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https://theconversation.com/hypocrisy-and-folly-why-australias-subservience-to-trumps-america-is-past-its-use-by-date-268664>
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Review: Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era – Clinton
Fernandes (Melbourne University Publishing)
Clinton Fernandes has established himself as one of the most original and
insightful analysts of Australian security policy. An early career with the
Australian Army Intelligence Corps no doubt gave him an inside view of the
ideas that influence security policy in this country.
I’m not surprised he changed careers. To judge by this outstanding book, there
is little regard for intelligence, much less independence of thought, among the
people who shape “Australia’s” strategic outlook.
The scare quotes are merited because, as Fernandes observes, “Australia’s
policy planners are motivated by […] a single standard – does something protect
or advance US power and Australia’s relevance to it?”
One of the most noteworthy features of Fernades’ analysis in
Turbulence:
Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era and his previous work, especially
Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena (2022), is his
ability to account for policy outcomes by placing them in their distinctive
historical and geographic contexts.
For those baffled by the decision to buy nuclear-powered submarines from the
United States and possibly Britain as part of the AUKUS agreement,
Turbulence
is essential reading. A growing number of commentators, including former prime
ministers and senior military figures, have questioned the wisdom of what Paul
Keating called the “worst deal in all history”. Fernandes explains why AUKUS is
an all-too-predictable continuation of past follies.
Supporters of AUKUS have suggested that buying and possibly building submarines
is a nation-building project on a par with the Snowy Mountains scheme. But
Fernandes makes it clear that, “despite ideologically strident claims by
Australia’s leaders”, AUKUS is “a contribution of people, territory, materials,
money, diplomacy and ideology to the war-fighting capabilities of the United
States”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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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
