Australia prepares for Dangerous Allies’ war

The Australian Alert Service is the weekly publication of the Australian Citizens Party.

It will keep you updated on strategic events both in Australia, and worldwide, as well as the organising activities of the Citizens Party.

To subscribe to the Australian Alert Service, it's easy, and it's secure.

Lead Editorial

14 August 2024
Vol. 26 No. 33

This week opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie declared Australia needs a “mission focus” to adequately arm itself for war by 2026. Back in April, rehabilitated mandarin Mike Pezzullo told a gathering of defence industry specialists Australia needed a “war book”, to “focus the national mind” on a comprehensive national plan for war.

The Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation (AUSMIN) talks attended by Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week, with their US counterparts, revealed that a mammoth war build-up is, indeed, underway. 

Referring to the interoperability of the Australian and US militaries, which started with our respective air forces, Marles told the gathering at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland that Australia is “experiencing a Navy takeover of our defence force”.

Past force posture agreements gave the US military unimpeded access to Australian military facilities, wrote journalist Paul Gregoire 9 August in “AUSMIN further confirmed Labor’s tossed the keys to Australian Defence to the Pentagon”; this week’s agreements significantly expand those arrangements.

Marles praised the expansion of “the force posture of the United States on the Australian continent”, meaning the state of military readiness. We are “increasing the presence of rotational US forces in Australia”, including Marine rotations in Darwin; jointly upgrading Australian air bases; adding “more maritime patrol aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft operating from bases across Northern Australia”; “more frequent rotational bomber deployments”; and soon a new Submarine Rotational Force to be based in Perth.

“American force posture now in Australia involves every domain: land, sea, air, cyber and space.” He praised the extension of the US force posture into the “Indo-Pacific” with the inclusion of Japan, Korea and the Philippines, which he claimed would give rise to “a much safer region”.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating took aim at the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal that signed us up to war. He contended that “In defence and foreign policy, this is not a Labor government. This is a party which has adopted the defence and foreign policies of the Morrison Liberal government. This is a sellout.”

Keating echoed former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser—from the opposite side of politics—in an 8 August interview with ABC 7.30 that Australia only needed to defend itself because of actions made on behalf of our allies: “If we didn’t have AUKUS, you wouldn’t need the defence.” (p. 8)

Marles also skited about the integration of the two country’s industrial bases, creating one “seamless ecosystem” to produce guided multiple launch rocket systems and precision strike missiles, per upcoming memoranda of understanding detailed by US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.

Such memoranda that paint a bullseye on our nation are apparently acceptable, where MOUs for cooperation with China’s Belt and Road Initiative were not.

Keating called this out when he challenged former colleague Kim Beazley’s warning that Western Australia—with its wealth of raw materials—was most at risk from attack by China. Denouncing the charge as alarmist nonsense “to inject drama as cover for the facilitation of US naval emplacements in Western Australia”, Keating told the AFR that “If one truly believed China was a militarily aggressive state and was focused on military conquest of Australia or even Western Australia, one would be arguing for the immediate cessation of the iron ore trade.”

Confirming this “sellout” deal, updated documents signed by the AUKUS partners last week in Washington have revealed that the USA and UK are under no obligation to actually provide submarines to Australia. If they withdraw from the agreement Australia will be footing the bill while the USA and UK are indemnified against any losses or injuries associated with the project.

All Australians are at risk from our subservience to our dangerous allies, both from war and injustice. Next week Dan Duggan must make his final submission against extradition to the USA, which we can have no confidence will be a fair process.

Click here to find out how to subscribe. For freely available AAS articles, click here.

In this week's issue: 
•    Morrison’s AUKUS payday meets criteria for NACC investigation
•    The final battle in the great war against ASIC corruption
•    Treasury’s one rule for thee and another for me?
•    Albanese’s gutless gas policy to blame for ‘sticky’ inflation
•    Keating slams US military control of Australia
•    US hedge fund exposure skyrockets to over $28 Trillion; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are at risk
•    The world needs China’s nuclear breakthroughs
•    Meet China’s ‘science island’
•    Russian minister: Escalation ‘circuit-breakers’ are gone
•    US dilemma: Stop Mideast war but back Netanyahu
•    ACP work recognised and appreciated
•    Deregulation killed the Commonwealth Bank
•    ALMANAC: Australian legal and regulatory systems perpetuate financial abuse

Click here for the archive of previous issues of the Australian Alert Service