AUKUS – new submarine deal

[nomadjack]

Yet the people, Albo being one, who have the reqquired information to make decisions, made them, while these 'great intellects' who are decades out of touch feel the need to add their voices.

Was rooting cheryl kernot on his desk in his Parliamentary Office an example of his "great Intellect"?

Evans isn't decades out of touch by any stretch of the imagination. He's as sharp as they come on international relations, still has close contacts with key players around the world, and remains well respected. The questions he raises in the article are legitimate questions, which, unlike Keating, he largely leaves open. This is not a clear cut decision and the risks are real as he points out.

[pietillidie]

What Andrews said, if I understand correctly, is that the money would have been better spent on Medicare than these submarines that chew up hundreds of billions of dollars and that we may well never use. Hard to disagree with that.

Not using them is kind of the point, though.

As much as anything it's a payment to the US and UK for their deterrent, so Australia is constrained by what they want. I do hope it has a science spillover, but again that's not really the point.

It wasn't necessary before China's bellicose turn because all the alliance could do was drag Australia into Vietnams and Iraqs. It's a different matter now, though, and Australia has to pay its way, even though dumb Anglo-American wars make the calculation less clear than the reflexive conservative view.

And what if the US elects Donald Trump in 2024? Or some equally deranged Republican then or in the near future? (An outcome that is surely inevitable, given the state of that party.)

The lesson of Iraq was surely not that the Bush administration were bad apples, but that they were symptomatic of a deep sickness and malevolence in that country that is not going away any time soon. I can certainly appreciate the view that they're a lesser evil than China on many counts and that beggars can't be choosers when it comes to allying ourselves with superpowers, but the US is far from a reliable wagon to be hitching ourselves to. I see absolutely no reason to be confident that they'll work in our best interests in the years to come.

Well, I think you know I'm sympathetic to that view. But even factoring that in I still think it's Australia is simply paying its way for something that's tacitly there. It could easily be argued that paying your way gives you more say, particularly given Australia not paying its way has led to your fears being realised in spades anyhow.

The other thing is that war with China is almost its own deterrent because the stakes are so high, much like the existing nuclear standoff. If proxy wars are fought a la the Indochina wars, which is more likely than direct conflict, the submarines become useful given the hundreds of islands on Australia's doorstep (though, as I say, don't hold me to subs as a technology; I don't know enough about military endeavours to comment).

Substantial spending is needed as a matter of risk management, bearing in mind whether it be a halfwit like Trump, a more local nutcase authoritarian nationalist, or rising seas and people movements due to global warming or shifting agricultural regimes, you still need to take out insurance, hence my view in this context.

I loved Keating and Evans as much as the next progressive centrist, but it's been decades since Keating-Evans ruled question time. You have to adjust your calculations with context, which I will do once again if and when my hoped-for generational shift in China occurs. My hope is that this upcoming tricky phase is the last of it, after which Xi and Putin both will be history, and green energy will be dominant.

[watt price tully]

Attempted insults…….

It wasn’t intended to be an insult attempted or not & I apologise if you saw it that way. I was using it to deal with potential points about ivory towers and not knowing the real world etc On reflection I do see how it can be seen as you did.

If I was gunna insult I’d be more Paul Keating than Gareth Evans

[stui magpie]

Apology accepted, no problems.

My view remains the same, governments of both colours have been farking round with getting a decent submarine fleet for what feels like decades. This deal may not be perfect, but it's a big improvement on what's come before it. As an Island continent, we need a strong Navy unless we're we're really going to subvert our soverignty and just hand our defence capability over to the US.