AUKUS nuclear submarine deal will lock us into conflict, warns Paul Keating

Former PM comes out swinging against new trilateral partnership, warning it compromises Australian sovereignty.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating says the Liberal Party is reverting to type by “trying to find our security in Asia through London”.

Paul Keating is the leading critic of the new trilateral partnership between the US, UK and Australia, warning it compromises Australian sovereignty and will lock future governments into conflicts that may be contrary to the national interest.

Mr Keating argues the US can no longer win in any contest with China for primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and that its strategic commitments can no longer be trusted following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He also warns the new partnership will see Australia struggling with the extreme difficulties in developing and maintaining a new fleet of conventionally armed nuclear submarines which will be delivered under the AUKUS framework.

“And all this at a time when United States reliability and resolution around its strategic commitments and military engagements are under question,” Mr Keating said.

“If the United States military with all its might could not beat a bunch of Taliban rebels with AK47 rifles in pick-up trucks, what chance would it have a in a full blown war against China, not only the biggest state in the world but the commander and occupant of the largest land mass in Asia.”

“When it comes to conflict, particularly among great powers, land beats water every time.”

Mr Keating said it had to be remembered that the United States was a naval power and the US supply chain to East Asia would need to span the whole Pacific from San Diego and other locations on the West Coast.

“Australia, by the announced commitments, would find itself hostage to any such commitments,” he said.

Other critics of the new AUKUS partnership have also emerged with emeritus professor of strategic studies at ANU and a former deputy secretary of Defence, Hugh White, arguing the decision to embrace nuclear submarines was the “wrong move” because it would not help the United States to defeat or deter China.

“This is a significant step forward in the amplification of American expectations of Australian support,” Professor White told The Australian. “The big question is whether that is going to work. The American strategy is to attempt to deter China from challenging the US …. and to defeat China if deterrence doesn’t work.”

“My reservation is that it won’t do either of those things. Eight Australian nuclear powered submarines will make no difference … For that reason it’s the wrong move.”

Mr Keating argued the Liberal Party was reverting to type by “trying to find our security in Asia through London” accusing it of lacking faith in Australia’s capacity and the right to its “own independence and freedom of action.”

“The announced agreement between the United States, Britain and Australia for Australia to move to a fleet of US supplied nuclear submarines, will amount to a lock-in of Australian military equipment and thereby forces, with those of the United States with only one underlying objective: the ability to act collectively in any military engagement by the United States against China,” he said.

“This arrangement would witness a further dramatic loss of Australian sovereignty, as material dependence on the United States robbed Australia of any freedom or choice in any engagement Australia may deem appropriate.”