Why Australia Fears the United States

Since coming into existence in 1776, the United States has enjoyed just 21 "war free" years.   The last four of those were under president Jimmy Carter who didn't see much point in blowing other people, their kids and all their stuff into smithereens just to make a point.  No wonder he was so reviled.

Since Bush/Cheney rode into Washington, the United States has become our world's only true Warfare State.  Obama, despite his claims to the contrary, has kept the tradition alive and well.

When Canadians consider our country's relationships with America, we too readily forget that it is a true, warfare state.  That affects the way it works, the way it deals with other countries like our own, and the decisions it takes for the future.  If you have any doubt about this, read Andrew Bacevich's The New American Militarism reviewed here and here and here.

You know who is really nervous about this new American militarism?   The Australians, that's who.   They look way up north and they see an emerging China and then they see the Warfare State "pivoting" into China's backyard and it scares the hell out of them down under.  It's even scaring the right-wingers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who warn that tensions between Washington and Beijing could escalate into a nuclear war that Australia would be unable to escape.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has written in a new paper that the fashionable ''AirSea Battle'' concept, which Washington strategists are developing to keep the US's grip on its sea and air power near China, contains ''uncertainties and potential shortfalls'' that could heighten the nuclear risk.

The paper, written by the institute's senior analyst for defence strategy, Benjamin Schreer, urges the Australian government to keep a cautious distance from the plan for now. Australia would likely play a role in the strategy, particularly with US Marines stationed in Darwin. The plan assumes any conflict between the US and China - most likely over Taiwan or Chinese skirmishing with Japan - would remain below the level of nuclear strikes.

But Dr Schreer writes that "such an outcome is far from certain". Part of any US plan to strike at China would involve "blinding" the People's Liberation Army by hitting its surveillance, intelligence and command systems.

 

 This could provoke panic on the Chinese side and "consequently increase the chances of Chinese nuclear pre-emption", he writes.
"AirSea Battle thus raises the spectre of a series of miscalculations on both sides if Beijing perceives conventional attacks on its homeland as an attempt to disarm its nuclear strike capability.''

Considered from China's perspective, the Obama Pentagon's new Air Sea Battle strategy posits China as "the enemy" in America's strategic thinking.   The dress rehearsal for a first-strike, stealth attack on Chinese air defences, Operation Chimichanga, in April of last year certainly didn't help ease Chinese suspicions.   So, America has a strategy that envisions pre-emptively attacking China, it has conducted a dress-rehearsal of the attack, it has a history of waging war pre-emptively, and it is pivoting its military resources out of the Middle East and into east Asia - what could possibly go wrong?

"While Australia would inevitably be drawn into any such conflict, the institute urges the government not to publicly endorse the plan for now, but rather demand a clearer explanation of how Washington would enact the plan, and its political goals. '[It] risks making the Chinese military an enemy' when the US, Australian and allied grand strategy is 'aimed at integrating Beijing in a co-operative Asian security order'".

Uh, yeah, sure.