President Biden and the leaders of Australia and the UK announced a new military agreement on Wednesday aimed at countering China. The pact, known as AUKUS, will focus on the sharing of sensitive military technologies, and the first initiative will focus on getting Australia nuclear-powered submarines.
US officials speaking to CNN described the effort to share nuclear propulsion with another country as an “exceedingly rare step” due to the sensitivity of the technology. “This technology is extremely sensitive. This is, frankly, an exception to our policy in many respects,” one unnamed official said.
Australia is not a nuclear-armed state, and the submarines are not expected to carry nuclear arms. In a joint statement, the three countries said they were committed to “non-proliferation,” but that is not exactly true. Earlier this year, the British announced that they are increasing their nuclear stockpile and setting their cap of nuclear warheads at 260, up from the current limit of 180.
Strengthening cooperation with allies in the Pacific is a key part of the Biden administration’s anti-China strategy, and Canberra is eager to play along. Australia is also a member of the Quad, a security dialogue that also includes the US, Japan, and India, which is seen as a foundation for a possible NATO-style alliance in Asia. Biden will host the first in-person summit between Quad leaders later this month.
A Biden administration official claimed AUKUS is “not aimed at any one country,” but the rhetoric makes it clear the effort is aimed at China. The three countries said they share a commitment to the so-called “international rules-based order,” a common phrase used by Biden officials to describe the US-led world order that they see Beijing as a threat to.
Australia’s defense minister met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Washington on Tuesday. Discussing the meeting, Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said the US shares Australia’s concerns over the “aggressive behavior, the coercive and intimidating activities that the Chinese are making throughout the region.” Kirby reiterated that China is currently the Pentagon’s primary focus.
I am very, very pleased that New Zealand has the brain not joining this hostile pact. Diplomacy yes! but 19th century gunboat diplomacy NO. That does not work in the 21st century and leads to disaster as we have seen in Afghanistan. And remember China is not alone, it has Russia at its site.
English speaking rules based order was and is imposed by concentrated economic wealth stolen by conquering slave masters. Modern descendants dependent on ill gotten economic supremacy add up to at most fifteen percent of the adult voting population of any nation. That fearful rich minority is determined to keep the advantages of resource stealing slave empires. The rich of today prefer not to remember their ugly society was built by slaves disciplined with bamboo flails that caused more pain than leather whips. Look closer and see rules based rich people attending $35,000 per plate dinners in New York. Rules based people are quite ready to escalate from bamboo flails to police with guns or the vigilante’s noose.
English speaking countries may be the most barbaric but all former colonial nations are the same. Rules based means do what we say, not what we do.
Another Gnome for the U.S. to protect. If the gloves ever come off, Austraila would hAve to kneel down and kiss Chinese feet or bcum a smoking ruin. No non-nuclear power could stand up to China for ten minutes. That the feckless Ausies would put their necks out so far astonishes me. Just to get a few shutting ducks for the China missiles to vaporize…. What are they thinking: What are they smoking..??
Australia proved to be good at back-stabbing.
Looks like they had to find a new way to keep the money rolling in to the military-industrial complex now that Afghanistan is over.
as a tyee cult member spewing vomit with every comment, i am not surprised you have no friends. Hope you enjoy life by yourself /Your hatred of others is pay back. Get off welfare or that disability pension you do not deserve it.
“Australia is not a nuclear-armed state, and the submarines are not expected to carry nuclear arms.”____ The submarines have nuclear propulsion to snoop on China for several months at a time, but No Nuclear Missiles in them…! For Sure….!
If the gloves should come off, count on the possibility that China and Russia know the location of every single sub that their adversaries have and will take out every one of them in the first hours of hostilities. Dito the U.S…. I have been following events and statements on this topic for more than twenty years, and I don’t think any subs are safe from being decked and neutralized. That the whole “subs are undectable” is BS and that the big bucks they generate is what keeps them being constructed!!!
Also count on the possibility that China, Russia, and the US don’t even know of the EXISTENCE of every single sub that their adversaries have.
There will be problems with the Aussies if Australia goes to war with the US. And, they’re in basically the same neighborhood as China. I wonder how much election money Wash. is paying the Aussie politicians for their cooperation? We are in for a very bad time unless things turn around quickly. WWIII is coming like a runaway train and this time it will come to America.