Australia’s minister for weapons corporations Richard Marles thinks it’s a “perfectly natural thing” for the United States to review the AUKUS military pact, but doesn’t believe Australia should, despite growing opposition to Labor’s dangerous embrace of Scott Morrison’s effort to please American hawks.
The Pentagon revealed it would review the AUKUS military pact on June 12, ostensibly to check it “aligns” to US President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.
It could form part of Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s campaign to get US allies to boost military spending to 3.5% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), or it could be the White House deciding to go with AUKUS “Plan B”.
The independent Congressional Research Service has already said the US has a critical backlog and not enough nuclear attack submarines. That much we know.
Its “Plan B” suggestion is to turn Australia into a giant base for a US nuclear submarine force. In other words, if the US doesn’t have capacity to help Australia make its own nuclear powered submarines, it will just turn Australia into a giant base for US ones.
Labor’s bipartisan positioning in support of AUKUS and the obsequiousness it has shown to Trump et al make this Plan B a real possibility.
Labor’s gifting of billions of dollars from the public purse to weapons’ contractors for nuclear-powered submarines (that may never arrive) and for public universities to help weapons contractors design even more lethal weapons, is broadly opposed.
Almost half those polled by the Guardian’s Essential poll last November said after Trump’s win they want AUKUS reviewed.
While the United States, China, Russia, Germany and India are the biggest military spenders, Australia ranked seventh on the Lowy Institute’s 2024 Asia Power Index.
The hawks in Australia who, ironically, are screaming about the world becoming more dangerous, want Labor to spend more than $56 billion a year, just over 2% of GDP. During the election campaign Labor committed to raising spending as a percentage of GDP to 2.4% and the Liberals to 3% within a decade.
Moving up to 3.5% would require major cuts to social spending and higher taxes on those least able to pay more, and neither major party would want to fight an election with such policies.
Marles, however, already told Hegseth at the military talkfest at the end of May, known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, that he is “open” to spending more on defence. “We are absolutely up for having this conversation, and we want to calibrate our defence spending to meet the strategic moment that we all face,” Marles said.
Marles told the forum that “Australia acquiring a nuclear powered submarine capability under the banner of AUKUS is essential to our national security and will play a part in providing geostrategic balance in the Indo-Pacific”.
Further, he confirmed AUKUS was about a possible future war with China because “China’s decision to pursue rapid nuclear modernisation and expansion … aims in part to reach parity with or surpass the United States”.
Labor’s decision to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump and Hegseth should be sending shock waves to all those who value human rights, sovereignty and the rule of law. Marles’ argument that defence is “deterrence” is false. Labor has still not signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, despite its many promises to do so and Marles bemoaning “new proliferation cycles” in Europe and Asia.
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