You may have heard about Aukus, a new military alliance setup in the Pacific Ocean area to put nuclear propulsion submarines in the hands of Australia to counter China and protect the region from China’s military ambitions. There are ample writings in the geopolitical and military strategy journals and media about the alliance, so I will not delve on those. But the other day, I decided to do a 3-part (partly humorous) series on the countries in the alliance: Australia, UK and USA. And by the way, I apologize for missing a couple of writing episodes.
Australia, the land from down under. The country that has given us Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Men at Work, Mad Max series, and a multitude of other artists and artistic pieces. Furthermore, Australia was the first country that, in the early 80s, wrestled for the first time the prestigious yacht competition’s America’s Cup title from the US. It is also one of the pillars in the world of Rugby, having won the world title twice. It has beautiful beaches, lots of sun (it has even attracted heavy sun energy investments from Elon Musk), and massive amounts of minerals and natural resources, starting with iron ore. All this for about 26 million souls living on 7.6 million km2 (the sixth largest country by land area).
Another recent plus for Australia seems to be its success in keeping COVID at bay, albeit at the cost of draconian restrictions to mobility, especially international mobility, which is still ongoing. According to my research, Australia is also at the origin of such inventions as black box flight recorder, inflatable escape slide and raft, pacemaker, polymer banknotes (now used in some countries), Speedo sports gear, vegemite and a host of other things. All good so far, however,
The current party in power, the center-right Liberal Party (in power since 2013), is led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison whose government has been criticized for not creating a national quarantine system, not helping stranded Australians abroad, and a slow vaccination campaign. In fact, according to many, Morrison was not in favor of taking COVID seriously at its onset, and only “succumbed” to the policies under pressure (among them New Zealand’s swift actions). Furthermore, the government was slow in engaging the vaccine introduction, and since the virus does not disappear, it left the population defenseless for longer than in other countries, and thus prolonging the restrictions. So all that early success-glitter, as it turns out, may end up being dust in the wind in the long run.
But the real specialty of Scott Morrison is immigration and foreign policy: he implemented cruel asylum and immigration policies and has overseen increased tension in the pacific region with China.
In doing some research, I found a peculiar point about Australia. You see, most countries have a national day which relates to a major founding event in their history: US’ July 4th celebrates the independence from the UK, Canada’s July 1st celebrates the founding of Canada (Dominion) through the fusion of the then 4 “occupied” territories, New Zealand’s February 6th celebrates the signing of the treaty of Waitangi between the British crown and the Māori people, France’s July 14th celebrates the victory of the revolution and so on and so on. But Australia’s national day (January 26th) celebrates the arrival of Arthur Philipp’s fleet (1788) in what became Sydney to establish Australia as a Penal Colony. Yes, I know that the US was originally used as a penal colony too, but are they celebrating that as their national day? When you read about the history of Australia Day, it clearly says that Arthur Philipp was commissioned by the King (in 1787) to establish a new penal colony in Australia to replace the loss of America following the revolution. So every year the Australians celebrate the event that made them a penal colony to Great Britain.
To loop back the ending into Aukus, I see this alliance as having a head (thinking) being fulfilled by UK, muscles by US, and hands to do the work, which is Australia, which seems to be where Morrison wants to lead Australia to. He is moving Australia into a hegemonic role in the Pacific region where, with the support of some of its 5-eyes (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and US) allies, this nation of 26million wants to dictate its views to a world where billions of people have been living in peacefully for generations (except for the 2nd world war and the Korean war, and the wars initiated by Euro-Americans such as Opium wars, Indochina and Vietnam wars).
Paris, September 23, 2021,
Zeejay