AUKUS Public Inquiry lays bare a pact built on false promises

The AUKUS Public Inquiry has revealed the strategic, economic and sovereignty costs of Australia’s most expensive defense deal, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

In the annals of policy, strategy and budgeting, the AUKUS pact involving Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States will be seen as one of the most mindless, absurd projects of small, ill-equipped minds.

Not for those in the UK and US, both of whom receive Croesus– rich Australian money for submarine programs. Not for the lax thinktankers who extol the importance of expensive boats and the Chinese threat, repeatedly running out bills on the advisory circuit.

This will depend on Australian government officials, elected and appointed, seeking illusory assurance that they do not need nuclear-powered submarines, spending money they can barely afford ($368 billion), surrendering the country’s sovereignty in a carefree, even treacherous manner.

For these reasons, Australian civil society took action. Because the Australian Government felt it was not their place to review the tenets of the AUKUS pact at an official level (the UK and US did at least this), public representatives and citizens took over the reins.

crowd funded AUKUS Public InquiryCoordinated by the Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF), is the result. At its helm is the former Federal Minister for the Environment and Midnight Oil, Peter Garrett. Retired military and naval officers in positions such as former MPs, former chief of the Australian Defense Force Chris BarrieVarious strategists and academics, human rights lawyers and unions are part of the review show.

The investigation explores several vital questions:

Will Australia ever receive these vaunted submarines, be it the US Navy’s Virginia class or the specially designed SSN-AUKUS model?
Where and how will toxic high-level nuclear waste be stored, given that Australia has no fixed facility to perform such a function?
How many actual jobs will be created in Australia and how distorting will this be for the rest of the economy?
Why does Australia find itself, arm in arm with the US, in a potentially foolish war against Canberra’s biggest trading partner, China?

The inquiry’s final two questions critically consider whether Australia will essentially become a vassal outpost of the US empire, and whether the deal will make Australia an inviting nuclear target.

First hearings held in Melbourne on 11 June impressive viewing.

Former Labor Secretary of State gareth evans He was the first witness and was uncompromisingly frank in his presentation:

“The AUKUS Pillar I Submarine project was misunderstood from the outset, and the passage of time since its announcement in 2021 has served to make even more convincing the conclusion that it is not in Australia’s national interest to maintain our commitment to this project.”

Evans points out three fatal problems that neatly summarize some of AUKUS’ critical flaws: unavoidable expectations of deliverability, excessive cost of a project. “It outweighs the benefits.” and the limits this will bring “Australia’s independent sovereign institution”.

The verdict on the deliverability of submarines is very harsh:

“Every piece of evidence in the public record strengthens the doubt as to whether any of this happened.” [the eight promised AUKUS boats] will not be delivered on time or at all.”

The Virginia-class boats, scheduled to arrive by 2032, are permanently subject to the Pentagon’s “inventory requirements” and remain slow, with a production rate of about 1.2 platforms per year. This was despite a US$2 billion (AU$2.9 billion) contribution from Australian public coffers to US shipyards.

The delivery of such boats can only be undertaken when mandarins like the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Policy are promised. Elbridge ColbyExpanding the nuclear fleet will occur on condition that the Royal Australian Navy becomes an extension of US power.

As for the benefits from such a huge bill, what were these boats really for?

Evans had no doubt: they would serve as follows:

“…additional assets effectively placed under U.S. military command for the mission to locate, track, attack, and destroy Chinese submarines viewed as a nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland as they move in and out of Western Pacific waters.”

Allowing this capability was also unnecessary for reasons of combating China:

“Taiwan aside, there is no reason to assume that China would consider a Hitler, Tojo or Putin-style direct military strike against any of its neighbors in the region, let alone the United States.”

The issue of exchanging sovereignty over the boats was also glaringly obvious. Washington will never abandon SSNs “Unless there is a commitment that we will deploy these boats to join the United States in any war the United States chooses to engage in anywhere in our region, particularly over Taiwan.”

It is enough to look at Colby’s statements or the opinions of previous officials for confirmation. Biden Management like former deputy foreign minister Kurt Campbell And Ely RatnerFormer deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs.

Other submissions were eclectic in scope and troubling in implications. Academic contributions of public academic figures came to the fore Joseph Camilleri, Tilman Ruff And Richard Tanter; Dave Sweeneyan anti-nuclear campaigner Australian Conservation Foundation; John Leslie Lander, former Head of Australia’s Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs China division and Deputy Ambassador to China; and Barbara Jackson as a “concerned citizen.”

Below is a discussion of some presentations and presentations. (The full list is available at: AUKUS Public Inquiry area.)

Speaking on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Ruff complained that AUKUS was increasing regional tensions. “Risks of great power conflict, including nuclear conflict, especially in Northeast Asia.”. Providing SSNs also raised the dire specter of nuclear proliferation, given the highly enriched uranium to be used as reactive fuel.

Australia’s expectation of storing such waste was contrary to US nuclear non-proliferation practices that have been in place for decades. But more importantly, highly nuclear-enriched waste itself can: “material that can be used in weapons”.

Ruff was particularly surprised that Australia did not consider moving forward “low enriched uranium reactive fuel”an alternative used by other nuclear-powered submarine fleets and also led the Inquiry to Canberra’s South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Agreement. This had legal consequences for boats or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons finding themselves on Australian soil.

This may include: “long-term visits, permanent or semi-permanent visits”, “sequential visits” This requires the rapid replacement of one nuclear weapons delivery platform by another and “The intentional purpose or intent to permit a nuclear-armed ship or aircraft to be positioned for military deployment directly from the location visited.”

All of these examples would violate not only the Treaty but also Australian domestic law, and efforts would be made to accede to the Treaty. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons It is problematic, although not impossible.

Tanter expressed his concerns “Extraordinary emphasis on interoperability” resulting from strategic and defense reviews between Australian and US forces “Integrated planning documents recently published by the Albanian Government”.

It was also optimistic to trust the British submarine industry to do its part to deliver SSN-AUKUS. “very close to dysfunctional”. The Virginia-class boats, which will now only be second-hand versions, would likely come under the command of the US Navy even if they were to reach Australian shores.

What was particularly worrying for Tanter was the absence of anything. “Policy or legal impediment to bringing nuclear weapons into Australia unless labeled as transit or visit.”. This is compromised to some extent “Nuclear permissiveness that we should not tolerate”.

Lander was prepared to present a picture of China that the US-Australia alliance did not welcome:

“AUKUS’s strategic logic is based on the patently false premise that China poses a kinetic threat to Australia.”

For more than eighty years, China has never “Far from expressing a policy of hostility towards Australia, he showed the slightest inclination to attack Australia.”. Fears that Australia’s sea lanes would be subject to interdiction by China – hence the need for naval deterrence – have been ignored “The fact that China has an existential interest in keeping those same sea lanes open because China is the largest trading partner of much of the world.”.

Domestically, too, the Australian Government was tough on constitutional arrangements that required it to justify large expenditures and the surrender of power to a foreign power. Parliament was completely ignored by the executive. “To give a foreign country operational control of Australian defense or intelligence facilities or territory, or to undertake Commonwealth expenditure in connection with such arrangements.”.

Barbara Jackson, who sees herself as a member of the community recommended Australia has “He allowed his defense framework to be largely shaped by America’s strategic priorities rather than his own.”. This was like letting a dominant customer dictate their operations.

Jackson gave the example of the US signals intelligence facility at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs:

“Australia has almost no control over what it is used for, but will suffer the direct consequences if conflict breaks out.”

Australia’s northern and western regions also submitted bids “Ideal geography [U.S.] operational requirements”. AUKUS and the increased presence of US forces in Australia also appeared to conflict with the country’s official doctrine of US forces. Denial Strategy.

Under this defensive doctrine, an enemy is denied the ability to apply force on Australian territory:

‘Deep interoperability with Pine Gap, Darwin, AUKUS and US forces means Australia functions as a base of operations for American offensive operations.’

On the one hand, you cannot claim a strategy of denial, and on the other hand, ‘host infrastructure’ I imply you so ‘A front-line participant in another’s strategic competition’.

With such a long list of ailments and threats posed by AUKUS, it’s little wonder the creature is still alive. Further efforts were made to remedy this situation at Fremantle (29 June); Further efforts will take place on 16 July (Adelaide), Adelaide First Nations Yarn (17 July), Sydney (11 August), Wollongong (12 August) and Canberra (1 September).

The materials collected at these meetings promise to provide us with a powerful record of conscious opposition to centuries-old follies.