3 minute read

AUKUS IMPERIALISM

THREAT TO FREE SPEECH

Scott Morrison has once again been totally on brand with his terrible decision making on foreign policy, economy and environment. This time it is the AUKUS military alliance. This alliance is another step in Obama’s 2011 ‘rebalance in Asia’ plan. It is a three-party partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom in sharing nuclear sensitive information, material, technology and assistance in order for Australia to acquire what it needs to build nuclear powered submarines and have them ready for use in the Asia-Pacific region. The plan itself will take 18 months to finalise and approximately another 18 years for it to develop. The financial cost of building, powering, regulating and maintaining these show-off weapons of war are said to be more than one hundred billion dollars. That is one hundred billion that could have been used for expanding Medicare, social housing and education. This one hundred billion dollars could have gone to improving the lives of millions of people. This is the one hundred billion’th reason why capitalism is a corrupt system and why it will never help us.

The AUKUS pact and submarine deal was a surprise transfer of partners as a mere five years ago, Australia had signed a $65 billion deal for 12 nuclear submarines with France and its Barracuda Class Nuclear powered weapons of war. On the plus side at least we gave the middle finger to France’s neo-colonial geopolitical strategy.

The announcement of this project happened after Australian military experts made their concerns apparent that the Biden administration was lacking a sense of urgency about China as a ‘near-term military competitor.’ The formation of the AUKUS deal is considered to be a strategic and necessary one by the rhetoric of a nationalistic and profit hungry economic elite, the corporate owned state and its various violent apendages such as the police. According to these industry model institutions China has posed itself as a serious and looming threat due to their impressive and rapid military modernisation within the last few decades.

Since the 2012 Coles review (no, not that Coles) there have been multiple secretive but very real personnel links between Australia’s submarine and broader shipbuilding businesses and the US Navy which no doubt played a significant role in the formation of this alliance. This means that Australia’s ‘self-reliance’ policy from the 1976 Fraser Government’s Defence White Paper plan was always going to be compromised heavily and the country’s politicians will continue to be under the heavy influence of the American and British Defence Industries and the sacrifice for this will have to be paid by the Australian working class. The message our government is sending is that this country and its people are here to serve the American agenda of imperialism and hegemony. The USA is desperate to have an advanced Pacific base and they have achieved this through AUKUS.

For us this is not a matter of national security or a matter of Australia’s cultural and social preservation, but rather, this is a pursuit of war profiteering at the expense of the working class, the climate and the liberation of people from structural servitude. This is a dangerous capital domineered agenda designed to empower Western imperialism and its hegemonic motives. The military alliance is a doorway for the U.S to assume larger and greater command over societies in regions they would otherwise not have access to.

China is seen as an economic threat to the capitalist west and the west will retaliate whatever the cost to preserve their profit hungry so called ‘free’ market. This includes anything from mass media hysteria or to an actual war that will inevitably cost human lives and cause immense damage to infrastructure and the environment.

We have to show opposition to this alliance and this plan at every level that we can. We have to know that their war is not our war. We have to know that the enemy is our own government. We have to know that we can fight this, and change is possible.