New AUUKUS Cold War Distraction and US Profiteering Deal Announced

'The US is preparing Australia as its "proxy army" in the war with China.'

14 Mar, 2023

14 Mar, 2023
 
Maybe the US won't be able to deliver on the deal, or at least according to schedule:

US senator warns AUKUS faces ‘significant’ workforce hurdles

Washington: The US politician who warned that AUKUS could push America’s shipbuilding yards to breaking point has renewed concerns about the pact, saying that a shortage of skilled workers was still a “significant impediment” to producing enough submarines on time.

Last December, in a dramatic intervention three months before the pathway for AUKUS was unveiled in March, Democrat senator Jack Reed wrote to President Joe Biden raising concerns that the military deal could imperil America’s submarine fleet, as the industry was already struggling to meet its target to build two attack submarines a year.

Reed’s letter, co-authored with Republican Senate colleague James Inhofe, was the first time members of Congress had expressed serious misgivings about the agreement, and explicitly warned against any plan to sell or transfer Virginia-class submarines to Australia before the US Navy met its current requirements.

Asked on Monday (Tuesday morning AEST) if his concerns had been alleviated, Reed, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said that while US shipyards had made some progress in recruiting workers and boosting production lines, it would be “a long, long process” to ensure the industry could keep pace with demand.

“One of the stumbling blocks – and this is not exclusive for any type of military program – is just the shortage of skilled workers. That has been a significant impediment to staying on schedule and staying on time,” he said.

“I’m beginning to hear that there is more progress in the yards in terms of attracting workers and the efficiency of production, but we can’t be content or satisfied until we get back to two attack submarines a year and see the successful completion on time and on budget of Columbia (the upcoming class of nuclear submarines designed to replace the US Navy’s ageing Ohio-class).”

America’s ability to build submarines as efficiently as possible has flow-on effects for AUKUS, which is a trilateral agreement between Australia, the UK and the US to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines in a bid to counter China’s economic and military advances in the Indo-Pacific.

Under the strategy, Australia will buy at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US while building up the capacity to develop its own locally made nuclear-powered subs, some time in the 2040s.

However, questions remain about workforce capacity and the lengthy time frame involved; the $368 billion cost to taxpayers; and the maze of US export control laws that must be reformed for America to share nuclear technology secrets with Australia.

Reed said AUKUS nonetheless sent a strong signal to China about the “declared co-operation” between the US, Australia and the UK. And he agreed that export controls and regulations should be expedited as soon as possible, to ensure the deal wasn’t bogged down by red tape.

“We’re starting out on a very important voyage,” he said, speaking at a forum for the Centre for a New American Security.

The senator’s comments come as a federal government review released this week identified China as the biggest threat to Australia’s national security and warned that the Australian Defence Force is not equipped for a modern age of warfare.

“China’s military build-up is now the largest and most ambitious of any country since the end of the Second World War,” the review said.

“This build-up is occurring without transparency or reassurance to the Indo-Pacific region of China’s strategic intent.

“China’s assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea threatens the global rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific in a way that adversely impacts Australia’s national interests.”
 
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Andrew Korybko with this snippet of news:

Andrew Korybko said:
NATO’s Planned Liaison Office In Japan Will Accelerate The Expansion Of AUKUS+

NATO might soon attempt to patrol the Taiwan Strait in order to provoke a security incident with China that could then further speed up its regional hegemonic plans.

The US Is Rounding Up Allies Ahead Of A Possible War With China”, which the former plans to fight via the emerging alliance system that can be described as AUKUS+ if it unfolds. This refers to that regional group’s function as the core of a larger anti-Chinese network that informally includes Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea. NATO will also obviously play a role too, with that bloc building upon its Secretary-General’s related statement of intent by opening a liaison office in Japan.

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told CNN that this development is supposedly due to the Ukrainian Conflict making the entire world less stable, but the reality is that this is part of a preplanned move to more effectively coordinate the containment of China. It would have happened on a different pretext had that aforementioned conflict’s latest phase not broken out last year, but that event provided a convenient excuse for speeding up their plans and disguising them as anti-Russian instead.

NATO’s liaison office in Japan will serve as that alliance’s first official outpost in the Asia-Pacific
, thus enabling it to more directly organize AUKUS+’s expansion. Assembling that regional dimension of this emerging system is important in and of itself, but the European one is indispensable for maximally pressuring China. It’s therefore expected that more countries from the continent will soon dispatch vessels to the region as part of the joint operations that the liaison office will organize.

This is precisely what EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had in mind when suggesting late last month that member states should patrol the Taiwan Strait. Since practically every EU member is also part of NATO, this de facto amounts to that alliance doing this, which is dangerous due to the risk of this provoking an incident with China that could prompt the implementation of Article 5. That’s probably the point though, namely to create a crisis that can justify the further acceleration of AUKUS+’s expansion.

Nothing good is therefore expected to come from the opening of NATO’s planned liaison office in Japan. This development will only destabilize the Asia-Pacific, put additional pressure on China, and thus take the chance that whatever incident transpires as a result is capable of being contained. It’s an irresponsible risk, but NATO has convinced itself that it’s worth taking in order to sped up its regional hegemonic plans.
 
Looks like there's internal strife over AUKUS.


Labor’s internal dissent over AUKUS is building​

  • The motions, if they pass, do not bind the federal parliamentary Labor Party.
  • But the discontent threatens to erode Labor’s national security credentials.
  • National security is as important as economic bona fides if Labor is to stay in office, the PM believes.
The Albanese government’s embrace of the AUKUS security pact faces a second internal rejection in as many weeks, with the Victorian branch of the Labor Party poised to condemn it on multiple fronts.

Two weeks after the Queensland branch of the ALP, at its state conference, refused to support a motion congratulating the Albanese government “for investing in the AUKUS agreement”, two motions condemning the government’s actions will be moved at this week’s Victorian state conference.
 
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