Since WWII, Australia has been a critical US ally: a reliable ally with a vast landmass in the South Pacific. Well, once we were reliable. Two China-besotted Labor far-left PMs, a generation apart, are putting paid to that. First, in the 1970s, Gough Whitlam so alarmed American leadership with his currying favour to Maoist China that, allegedly, the CIA engaged in clandestine efforts to unseat his government (thereby doing us all a favour).
Fast-forward to 2025, and the grovelling Mini-Me to Mao’s successor dictator is doing his own level best to undermine the US-Australia relationship.
One of Washington’s most powerful think tanks is urging Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump to scale back Pillar II of the AUKUS agreement by pivoting towards autonomous systems, long-range strike capacity and integrated air defences.
Reducing the ambition of the security pact by narrowing its scope on advanced technologies, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies proposal would effectively shift the focus of Pillar II away from areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing and on to other capabilities that would better increase deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
More likely, because the Yanks know that the Albanese government is a weak, China-compliant, cheapskate weasel. Also that Albanese’s far-left party whip-crackers hate AUKUS, because, firstly it’s an alliance with the Great Satan, secondly, because it was Scott Morrison’s baby.
The Americans are just trying to salvage the best they can get from their pathetic ‘ally’.
The push to overhaul Pillar II comes as Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles arrives in Washington, where he will meet with US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth who has asked the Albanese government to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP – a request that has so far been resisted by Australia.
Except that, so far, Marles has about as much chance of meeting Hegseth as Albanese has of being endured by Donald Trump.
Authored by Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia Chair at the CSIS, and Abraham M Denmark, a senior associate with the CSIS Asia Program, the paper makes the case that a “thorough review of AUKUS by the Trump administration is necessary”.
Amid the Pentagon’s reassessment of the trilateral security partnership, the CSIS paper frames AUKUS as a key “strategic imperative” that could help boost the US “defence-industrial base, strengthen its closest allies, send a powerful deterrent message to Beijing, and help stabilise the region”.
Or, to put it another way: if the pro-China toady government of Albanese is allowed to wreck AUKUS, both Australia and the US are in the shitter.
However, if AUKUS failed or was scrapped, the authors said, the US would “become less capable in the Indo-Pacific, its defence posture and diplomatic presence would become less deeply embedded, its international credibility would be dramatically undercut, deterrence would be undermined, and propaganda from Beijing and Moscow declaring the unreliability of American commitments would gain significant credibility”.
More pointedly, Washington isn’t about to hand over any of its scarce submarines, only to see them go MIA in a shooting war with China.
The report also floated other reforms including a joint initiative where both Australian and American personnel would participate in a robust contingency planning process incorporating the use of Australian nuclear-powered submarines.
The aim would be to preserve Australian sovereignty – amid concerns in Canberra over US requests about how the nation would respond to a conflict in the Taiwan Strait – while simultaneously assuring Washington that the submarines would not disappear when and if hostilities broke out.
If, indeed, the Australian government ever pulls its finger out and gets the damned things in the water at all.
Five key challenges facing the trilateral partnership were identified, including the problem of America falling “significantly behind” in the acquisition and sustainment of its submarine fleet […]
Other challenges to the agreement include the question of whether submarines sold to Australia would be made available during a possible conflict in the Indo-Pacific and the enormous costs of the agreement.
“Australia’s investments into its submarine-industrial base have, to date, fallen short of its needs,” the paper said.
The same goes for our entire defence budget. At the most critical juncture in world affairs since 1939, the Albanese government is doing everything it can to leave us undefended and utterly reliant on a brutal communist dictatorship.
