Why has Australia signed up for AUKUS, a deal serving America’s interests, not ours?

AUKUS, we have come to believe, is about nuclear-powered submarines, national defence and Australian sovereignty. 

It is about much more than that. And much less.

At a stage-managed event in Cornwall in September 2021, US President Biden and then-prime ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison cheerfully told Australians that the US and UK would provide nuclear-powered submarines and Australia would pay for them. 

After 18 months of consultation, the AUKUS package is to be unwrapped next week. But inside will be only what the governments of the US, UK and Australia allow the Parliament and the people to see.

They should produce details such as what submarines Australia will get, where they will be built, who will crew and maintain them, who will command them, what they will cost, when they will be delivered, and what will replace the Collins-class boats until then. Important as all these details are, and already much debated, there’s more in the AUKUS package than that.

We know it contains Mark II Abrams tanks, B52 nuclear bombers and possibly B21s, which are to be “stationed” in upgraded bases near Darwin. None are intended to defend the Australian continent; rather they’re for deployment abroad. 

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong has said the US won’t be required to confirm or deny if the bombers coming and going from Australia are armed with nuclear weapons. That’s been the practice in Japan for decades. American plans to expand military bases in Okinawa and Guam are opposed by local populations. Like protesters in Darwin, they have been ignored. 

Since 2014, Australia has allowed “unimpeded access”, exclusive control and use of agreed facilities and areas to US personnel, aircraft, ships and vehicles. Former defence ministers Marise Payne and Linda Reynolds talked to the US about possible future stationing in Darwin of missiles whose range of 5500 kilometres could reach southern China. They could be in the AUKUS package too. 

There’s more to AUKUS than submarines, and more than we will be told about. There’s less too. The package actually shrinks the sovereignty that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his ministers have lately been saying it protects. Australia’s “sovereign interest” is now a buzz phrase in Canberra. 

But AUKUS diminishes our sovereignty by locking in unimpeded US access to bases and interoperability and interchangeability with the Australian Defence Force. In effect this gives the US a command role over our forces. As former PM Paul Keating has recently argued, the result will be less Australian independence and more compliance with US policy — which is to encircle China. 

We could be at war with China if, for example, an American or Australian ship or aircraft is attacked in the South China Sea, and if the US invokes ANZUS. In a war over Taiwan, Australia could be a proxy fighter. 

Australia is permanently in East Asia, which the US is not, and sovereignty means choosing how to pursue our interests there in our own way, with less aggression. It’s about our survival, not America’s.

There’s less detail than we need about the prospective AUKUS treaty. The commentary focuses on the what, how, when and how much elements but tells us little about why we need it. 

Why, for example, if Australia’s sovereign interest includes sea-borne trade with China, should we go to war and block off our trade routes? Why should Australia commit itself far into the foreseeable future to projecting armed force against China? 

Why should Australia foment an arms race in our region that makes no country safer? Why do our leaders assume that we or the US would win a war against China? Why not seek peaceful resolution of our differences, and abide by the treaties we have all signed to that effect? Why is Australia signing up for AUKUS — which serves America’s interests not ours?

These questions should be debated in Parliament before anything in the AUKUS package is accepted.

Has Australia been duped into joining AUKUS? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.