3 days ago
Let's consciously uncouple from unreliable America
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AUKUS
The AUKUS review is no surprise. We should review it too. AUKUS was a Scott Morrison thought bubble which resulted in a cost of $3.35billion to cancel the French submarines deal. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese kept the AUKUS strategy, so the Coalition could not brand Labor as being soft on defence. The cancelled deal impacted our relationship with France whose presence in the South Pacific make it an obvious partner for Australia.
The cost of AUKUS and the problems of nuclear waste, for which we have no infrastructure, were not considered. Since this decision, we have found the US under Trump is not a reliable ally.
War in the 21st century has dramatically changed. The Ukrainians who have virtually no navy have destroyed a third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The economics of war has changed. Cheap drones can destroy multi-million dollar aircraft ships and tanks. It's time to get out of AUKUS and plan for a 21st century war instead.
Peter Ramadge, Newport
Time for Australia to finally grow up
AUKUS: Absurdly Useless Kingsize Unrealisable Scheme. A more than 20 year gap before the highly questionable submarines could potentially arrive, with all their attendant risks, should alone alarm us. The change in military technology in that time is unimaginable. Submarines, nuclear or otherwise, could be obsolete by then. There is no plan B, and we will continue to pour huge amounts of money into a deal that America does not have to honour.
The US, Trump or no Trump, is not interested in our welfare any more, if indeed it ever was. It's high time for Australia to finally grow up, especially in the current world's hostile environment. After looking to Britain last century and then to America since the second world war, we have never seized our own sovereignty. It's time to stop focusing on the US whether in our defence policy or in any other global matter, especially now as we watch it implode. Listening to our 'in denial' politicians, Richard Marles in particular, invites despair.
Jill Toulantas, Clifton Hill
Why didn't ALP review AUKUS?
If, as Defence Minister Richard Marles says, it is normal for a new administration to review a big program such as AUKUS, why didn't he do that in 2022 when the ALP came into government?
Denny Meadows, Hawthorn
Trump is a symptom of America's decline
Emma Shortis (Opinion, ″ For Trump, LA is just the beginning. Soon, he'll monitor every move Americans make ″, 11/6) joins a growing group of observers calling for a rethink of our relationship with the US. Breaking up is hard to do, and most former partners accept that there are no cost-free breakups, but it is still possible to maintain a reasonable relationship. Of course there would be costs in reducing our traditional, but hazardous independence on America for security. However, any competent risk analyst would surely find that they were modest compared with our present course.
AUKUS submarines, expansion of Tindal airbase for strategic US bombers and upgrade of HMAS Stirling to host US nuclear submarines, for example, subordinate Australia to US foreign policy goals. A major goal is to contain China, our major trading partner, that has currently almost no incentive to attack Australia. If our experiences in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have not demonstrated that today's US is not the country of the 1940s, then Donald Trump's reelection should.
He is a symptom of US decline, not a cause—and damning evidence that warnings from leaders such as Malcolm Fraser of an uncritical US alliance were prescient.
Norman Huon, Port Melbourne
Aukus savings
Perhaps Donald Trump might do us all a favour and kill the AUKUS agreement. It would free the government to invest in more conventional submarines for defending our coastline. Any savings could be used to mass produce and deploy missiles and drones.
The Ukrainian war demonstrates how effective drones can be as a weapon of war. The government could also use any savings from the AUKUS cancellation to invest in cybersecurity as cyber attacks would have the potential to bring transport, comm12unications, finance and supply chains to a dead halt.
However, I suspect these common-sense suggestions will be ignored by our political masters
Andrew Ferrier, West Launceston, Tas
THE FORUM
Researching bias
The Pew Research Centre polling has upset my assumption that almost no one in Australia would approve of Trump's presidency (' Australians on Trump: dumb, dangerous and dishonest ', 12/6. It is depressing, for example, to think that 28 per cent of Australian men have confidence in Trump. But probably fair enough. It confirms my own sampling. I don't have much confidence in 28 per cent of Australian men.
Bronwen Murdoch, South Melbourne
