receive multi-billion-dollar tax cuts, there is a long list of better areas to use that money. Matthew Newman, states that “Australia’s share of the cost of the SSN AUKUS program will be between $268 billion and $368 billion”.[xii] $368 billion on nuclear submarines for “national security” against China (our biggest trade partner); or, $101.1 billion to have dental and mental health covered by Medicare; or, $90.8 billion for free childcare nationally, or, $88.7 billion to raise Income Support above the poverty line; or using it to wipe student debt; or, make a proper plan ($16 billion worth) for Affordable Housing – the list literally goes on and on and on …[xiii]
Would it not be in the “best interests of the nation” to fix and provide correctly in these areas? The effect on society would be transformational. Why is a hypothetical threat of war prioritized above these needs? To add, this fear is propagated by the US who is poking the bear that is China, to create their beloved and often-repeated destabilization and geopolitical tension, whereafter it swoops in to further its own ambitions. In this case, to maintain unipolar geopolitical power in the Asia-Pacific region[xiv].
One can easily identify the still-present racism towards Asian nations in Australia. A lot of this seems to be piggybacking on the sentiments (however flawed) of days gone by – all hail the “Anglosphere”.[xv] China considers the “concept of the “Indo-Pacific” as a tool designed to contain its rise, [therefore] there is a risk that this new partnership will create further geopolitical tensions in the region.”[xvi] Given the history of the Anglosphere with China, it is a suspicion that has already proven to be founded, and China is changing its relationship with Australia already. What threat is a world with multi-polar powers to Australia? None, as it has a different and separate geopolitical reality with China compared to the US and UK. The most obvious of which is sharing a geographical region with China, we are neighbours and neighbourly relations are best when kept friendly. Why continue to fight against the redistribution of global power and power-recognition? Down with the Americanized Anglosphere.
To make the AUKUS deal, Australia reneged on the $91 billion deal with France to acquire twelve diesel-electric attack submarines.[xvii] France, and thus the EU, were ‘kept in the dark’ about the AUKUS deal, not only halting any strategic aspirations of the EU, but more significantly, it was considered an ‘abuse of trust’ and a ‘betrayal.’ As a result, France withdrew their ambassadors from Australia and the US temporarily, and the EU indicated that this ‘violation of trust” would ‘alter how it implements its new Indo-Pacific engagement strategy into the future’.[xviii] Following the UK’s Brexit from the EU, and China’s increased ‘influence in areas bordering the Indian Ocean, including south Asia, the Middle East and Africa”,[xix] one could ask, in the face of such isolation brought on solely by AUKUS and the dealings around it, what is Australia doing? (A question for the incumbent government).
Is it AUKUS players against the rest of the entire world? What is the thought process behind this? More like the AUKUS players ruling the world – where the US is king, UK is prince, and Australia – well Australia is like the second cousin who is an unlanded duke, vying for the king’s favour. We do not need to act this way – it does not reflect our geopolitical reality. It makes more sense to maintain amicable rapport with China,[xx] as Paul Keating recently stated, (echoed by our Greens MPs ad nauseum) and to allow the unipolar structures of colonial, expansionist yesteryear to die out.[xxi]
Stepping away from international relations, most pertinent to this land are pressing concerns of the environmental dangers. Namely, non-transparency of protocols for nuclear waste and nuclear incident, and the fact that Australia will be used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. Dr Chris Johansen’s concerns are more tangible than any US-led geopolitical scaremongering. He states, that the HAZMAT Annexe A published by State Emergency Management Committee, addressing the protocols for nuclear incidents, currently lacks transparency due to military classification. The only information available to civilians is unclassified. The full breadth of the information cannot be known nor can the balance of unclassified and classified. It is known that nuclear submarines have sunk in the past – mistakes happen, but we also know that we are not reliably and timely informed about which ones and when. Concerning, considering that Cockburn Sound is heavily populated.[xxii]
Setting people aside, what about the dangers to the environment when ‘disposing of’ nuclear waste? “As part of the deal to acquire and operate nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS, Australia has agreed to store the high-level waste they will generate from the 2050s onwards … on Defence land.”[xxiii] The current site is at Kimba. Liberal member for the South Australian electorate of Grey under which Kimba falls, Rowan Ramsey, rightly bemoans that we are to become a nuclear dumpsite. Australian Conservation Foundation analyst, Dave Sweeney, states, the “scant real word experience with nuclear waste” makes these events more dangerous than currently appreciated.[xxiv] The argument that it should be figured out at some point is flawed given that it “remains poisonous and carcinogenic for tens of thousands of years.”[xxv] It should not be figured out, as it should not happen. Is this a direction, amidst catastrophic climate crisis that humanity should be moving in? Surely, humanity has done enough damage.
The Barngarla people are united against the plan to dump the waste on their land (lest we forget Maralinga). The Albanese government is basically following suit of the Morrison government, again not heeding the voices of the traditional custodians[xxvi] ‒ the same government that is apparently going to lead An Indigenous Voice in Government …
So essentially, Australia in utmost stupidity, has agreed to becoming a nuclear dumping ground. Morrison and Albanese are indeed criminal.
The decision for Australia, under the auspice of AUKUS to engage in active nuclear proliferation when it has itself gone to war for the same reason (e.g. Iraq 2003, again at the instigation of the US) and is a signee and committee member for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NFT) of 1968 regime, is morally dubious at best. Additionally, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that operates the safeguard system for “declarations of nuclear holdings, nuclear material accountancy containment and surveillance measures, on-site inspections, … remote sensing and sophisticated data analysis”, [xxvii]states that control of the use of nuclear power for fuel or for weapons creation is in a grey area that relies too heavily on trust as so much is unprecedented and unknown. Can the incumbent government that continues to allow and perpetrate the ongoing ravishment of the land be trusted? Worryingly, Findlay states, AUKUS is “yet another unwelcome challenge to the nuclear nonproliferation regime, this time by three states that have traditionally been amongst its supporters, … [and as it is] … studied by governments, nonproliferation experts, and the IAEA itself, the complexities and apparent dangers to the regimes are becoming more apparent.”[xxviii]
One can easily agree with Tanter when he says ‒ given all reasons not to make this deal ‒ that deal could be representative of the fact that “Australians are slowly beginning to recognize the realities of their location in Asia, a deepened alliance with the United States and … the UK has put the ‘Anglo” back in the racialized identity that makes the Anglosphere.”[xxix] Are we truly benefitting practically and morally from this worn-out ideology? The answer is no. The very idea of arming oneself against a major trading partner, who is showing no threat of attack, on account of perpetuating outdated power structures that have no real benefit other than maintaining the Anglosphere status quo, is beyond ludicrous. The shared technology and military does not justify the risks that Australia’s proliferation of nuclear power poses, nor the damage to relations with the wider global community. Morally, do we want to continue imperialism and be a nation that acts against the treaties that it has committed to? Most importantly, do we want to become a nuclear dumping ground, constantly at threat of nuclear incident?
As Menadue states, “the AUKUS alliance has forever changed Australia’s sovereignty. Foreign policy and diplomacy has been pushed aside by military policy” [xxx]…
… are we truly ok with this?
[i] Barnes, J., Makinda, S. M. “Testing the Limits of International Society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific Security.” International Affairs. 98, no.4 (2022): 1307-25. https://doi.org/1-.1093/ia/iiac111
[ii] White, Hugh. “Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America.” Quarterly Essay. Issue 86 (2022)
[iii] Barnes, J., Makinda, S. M. “Testing the Limits of International Society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific Security.”
[iv] Martinez-Robles, David. “Constructing Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century China: The Negotiation of Reciprocity in the Sino-Spanish Treaty of 1864.” The International History Review, (2016), 38:4, 719-740, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2015.110
[v] Fernandes, Clinton. Subimperial Power: Australia in the International Arena. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2022, 176
[vi] ibid
[vii] Menadue, J. “AUKUS: a collection of views not found in our Washington dominated media.” Pearls and Irritations: John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal. April 1 2023. https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-a-collection-of-views-not-found-in-our-main-stream-media/
[viii] Barnes, J., Makinda, S. M. “Testing the Limits of International Society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific Security.”
[ix] ibid
[x] Ibid; Lanxin, Xiang. “Asia-Pacific.” Survival. 65, No1 (2023): 169-174. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2023.2172866; White, Hugh. “Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America.”
[xi] ibid
[xii] Newman, Matthew “How will Australia Pay for the AUKUS Submarines?”. Australian Strategic Policy Institute: The Strategist. 22 March 2023. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-will-australia-pay-for-the-aukus-submarines/
[xiii] Adam Bandt, https://www.instagram.com/adambandt/
[xiv] White, Hugh. “Sleepwalk to War: Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America.”
[xv] Tanter, R. “Nuclear-Powered Submarines for Australia – Stepping Back into the Anglosphere and into a New Asian Arms Race” in “Troubled Waters: Nuclear Submarines, AUKUS and the NPT.” ICAN. July 2022: 11-13. https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Troubled-Waters-nuclear-submarines-AUKUS-NPT-July-2022-final.pdf
[xvi] ibid
[xvii] Chang, F.K., “Strategic Choice: Australia’s Nuclear-Powered Submarines”. Foreign Policy Research Institute: A Nation Must Think Before it Acts. October 21 2021. https://www.fpri.org/article/2021/10/strategic-choice-australias-nuclear-powered-submarines/
[xviii] Herszenhorn, D.M. ‘EU Leaders Accuse Biden of Disloyalty to Allies’, Politico. 21 Sep 2021. https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-charles-michel-biden-disloyalty-allies-aukus
[xix]Barnes, J., Makinda, S. M. “Testing the Limits of International Society? Trust, AUKUS and Indo-Pacific Security.”
[xx] IN FULL: Paul Keating addresses National Press Club of Australia. November 10, 2021 - 6:35PM. Sky News
https://www.news.com.au/national/in-full-paul-keating-addresses-national-press-club-of-australia/video/3690b46dc983b8774ff223b230c6ab10; Fernandes, Clinton. “Subimperial Power: Australia in the International Arena.”
[xxi] ibid
[xxii] Johansen, Chris, “If We Struggled With a Tiny Capsule,” Fremantle Herald, Vol. 34, No 6. Feb 11, 2023. http://www.fremantleherald.com/ARCHIVES/F11223.pdf
[xxiii] Karp, Paul, “Liberal MP says search for Aukus submarine nuclear waste dump site in his electorate is premature”. The Guardian. 15 March 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/15/aukus-submarines-liberal-mp-rowan-ramsey-nuclear-waste-storage-site-south-australia
[xxiv] ibid
[xxv] ibid
[xxvi] ibid
[xxvii] Findlay, T. “The AUKUS Submarine Project and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime.” In “Troubled Waters: Nuclear Submarines, AUKUS and the NPT.” ICAN. July 2022: 8 – 10. https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Troubled-Waters-nuclear-submarines-AUKUS-NPT-July-2022-final.pdf
[xxviii] ibid
[xxix] Tanter, R. “Nuclear-Powered Submarines for Australia – Stepping Back into the Anglosphere and into a New Asian Arms Race”
[xxx] Menadue, J. “AUKUS: A Collection of Views not Found in our Washington Dominated Media.”
Header photo: Artist rendering of possible design for SSN-AUKUS submarine. Credit: BAE Systems. UK Open Government Licence v3.0
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]