US Undersecretary of State Bonnie Jenkins is in Wellington this week with a hard sell for us on a promise of AUKUS Pillar 2 wunderwaffen maybes. The US’s real intent is to tie us to their wheel for the next fifty years. We should say tai hoa.
China is the target for the United States’ next proxy war. It is not clear yet who is the patsy this time, but Australia is certainly in the frame for having a role to play, hence AUKUS. Australia will also be very keen to have us tagging along in their wake. Dissent will not be allowed.
All sorts of futuristic goodies have been bandied around by Bonnie in recent presentations in the US about AUKUS. Quantum, cyber, AI, hypersonics, missiles are all on the smorgasbord of destruction, with jobs as the bait. Bonnie told the Atlantic Council think tank that her job was to explain the project to the public, not that she seemed very clear about any of the details.
Wise heads in New Zealand and Australia from across the political spectrum have said AUKUS is not a good idea for us. Helen Clark and Don Brash were explicit in an open appeal to the Prime Minister. Speaking after the recent inaugural Australia/New Zealand ministers’ meeting they said:
On the face of it, the two New Zealand ministers formally abandoned any attempt to maintain an independent foreign policy, and instead decided to throw in our lot with America’s attempt to slow China’s economic rise and keep it tightly hemmed in by American forces in South Korea, Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Prime Minister, it is imperative that you either reassert New Zealand’s independent foreign policy by making it clear that we want no part of Aukus, or of any other alliance designed to make an enemy of our largest trading partner, or acknowledge that we have indeed abandoned any attempt to maintain that policy.
It is not just a question of our independence, crucially important though that is. Budget implications are also important. The initial A$348billion cost estimate of the AUKUS nuclear submarine project is eye-watering, but if there is one thing that experience shows about weapons procurement in the West, it is that the only way the numbers go is up. Things have got so bad that there is now talk of the UK part of the acronym having to sell HMS Prince of Wales, one of its new-built aircraft carriers.
Then there is the question of the quality of the weaponry. It’s not clear how much the Brits would get for a used carrier, as both the Prince of Wales and its mother ship HMS Queen Elizabeth II have had to abort major missions in the last few years due to propellor shaft misalignment, a manufacturing issue. Also the recent Trident test missile launch by the UK’s nuclear submarine HMS Vanguard was a flop, as it fell back into the sea near the submarine.As for the wunderwaffen, Russia’s hypersonic missiles are operational while the US is still struggling to get them to work, with multiple test failures in recent years. Their technology is described as behind China’s.
One of the incentives for these sort of programmes is the promise of jobs. But it is important to note where the money and the jobs end up. Speaking to a neocon think tank last month on the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland of “fuck the EU” fame reminded her audience where the money promised to Ukraine actually ends up:
And by the way, most of the support we are providing actually goes right back into the U.S. economy and defense industrial base—helping to modernize and scale our own vital defense infrastructure while creating American jobs and economic growth. In fact, the first $75 billion created good-paying jobs in at least 40 states across the U.S. and 90% of this next request will do the same.
AUKUS is an offer we can refuse and should refuse.
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