We hitch our wagon to a nation that is bereft of influence and respect, deploys its considerable military arsenal in a display of strength it vainly hopes will broker influence; naked power as a substitute for diplomacy. It has ever been thus.
Since World War II Australia has progressively ceded its sovereignty to the United States. The process was hastened by John Howard, who had little sense of national independence. Australia is now tied to a state suffering economic decline, a collapse in political consensus that may turn violent and diminishing international influence. In order to maintain supremacy, America has decided to confront rather than co-operate with China. And Australia is allowing itself to be dragged along behind the back of the truck.
Stand back and take a look at what is happening in America.
A movement with strong links to the Republican Party, supported by Trump and White Supremacists, stormed the Capital and the 117th Congress on 6 January with the intent of overturning Biden’s inauguration. It was violent, it was bloody and it challenged the very basis of American democracy.
There is an armed Right-Wing movement of Proud Boys, QAnon, Fascists and other crazies in America spoiling for a fight. A fight they hope will see an end to the democratic institutions they loath. The Republican Party is providing political cover. Many in America’s armed services and police forces secretly support the objectives of the movement.
As the Black Lives Matter protests demonstrated, America is a deeply divided country, in economic decline, with an uncontained Covid-19 pandemic and 300 million weapons in private hands. It is a volcano ready to blow.
Bereft of influence and respect, America deploys its considerable military arsenal in a display of strength it vainly hopes will broker influence; naked power as a substitute for diplomacy. It has ever been thus. Since the end of WWII America has used the threat of atomic weapons and military aggression in attempts to bring about outcomes favourable to its own interests.
However, the prosecution of war by America in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan failed to bring about intended outcomes. Only the ‘secret’ CIA war supporting the Mujahidin in Afghanistan against the Russians might be seen as a success. However, it gave false confidence for a conventional war in Iraq and later in Afghanistan against the elusive Taliban, a war that mirrored the failed Russian occupation of Afghanistan. And it resembled the losing war the Americans fought in Viet Nam. The lessons of war are problematic in American political and defence institutions.
America sees China as a strategic rival and trade threat. Rather than seek creative and productive co-operation it seeks containment. In so doing it has sought to conscript regional countries to its narrow and negative narrative. It is the same strategy it employed with respect to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It seeks legitimacy and support for dubious undertakings and attempting to isolate and demonise China is a dubious undertaking.
However, it is one that Canberra has swallowed hook, line and sinker, together with right-wing academics, so-called think tanks, such as the so-called Australian Strategic Policy Institute, funded by US arms manufacturers and agencies, and journalists such as Hartcher, Bagshaw and Sheridan.
Agents of foreign influence. What about the Australian Strategic Policy Institute?
The past eight months, faced with the need to negotiate with China over the loss of trade, Morrison, briefed by ASPI and the Institute for Public Affairs, has said Australia will not concede sovereignty in the face of bullying by a foreign power.
Morrison, who has a limited grasp of history and current affairs, appears unaware that we have little or no sovereignty. Much was ceded to the United States by John Howard, who took us to war in Iraq on the basis of a conversation with President Bush. No debate on going to war was undertaken in the Australian Parliament. So much for sovereignty.
Pine Gap completely compromises our sovereignty and has done so for 50 years. But would the sneering LNP boys of Parliament House, Tim Wilson, James Paterson, Dave Sharma et al, go to war with the United States against China in the event of an ‘incident’ concerning Taiwan? Would they bypass Parliamentary consideration of an armed Australian deployment? And, given their ages, would they volunteer? John Howard, although in the right age bracket, did not volunteer for Vietnam despite his strong support for the war. He followed in the footsteps of his hero Menzies, who refused to volunteer for service in World War I despite his support for the war.
The LNP with its fawning and unquestioning ‘loyalty’ to the USA long ago ceded Australian sovereignty. Can anyone imagine the LNP saying no to the US?
Several US Senators complained to Howard that the Australian Wheat Board gave bribes to Saddam Hussein. Howard was mortified. He busted the AWB and in the process lost the best tool Australia had for negotiating wheat deals. It later transpired that the Senators were acting to marginalize the AWB and Australian wheat markets which America quickly moved to secure. Howard was a craven fool, but we know that. The purchase of the F35 further attests to that; a deal he stitched up on the back of an envelope in Washington.
King of Lemons: Australia swindled by Lockheed Martin and its Joint Strike Fighter
True to LNP form Morrison did the same with respect to China. Trump got him to bad mouth Xi Jinping, China slapped on trade sanctions and the US stepped in to pick up our lost markets.
The new Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has shown he is not averse to China-bashing along with National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan. Biden rhetoric will be more moderate toward China but US policies will remain unchanged. The US sees China as a threat to its supremacy and the US military and industrial complex is keen to sell arms.
The US is the biggest threat to US supremacy, look at what Trump and his supporters stand for and the fact that the Republican Party have gone along with a significant move to the right which increasingly looks like the path to Fascism.
Australia, it seems, is determined to sink with the USA; a country, as noted, divided and in crisis; a country with diminished international respect. Like a dog who never learns Australia has got itself excited about something called the Quad, a dialogue that has been revised into an alliance between Australia, the US, Japan and India; so-called regional heavyweights, in an arrangement designed to confront and contain China. It won’t hold together, it won’t work. Has anyone thought to ask regional states what they think of the Quad? Is it assumed regional states will fall into line? They won’t, why should they?
Australia has lost face and standing in the region over the bungled handling of its relationship with China. It is seen as inept, particularly by Viet Nam which is hard-headed, adroit and cleverly diplomatic in successfully managing its difficult relationship with China.
Does Australia want to keep its sovereignty eggs in the American basket? Under the circumstances, it would not seem wise. The rampaging mob on Capitol Hill have significantly lowered the value of the American shareholding. There are 20 or 30 million people in America who support what Trump stands for. White, right-wing and angry. How will Biden contain that, let alone bring them onside?
What has Australia gained from the gift of Australian sovereignty to the US?
Just as they are spoiling for a fight internally, they are spoiling for a fight with China. They are conjuring up the bile and racism that was mustered against Viet Nam and China by the earlier, tamer American Right, to initially push and then sustain the US involvement in the Viet Nam war.
America is a frustrated and angry country. It is ready to lash out, perhaps use an outside threat to bring about internal unity, maybe in the mistaken belief that the mob and moderates will unite around the star-spangled banner, with the threat of communism a common cause.
Time to rescue those eggs and, with them, Australian self-respect and pride.
Bruce Douglas Haigh is an Australian political commentator and former diplomat.
Comments
32 responses to “Australian sovereignty: not in our hands, and not in safe hands”
Well expressed Bruce. Others have commented favorably so I will just write that I support the opinions expressed. I think Bob Menzies’ announcement of our involvement in Vietnam when I was still at school, was the point where we surrendered our sovereignty to Uncle SAM. Apart from Gough Whitlam’s brave attempt, (look where that got him?) no Government of ether persuasion has attempted to rock the Boat! They fear another CIA inspired coup!
Big property interests in Australia see the US military as the ultimate defender of their property rights, even against an Australian government that may need to raise taxes. When we learn that the Commonwealth Bank is 63% owned by Americans we understand why that is so. The Keating/Howard government and Australian shareholders sold out our sovereignty for dollars. We are living in somebody else’s country, the owners are mad and bad, and most of the residents here, judging by the way they vote, are their lick-spittle servants.
Hi Bruce,
I concur and thoroughly enjoyed your contribution to this conversation.
I offer a couple of comments.
When you say – “we have little or no sovereignty. Much was ceded to the United States by John Howard”
Certainly from a military perspective you are correct.
However the hit economically and to the fabric of our society was the move to neo-liberalism and the massive transfer of our common (public) wealth to private corporations that commenced under the Hawke & Keating governments. They set Howard and the States up to continue flogging off our wealth, with dire consequences continuing to this day.
(To avoid repetition I refer readers to an excellent contribution – “Foreign ownership hits hopes of national independence by Bevan Ramsden 14 February and my comment.)
With regard to your next paragraph where – “Pine Gap completely compromises our sovereignty and has done so for 50years” and the consequences for us and your questioning the attitude and response of the “sneering LNP boys of Parliament House”. The resulting chuckle reminded me of my late father (who served in the RAN during World War II ), who often recited –
“The LNP invariably consist of Antipodean Tories, who from Menzies onwards, love to wrap themselves in the flag but made sure they didn’t serve under it!”
Well done Bruce!
A house divided against itself cannot stand
Sovereignty is earned, it is not a right. Australia really needs nuclear weapons for it to be truly independent. The price is not really worth it practically and the US will stop at nothing to prevent it from happening anyway.
In the end, Australia will need to walk a tight rope. No politician wants to end up like Whitlam regardless how much benefit it brings to the plebs.
Australia needs nuclear weapons like a hole in the head…Nuclear weapons are outdated, read of Russia’s new hypersonic program, especially Zircon, which travels close to 3km/s, yep…the yanks and their proxy stooges are shot ducks.
We can have the tsunami weapon, using ANFO, but why? Once the clathrates are destroyed, the threat is gone. Whose cities do we wish to destroy?
We have the best biowarfare set up in the world. We can denounce any Treaty should we wish to do so. We are safe from invasion. What else should we fear?
Let’s nationalize a few industries, now!
An excellent analysis by Bruce that beautifully summarizes the contemporary situation and the past fifty years. The problem as I see it is that the majority of the population won’t know what sovereignty means, still believing Australia is an independent country, not knowing how much of our assets are owned by the USA and England. For the majority the real fear will be that China owns far too much of Australia, a negative and incorrect attitude strongly buttressed by the main stream media.
The strong support for Trump and for populist parties here and elsewhere is because many Australians know neo-liberalism–they would not use that term–has failed them over the past three decades, but don’t know what to do about it. They blame–often with good reason–the intellectual and political elites without understanding that we need systemic change, not just the replacement of one leader by another. If a populist leader like Morrison does entrench his position by singling out China, then this will cause many people to think of themselves as living in a country culturally and politically–in a totalistic sense–different from Australia, and thus a sense of sovereignty by default might arise.
This will still not disabuse them from the potential disaster into which we are walking by hanging onto the shoe strings of the USA.
Another excellent article Bruce and one that touches on a fundamental problem well before we even need to talk about China, and that is the Americanisation of Australia. This is accompanied by a clear loss of sovereignty, particularly facilitated by Liberal governments that have eagerly run to America to be what Jack Waterford aptly wrote many years ago: in Washington we are referred to as an “easy lay”.
If our defence aircraft are now controlled by the US and its corporations electronically, I suggest we have been completely betrayed by our leaders and that has larger connotations than I can write about here – I’m sure you will get my drift however.(1).
Any astute person who understands where we are at with our relations with the US ought to be able to see it. Yet many who eat at the trough of mainstream news in Australia, now dominated by distortions and fake news (even the ABC), will however, have no idea what is going on. Others are bemused by articles that point out that you won’t fit in socially or get ‘likes’ on social media if you eat baked beans on Weet-Bix (as appeared in the SMH), such is the trivia being presented to this country now that is deemed ‘newsworthy’.
The conversion to becoming a de facto state of America has been going on for a very long time, and you Bruce being of the same generation as I, will remember NSW Liberal premier Robert Askin shouting “run over the bastards”, when referring to Vietnam War demonstrators in Sydney who threw themselves in front of the motor cavalcade where he sat next to LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson ) at the front of the procession. Of course Johnson took over from John Kennedy, who had shown signs that he did not want to persist with the war in Vietnam, but Johnson made sure more bombs were dropped there than during the entirety of WWII.
It was almost a repeat of Truman’s takeover of the Democrats after the death of F.D. Roosevelt, and with that the new president decided he had to drop nuclear bombs on Japan. But it was also because FDR’s great depression New Deal was too much for those who hated anything being offered to the unemployed people. Henry Wallace was actually next in line to be president as FDR’s vice president, but even then the rats took over and installed another warmonger in his place. Wallace and FDR were not that interested in furthering American Imperialism either.
And like times now, when we are once again through the actions of the blindly US sycophant Liberal Party, we are buying a bunch of lemons in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter just as we did back in the 1950s – 1960s in Menzies’ days, with the contentious lemon called the F-111. (It gives grounds to wonder what the “F” always stands for, but a clue is that it has four letters followed by an ‘ed’). And after many years, the first aircraft also did not arrive until years later; they were so plagued with problems.
We also know that back in those days Whitlam was very likely disposed of for other reasons too, such that he challenged America, recognized the PRC over the ROC in 1972, pulled us out of Vietnam, and questioned the purpose and validity of Pine Gap in Australia. He was the only prime minister that ever really stood up to the US’s de facto annexing of Australia through massive foreign investment and political persuasion via the puppets we have in the Liberal Party – they always submit with alacrity to any US command. Unfortunately for Labor too – who bear no resemblance to Whitlam these days – they only appear to be concerned once again about being wedged. The last one that had any guts to stand up to a US fake and illegal war in Iraq was opposition leader Simon Crean.
(1) You might laugh at my expression, but René Descartes was the first person to say “get my drift”.
Thank you George, well said.
Wasn’t only the LNP that’s an easy lay.. Gillard’s ALP opened the door and its legs to US marine troop deployment in Darwin.
True, she was far too receptive to the US as was the Labor party at the time and still is.
It was only Whitlam as many of us here remember, that ever genuinely said no to the US.
Thanks for your comment
We should be fair here. Latham was perhaps not the most steady of leaders but he did stand up to the USA. I think also in his own rather circuitous way Rudd tried too.
Yes I remember him saying “There they are, a conga line of suckholes on the conservative side of politics.”
Referring to the Coalition support for the war in Iraq.
He even named a book of his quotations in the same way.
A few more colourful comments here several about Iraq and Howard:
https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-colourful-quotes-of-mark-latham-20031202-gdwuu6.html
That’s why he was destroyed by the media. I remember the moment he said “we will bring troops home by Christmas” in 2004 that it was the beginning of the end for him. The media jumped right in with a kill Latham memo.
I think he is still getting over it. Lost it now as a member of PHON and shifted to the right.
Let’s not forget the Australian Institute for International Affairs established as the sister of both the UK British Institute for International Affairs aka Chatham House, and the US Council of Foreign Relations, and their brethren in the Dominions. Read Quentin Quigley’s extraordinarily detailed and scholarly the Anglo American Establishment to understand the origins and destiny of the Establishment and the part played by the aforementioned institutes in the Anglo American strategy to contain and ultimately destroy socialist polities.
Outstanding article. The issue is whether Morrison is a bigger asset for the US. or the PRC? It is arguable that Morrison’s inept US sycophancy provides PRC with a wonderful soft target to provide a salutary lesson to any other Asian country that might have thoughts of joining the US cold war against China. What better than a country with s massive trade imbalance, a bath tube navy and led by a moron. Xi can scarcely believe his luck.
Thanks Skilts, well said. Morrison is certainly no asset for Australia.
I do not argue with anything written here by Bruce Haigh. Thanks yet again for outlining our diminution and subservience to the US via the traitorous enablers of the LNP and its ugly (yes, so-called) thank-tank agenda-setters – the IPA, the foreign-funded ASPI – and yes, those (again, so-called) political opinion writers as named – one or two others might include Uhlman and Henderson -[and Creighton – about to head off to the US it seems for Murdoch].
Bruce, you can slip mine in with yours when you submit to the minister, ok? 🙂
Thanks Dennis. I will attach them with a paper clip.
You may be aware of the great paper clip crackdown instigated by Renouf after the wrong submission was sent to Whitlam. If not I am happy to fill you in.
How do you have sovereignty in a neoliberal global environment in any case; it is impossible ! The so called free trade agreements imposed by the neoliberals was all about stripping away government institutions that protected a countries citizens; exposing that country to the whims of the market place and compromising infrastructure that identified a country with being a sovereign independent nation.
The only countries opposing this and protecting their own sovereignty against this onslaught are the Russia-China strategic partnership which happens to be active in three geoeconomic sectors: strategic industries/techno platforms, connectivity corridors and financial instruments.
We will be eating the proverbial humble pie if we are not careful!
Bruce is looking in the wrong direction on the issue of sovereignty and Slorter is correct, not for the first time. The major blows to Australian sovereignty were the sale of the Commonwealth Bank and the carving up of Telecom Australia. The loss of BHP as an Australian iron and steel producer was a mortal blow and the failure to deal with the mining industry in 2010 was nuclear obliteration. If we are to rebuild Australia — and I think we should try — we need to forget about China and USA. Neither is a role model for Australia. Both are light years away from our Australian culture. We need to carve out our own place in the world.
We need to carve out our own place in the world. I agree but it will not happen while we are yolked by global neoliberalism.
Exactly. I came across one of my newspaper clippings opposing the privatisation of Telecom on the grounds of sovereignty but nobody was talking about sovereignty then. It was all about markets Nugget Coombs used to ask who makes the comprehensive decisions? Are they made in Australia through processes accountable to the Australian people or are they made in London, New York, Zurich or Beijing?
Thanks Jerry. Quite
You are right slorter
The thing is I would rather be wrong!
I know the feeling.
Distilled brilliance from Bruce, maybe your best ever article. Thank you.
Slorter’s sceptical question , can small countries ever enjoy real sovereignty in a globalised trading and financial world where the big do what they wish and the small do what they can, merits serious debate. All sovereignty , even that of great powers , is to some extent traded away by countries to enable international cooperation . But clever smaller countries hold onto the elements of sovereignty that are most important to them. Examples – Vietnam (which Bruce mentioned), New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Finland, Switzerland, Ireland. Maybe Norway and Sweden too, though there are signs they have rolled over to American/NATO power.The point is, it can be done, if a country elects governments that choose to lead intelligently and without the ideological baggage Australia now carries as a US lackey. We had such a leader in Whitlam. Will we ever see another like him?
Tony Kevin
Thank you Tony. You are right.
Ireland is in the EU, tied in with the euro. It will trade with China under EU rules. “A nation once again”. Not really.