Shorter Malcolm: we need nuclear subs, just not the way ScoMo did it

 

Above image from here

Ex Aussie PM Malcolm Turnbull talks to the National Press Club about the AUKUS alliance and those nuclear subs. Malcolm is a quick study and it shows. He was PM during part of the long process deciding which sub to buy and from where. 

To me he seems to be saying (1) that Australia is better off buying nuclear-powered submarines than conventional ones. But (2) not the way Aussie PM Scott Morrison went about it. Maybe. Then again, remember that Scott Morrison ousted Malcolm so there’s no love lost there. Factor that in to his critiques. Still, it’s an interesting talk.

I don’t think I’d be quite as concerned as Malcolm says he is about the delicate feelings of Les Francais.  I’ve followed this issue for some years and even I know that we (Australia) have been signalling to them for some time we’re not happy. They should have known for a couple of years that a cancellation might be in the cards.

And for sure we’re better off with a relationship with America than with France, in this part of the world. If it has to be an either-or. Which it only has to be if France grumbles on in high dudgeon. Back to Malcolm, here’s his opening:

With the swirl of media soundbites, the impression has been created that the Australian Government has replaced a diesel electric French designed submarine for a nuclear powered American, or British, one. This is not the case.

Australia now has no new submarine programme at all. We have cancelled the one we had with France and have a statement of intent with the UK and the US to examine the prospect of acquiring nuclear powered submarines.

Over the next eighteen months there will be a review of the possibilities – the biggest probably being whether the new submarine should be based on the UK Astute submarine or the larger US Virginia class[2]. [Read on…]

ADDED: Australia, absurdly, has laws preventing development of nuclear energy and even nuclear energy expertise. Yet we are the largest exporter of uranium in the world. It’s time we ditched that law. There is no reason why Australia cannot develop home-grown nuclear expertise to repair and maintain submarine reactors. No reason save for politics, that is. And, in time, why not GenIV small modular reactors? Baseload, baby.

ADDED: an OR sends link to “Nuclear submarines will not deter China... but Australia has alternative arsenal”. To which I comment:

Thanks, mate, interesting article. 

AUKUS has certainly captured some attention. Plenty of stuff out there on both sides of the issue. Pearlman seems to lean to the “alternative arsenal” view, the multilateral bodies route. Though, as ever, does it really need to be a binary? ie can’t it be “deploying our clout in the international arena”, as well as the “nuclear subs”… Which, aren’t meant to “dissuade Beijing from military intervention”, so much as to be a force multiplier, aiding UK and US. Pearlman’s implication that our aim with the subs is to "deter China from attacking Taiwan" is rather a straw man.

The article reminds me of something I read recently: Churchill reckoned that WW2 was avoidable. Had the West, esp UK, made a decisive move to counter Hitler at first foray —  the annexation of Austria and the Czech parts of the Sudetenland in 1938 — Germany would have been done. It would not have had the breathing space to continue with the military build up it needed. China is in a similarly kind of weak state today.  Thus fear of repeating the mistakes of appeasement is playing a big part in these world events around us right now. And rightly so.

Yet we still have appeasers. I’m not sure Pearlman is one. But he skates right along in the general arrondissement of appeasement, on appeasement’s Left Bank.

For example, and assuming Pearlman means the “alternative arsenal" is rather than strengthening our submarine capacity: 

“[Australia] can join others to deliver a strong message to China about the potential cost of an attempt to take Taiwan by force. 

Which reminds me of Hans Blix talking to Kim Jong-il (only 15 seconds long). Which was pretty much the message of Munich ’38. A letter to Hitler! Telling him we’re angry!

As for the commenters on Pearlman’s article, a pity Xi Jinping doesn’t read The Guardian. (at least I assume he doesn’t. It’d be too Leftie for him…)

Thanks again for sending me the link. I hadn’t seen it and Pearlman’s a good read.

Cheers,

Forse