<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/19/bob-carr-aukus-submarine-deal-us-australia-relationship>
"Australia faces a “colossal surrender of sovereignty” if promised US
nuclear-powered submarines do not arrive under Australian control, former
foreign affairs minister Bob Carr has said, arguing the US is “utterly not a
reliable ally” to Australia.
“It’s inevitable we’re not getting them,” Carr told the Guardian, ahead of the
release of a report from Australians for War Powers Reform that argues the
multibillion-dollar Aukus deal had been imposed upon Australia without
sufficient public or parliamentary scrutiny.
“The evidence is mounting that we’re not going to get Virginia-class subs from
the United States,” Carr said, “for the simple reason they’re not building
enough for their own needs and will not, in the early 2030s, be peeling off
subs from their own navy to sell to us.”
Under “pillar one” of the planned Aukus arrangement, it is proposed the US
would sell Australia between three and five of its Virginia-class
nuclear-powered submarines in the early 2030s before the Aukus-class submarines
were built, first in the UK, then in Australia.
However, the US has already forecast it might not have capacity to spare any of
its Virginia-class boats, the Congressional Research Service instead floating a
proposal in which: “instead of … them being sold to Australia, these additional
boats would instead be retained in US Navy service and operated out of
Australia”.
Carr said that alternative would leave Australia without Australian-flagged
submarines and no control of when, and to where, those boats were deployed.
“It involves the total loss of any sovereign submarine capacity and, more than
that, a colossal surrender of Australian sovereignty in general.”
Australia, Carr said, needed to look past the “cheerful flag-waving propaganda”
of the proclaimed Aukus deal, saying the alternative likely to be presented by
the US would leave Australia “totally integrated in American defence planning
and we’ll be hosting even more potential nuclear targets”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
