The main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region. The Albanese government has repeatedly sought to reassure that our sovereignty has been preserved, but this is very difficult to accept given the extent to which our funding underwrites the US submarine-production program. Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into the operational aspects of the American war machine, such that US leaders may effectively give all the instructions in terms of deployment and other activities.
Some news this month might have given the government pause. Canada – with the longest coastline in the world and a security situation in its Arctic and north changing significantly as the region becomes more accessible, particularly with more Russian and Chinese activity – decided not to join the AUKUS arrangement and buy nuclear submarines. Instead it is considering cooperating with Germany and Norway as partners in a submarine program and will purchase 12 conventionally powered under-ice capable submarines for about $60 billion.
Compare this with the eye-watering cost of Australia’s acquisition: $368 billion for eight Virginia-class and next-generation SSN-AUKUS nuclear submarines with a vague delivery schedule.
Of course, defenders of the AUKUS deal will argue it is more than just an arrangement to buy submarines. They will claim it instead to be a broad, trilateral security arrangement for the Indo-Pacific region that also fosters technology exchanges between the three countries, and helps to build a conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine force for Australia.
Nevertheless, the deal has been widely criticised and, given its huge cost, it’s worth asking why these criticisms haven’t resonated. One of its most vocal and effective opponents has been former prime minister Paul Keating, who has labelled it “the worst deal in history” and “the worst international decision by a Labor government since the former Labor leader Billy Hughes sought to introduce conscription”. He has slammed the deal particularly for allowing defence interests to trump diplomacy.
It has also been strongly criticised within the Labor Party and union structures: by some 50 units of the party from branches and electoral conferences, and leading unions including the Electrical Trades Union, the CFMEU and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. The Nobel Prize-winning, Australian-led International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has also rejected it for the risks of nuclear proliferation. China’s reaction to the deal was to warn that we are “on a path of error and danger”.“The main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region … Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into … the American war machine…”
There has also been a host of technical concerns, including in relation to the supply of fuel to run the subs. Keating has drawn a comparison with an alternative deal proposed by the French that emerged after the Morrison government rescinded the original agreement to replace Australia’s ageing Collins-class fleet with the so-called Attack-class sub. This proposal, he says, came with a firm delivery date in 2034 at fixed prices, but was ignored by the government. Technically these French subs would have required only 5 per cent enriched uranium, instead of 95 per cent, weapons grade, for fuel. That this feature was ignored by the government should come as no surprise, as the Coalition has provided no detail about the enriched uranium fuel – neither supply nor cost – for its announced seven nuclear power plants.
However, the main concern should be that this deal further locks Australia into US exceptionalism and attempted hegemony in our region. The Albanese government has repeatedly sought to reassure that our sovereignty has been preserved, but this is very difficult to accept given the extent to which our funding underwrites the US submarine-production program. Moreover, it’s likely Australia’s learning and launch activities will further integrate this country into the operational aspects of the American war machine, such that US leaders may effectively give all the instructions in terms of deployment and other activities.
This should be an even greater concern having heard the Republican candidates for this year’s election speak at their national convention in Wisconsin. Both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are committed to an even tougher line against China and Australia risks being used somewhat as a pawn in their response to what they like to refer to as the “China threat”. On the contrary, as I have suggested many times, the threat is not so much from the rise of China as it is related to the decline in the global standing of the US. It’s easy to imagine how Trump and Vance could only make this worse, especially by threatening tariffs on Chinese goods.
The Trump–Vance commitment to return to tariff protections flies in the face of voluminous accumulated evidence concerning the costs and disadvantages of doing so. This will certainly not restore the rust-belt states to their former glory as these candidates are promising. China’s only “sin” has been to grow its economy to rival that of the US. The US has lost any cost advantage it may once have enjoyed in manufacturing as well as its edge in technology – most recently in the production of electric vehicles. Just ask Tesla, which now bases much of its production in China.
And the halcyon days of inflation control in the ’90s were much more the result of China flooding the world with cheap manufactured goods, than any effective application of monetary policy. The US was a major beneficiary of this, which is so easily overlooked in its current cost-of-living crisis.
Surely Australia wouldn’t want to end up being pressured to park nuclear submarines along the Chinese coast as part of a US demonstration of strength? Nor should we allow ourselves to be dragged by the US into some conflict with China over Taiwan.
The Albanese government has had considerable difficulty justifying the cost of the AUKUS deal, and so it should. Governing is about priorities and, true enough, national security is a priority. It’s also true that the government has been able to deal effectively with many domestic priorities, such as providing non-inflationary cost-of-living assistance. Defence procurement has long been somewhat ring-fenced from the normal discipline applied to other departments in the Expenditure Review Committee processes, however. It’s no defence to spend so much on submarines, when so much more could have been done in other national priority areas, including education and the care sectors. This is especially so in light of the attendant risks of a deal such as AUKUS.
With the mounting tension between the US and China, world leaders should be increasingly concerned about the threat of another drift to a Cold War situation.
The need for a circuit breaker is clear. I was pleased recently to join the signatories to an open letter drafted by two former foreign affairs ministers, Gareth Evans and Bob Carr, for détente: “a genuine balance of power between the US and China, designed to avert the horror of great power conflict and to secure a lasting peace for our people, our region, and the world.”
Given the state of the world, and its pronounced geopolitical uncertainty, it is disappointing that neither the US nor China has yet responded to the proposal, and surprising that the Albanese government hasn’t embraced it as a mechanism to advance the point that Australia, as a middle-ranking power, has and can continue to punch above its weight in the global interest.
This is especially so given the benefits that Australia as a nation has reaped from the economic rise of China.
Surely a situation can’t be allowed to develop whereby the United States and China embark on trade protection and military conflict.
At the very least, there should be the imperative of a global discourse on this. Unfortunately, attitudes are hardening in Europe and the US – perhaps to the point where the outcome will be gratuitous harm?
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 27, 2024 as “Canada’s smart lead on nuclear subs”.
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Madelynn McClaughlin
