by ROGER CROOK – NOW that the long-awaited meeting between Anthony Albanese and President Donald Trump didn’t turn out to be a three-ring circus; let’s hope Labor starts to address the major challenges facing Australia.
This might be wishful thinking, given the increasing evidence of their incompetence.
- Trump knows Australia has allowed its defence forces to languish.
- Apart from making AUKUS payments, spending on defence has decreased.
- America will defend itself by defending its assets in Australia; let’s hope that’s enough.
Trump held a press conference for the signing of a rare earths agreement, and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves and why wouldn’t they?
For encores Trump made Big Foot Kev jump through a couple of hoops and the cheers from the media rattled the crockery.
PROSPECTS
In spite of the Australian media and His Majestie’s Opposition salivating over the prospects of Albanese getting a roasting in the Oval Office, it didn’t happen.
The reason was that anybody with an ounce of understanding of the strategic military relationship Australia has with America – and how vital Australia has become to America as China rattles its sabres around the region – knew that Albanese’s visit to Washington would pass without incident.
Australia is a vital component in America’s new frontier in the south pacific and the South China Sea. We are the front line.
For years Pine Gap, close to Alice Springs, has been America’s over the horizon eye watching the rocket silos in China and Korea; it is a priceless asset for their defence of America. It is their front line spy ensconced in our living room.
The Harold E Holt base at Exmouth on the north west coast is a vital strategic base for America. Shrouded in secrecy we do know it is a very low frequency (VLF) link with all allied ships and submarines including the US nuclear fleet operating in the Southern Hemisphere.
What else happens in Exmouth? We don’t know and our American cousins aren’t saying. Let’s just say it is another brick in the wall America is building in this region.
Whether we like it or not and whether or not this government is prepared to tell the people the truth; Australia is now a vital component in America’s regional wargames map, and it can’t get off.
Like the pig in a plate of bacon and eggs, Australia is committed.
The price we are paying for doing nothing about the defence of the nation is to become a pawn in the regional chess game between China and America.
B2 stealth bombers are now based in Amberley, Queensland and soon, the quite frightening B52 will be based at RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory. America now has the landing strips it needs for its most dangerous weapons.
Marines are on rotation through Darwin, and elsewhere in the NT. In addition to its Southern Hemisphere garrison America has about 55,000 military personnel in Japan and another 28,500 or so in South Korea.
There is a lot more to come as nuclear submarine construction and servicing facilities are built in Western Australia and South Australia.
CHANGES
We have made our payments on the AUKUS nuclear subs; nobody knows when or if we will get them; they are many years away and the world changes by the minute.
The pace at which drone technology is advancing is extraordinary, complicated and horrendously expensive; nuclear submarines may be out of date before we get them.
Ukraine is showing the world what is possible with drones as it sinks the Russian navy and grounds its air force with terrestrial and submarine drones all made in that war-torn country.
Our Royal Australian Navy is badly run down; the Chinese Navy recently shamed us and showed the world how dilapidated our navy has become as they took an unimpeded cruise around our “island home” and had a few live fire drills while they were at it!
Successive Australian government have been promising for many years that our navy will have the most modern of fighting ships, but they haven’t arrived.
The Hunter class frigates are nine years away and our current fleet is either in mothballs or in dock.
America will have researched our Australian Defence Force to the Nth degree; there are no secrets in that business.
They will have been brutally honest in their assessment, and they will know exactly what our capabilities are and are not; they will know that being called the ADF is a considerable misnomer.
Over the past four years America’s strategic and tactical interest in this region has grown in spite of the lethargy and lack of diplomacy and tact of Albanese and his obsequious and equivocal deputy Richard Marles.
General Douglas MacArthur in 1942 saw how vital it was to prevent Japan from taking Port Moresby and putting it within striking distance of his new base in Australia.
The Pentagon today also considers Australia to be an exceptional resource for its 21st century army, navy and air force presence in the Pacific region, and most importantly, its defence of the west coast of America.
SMILES
Behind all the smiles and handshakes, President Trump, like Theodore Roosevelt before him, knows that as far as Australia is concerned “when you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow”.
Those were not tears of joy in Albanese’s eyes when he was with President Trump at the signing of the rare earths agreement.
That is where the President has Australia, by the proverbials. Trump has been told that the Australian government has allowed its defence forces to languish through lack of funding and strategic direction and without regard for the safety of its people.
He will have been briefed that in spite of AUKUS, successive Australian governments have neglected spending money on the ADF to the point where it can no longer defend Australia and the seaways vital to life on this island.
Our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles will have been assessed by the Pentagon.
They will have seen him for what he is, a man of equivocation and bluster who refuses to publicly accept that the ADF is ill equipped for combat in the modern era.
Trump will know that in February 2023, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister received the final Defence Strategic Review (DSR) report.
Authored by former Minister for Defence, His Excellency Professor the Hon Stephen Smith and former Chief of the Defence Force, Sir Angus Houston, the DRS is an independently led examination of Australia’s defence force posture, force structure and capabilities.
The President will also know that on receiving the review the government issued this statement:
- Conducted over six months, the DSR was informed by engagements with more than 150 individuals and experts including Defence officials, Australian Defence Force personnel, defence industry, national security think tanks and academics, representatives from the states and territories and interest groups.
- In addition, the Leads of the Review received over 360 submissions from the general public, interested parties, organisations and State and territory governments.
- The Albanese Government will now take the necessary time to consider the Review and its recommendations.
The President will also know that the Prime Minister, on receiving that report two and a half year ago, issued the following statement:
- “The Defence Strategic Review will help prepare Australia to effectively respond to the changing regional and global strategic environment and ensure Defence’s capability and structure is fit for purpose and delivers the greatest return on investment.”
Which was followed by a statement from his Deputy and Minister for Defence:
- “The Defence Strategic Review is an ambitious and extensive examination of our strategic circumstances and will underpin our Defence policy for decades to come.”
- “Australia must be resolute in its responsibility to safeguard our region and keep adversaries further from our shores.”
- “I thank His Excellency Professor the Hon Stephen Smith and former Chief of the Defence Force, Sir Angus Houston, for their dedication and commitment to the task, and producing a body of work which will inform key decision making for government.”
That review will have been examined by the generals and mandarins in the Pentagon; they will have given President Trump an assessment of what the report recommended and what has been implemented by this government.
He will know that the advice received by the Prime Minister and his Minister for Defence has been largely ignored.
Apart from making AUKUS payments, spending on the defence of this nation has decreased; the latest orders to tighten expenditure were issued a few week ago.
Pete Hegseth, America’s Secretary for War, and the Pentagon staff will have told President Trump about Australia’s limited, almost non-existent, defensive capabilities.
Which leaves us with the real result of PM Albanese’s meeting with “The Donald”.
The reason President Trump gave Albanese an easy time in Washington was not only because he wants the rare earths we have in Australia.
Rare earths are not actually rare in the Earth’s crust, but their name is misleading because they are difficult and expensive to extract and refine.
It’s not because he has known for some time that our ex PM and now Ambassador Kevin Rudd described him as a “village idiot”, “traitor to the West” and the “most destructive president in history”; a “political liability” and that Trump was dragging “America and democracy through the mud”.
Nor is it because he certainly also knows how our Prime Minister and his ministers took his name and his policies in vain during the last general election in Australia.
DESTROYED
He will have been told how Labor unmercifully characterised the leader of the Liberals, Peter Dutton, as being Trumpian and attempting to introduce (the awful) American Trumpian politics and polices into Australia. A portrayal which destroyed Dutton’s campaign.
The reality is that President Trump got what he wanted out of the visit by Albanese. The rare earths agreement was an expression of thanks.
A present because he had cemented his nation’s policy and realised their ambition to have a garrison for troops, airfields for his bombers and a port for their nuclear fleet down in the part of the world where his nation, particularly its west coast, is most vulnerable.
Trump believes in the Ronald Reagan dictum “Only the strong are free, and peace comes only through strength”.
Whether he will continue to claim he understands Australia’s position and stand by his remark when asked about Australia’s defence budget he replied, “They have to do what they have to do, you can only do so much” remains to be seen.
America will defend itself by defending its assets in Australia; let us hope that is enough until we get some of Trump’s “common sense” in Canberra and once again we can call our ADF, our ADF.PC
