We are being seduced into war again by the US, this time over Taiwan

After Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan the signs of our entrapment again in US war planning are everywhere.

The 2014 Force Posture Agreement with the US cedes control of certain military operations from our territory to the US eg Marines in Darwin and US B52’s in Tindal.

The 2021 AUSMIN ministerial meeting endorsed :

Enhanced air cooperation through the rotational deployment of US aircraft of all types in Australia and appropriate aircraft training and exercises.

Enhanced maritime cooperation by increasing logistics and sustainment capabilities of US surface and subsurface vessels in Australia.

Enhanced land cooperation by conducting more complex and more integrated exercises and greater combined engagement with Allies and Partners in the region.

Establishment of a combined logistics, sustainment, and maintenance enterprise to support high end warfighting and combined military operations in the region.

The 2021 AUKUS agreement was a clear sign to our region that instead of building bridges to our region we have decided to be a spear carrier for the US and UK- the Anglosphere. AUKUS is not to defend Australia but to support US operations against China in the South China Sea.

Our Defence Strategic Review (DSR) released this week has been’ authored’ by the United States Studies Centre(USSC), an arm of the US government. It is a tainted review. Have we no national pride in letting this happen!

Our Washington centric media don’t seem to think that it is unusual or even outrageous for a foreign agency to author an Australian defense review!!

The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender. US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 per cent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender

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Our seduction by the US is assisted by our Department of Defence with its close links to the Pentagon. It secretly employs US Admirals to advise on submarines. And if that is not enough we are now going to have a retired US Admiral heading the coming Naval Review. What is wrong with our Navy that an Australian can’t do the job? Has integration gone so far that we don’t have a Navy of our own that is worth the name.

And don’t think for one moment in this humiliation that Albanese and Marles thought up this US Admiral. They would have been put up to it by our defence establishment in lock step with the Pentagon.

The ADF has become a unit of the US military machine.

There is more.

The Government has rejected the Australian War Powers Reform proposal that Parliament approve any commitment to war. This is essential because we have an awful history of rushing to war. In 1914, we decided to send troops to WWI before Britain declared war. Menzies committed Australia to war in Vietnam before we even received a request. Howard committed us to the illegal war in Iraq based on false intelligence. Now the Labor Party has committed us to AUKUS in less than 24 hours despite the enormous implications. Albanese says he is proud of how quickly he agreed with Morrison!

Changes to our Defence Act are also being considered which would allow the ADF inter alia to conduct operations below the threshold of war, known as “grey zone” operations. These amendments could have far reaching consequences.

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At our universities, Peace Studies are run down in favor of “Strategic Studies” with their US loyalists regularly appearing on our media. Think Tanks like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute are fronts for US defence interests.

Entrapment of our minds in the anti-China hysteria is the work in progress of our Main Stream Media. Our fourth estate has been captured and imbedded in the US propaganda machine. The US cultural and media domination is everywhere. Alternative views are shunned. The White Man’s Media is on full display.

The disgraceful “Red Alert” is the tip of a giant iceberg. The anti-China propaganda is an every day event in our media including the ABC and SBS .

In the past, the ALP said NO on Vietnam and Iraq even though it was difficult at the time. As Paul Keating put it at the National Press Club recently “Labor has invariably got the big international (decisions) right”. But today the ALP has gone AWOL. Concerns about entrapment by the US and loss of sovereignty are brushed aside. What many of us thought were Labor policies and values count for little.

Penny Wong suggests that Keating has not kept up to date and has not had the benefit of Intelligence briefings!! But the reverse is true. The Labor Government is reverting to our colonial past, our colonial cringe – Five Eyes, AUKUS and the Anglosphere.

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Wong plays with words to avoid asking or knowing whether B52’s in Tindal will be nuclear armed against China. She tells us that US forces are “rotated” though Darwin and Tindal and not “based” there.

The US is persistently goading China into war over its Taiwan. This is consistent with US behaviour over centuries. It is driven by its self righteous belief in its “exceptionalism” and the pressure of its military/industrial/security complex for endless wars. It expects other major powers like China to behave as aggressively as it has. China has no Monroe Doctrine which Americans believe gives them the God given right to interfere in other country’s affairs.

Australia has a sorry history of fighting other empires wars, first with the British and now with the US. The great risk and problem for us is that imperial powers are almost always at war.

At the same time as criticizing China, the US refuses to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US would have national convulsions if Chinese vessels patrolled off the Californian coast or China established military bases in Mexico!

Since its founding in 1776, the US has been at war 93 percent of the time. Since the end of WWI, the US has launched 201 armed conflicts around the world. During the Cold War it tried to change governments 72 times. It assassinated foreign leaders and still assassinates with drones guided from Pine Gap. It has 800 bases around the world, many of them in Japan and ROK directed at China. With our cooperation, US fleets cruise and sight see up and down the Chinese coast. 

At the same time as criticizing China, the US refuses to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The US would have national convulsions if Chinese vessels patrolled off the Californian coast or China established military bases in Mexico!

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The US is the most aggressive and violent country in the world. It lurches from one war to another. That violence abroad is mirrored in its violent gun culture at home. There is a pervasive sickness and it is not just Trump!

When we tagged behind imperial powers in the past there was little military risk to Australia. But that is not so today, with the reckless US goading of China over Taiwan. If we were involved in support of the US against China over Taiwan the results could be catastrophic for us.

China is certainly growing in influence and confidence. That is not surprising after over a century of western and Japanese invasion and humiliation. But China is not a military threat to either the US or Australia. The military threat is trumped up by the US and its acolytes with their own agenda.

In brazen mendacity Marles highlights the rapid increase in China’s military spending. But he failed to tell us that the US spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined. The US spends 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense. China spends 1.6 percent.

The Stockholm International Peace Institute only a few days ago put military spending in perspective – The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender. US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 per cent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender.

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Surrounded by numerous US bases and the US Fleet -an itinerant naval power in the SCS as described by Paul Keating-it is not surprising that China is increasing its defense spending.

But China is a challenge to US hegemony and the US empire around the globe. The US is unwilling to come to terms with China’s success and share power and responsibility. The US insists on its own rules and domination across the globe. Empires are like that.

How do we break out of the US entrapment, the FPA, AUKUS, AUSMIN and a lot more? How can we cut through this maze of entrapment.

Peter Dutton has warned us that is “inconceivable that Australia would not join the US to defend Taiwan”.

There is one critical and urgent thing the Australian Government should do, and that is to make it clear to the US that we will not be involved in any way with a war between China and the US over Taiwan and that none of our facilities can be used for that purpose – Pine Gap, Darwin or Tindal.

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For decades we have maintained that Taiwan is part of China.

Paul Keating has said many times that “Taiwan is not a vital Australian interest”. Even Defense Minister Marles, ever so close to the US, told ABC Insiders last month that ‘Australia has absolutely not given the US any commitment as part of the AUKUS negotiations that it would join (the US) in a potential war over the status of Taiwan’.

But we need to tell the US explicitly and well in advance of any possible conflict over Taiwan that we will not support the US. In a crisis it will be too late to assert our sovereignty.

John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.

The article first appeared in PEARLS & IRRITATIONS website: https://johnmenadue.com/we-are-being-seduced-and-trapped-into-war-again-by-the-us-this-time-over-taiwan/

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.