AUKUS: “Full steam ahead” to nowhere?

Written by: Nick G. on 11 December 2025

US con artists Pete Hegseth (Minister for War) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meeting with Australian puppets Penny Wong and Richard Marles, have reiterated Trump’s assurances that AUKUS is “full steam ahead”.

The comments were made at the annual AUSMIN meeting held in Washington on December 8.

The US has recently completed a review of the AUKUS arrangements, a copy of which has gone to their agent of influence Marles, but which has not been made public.

The review has apparently cleared the AUKUS arrangements as being consistent with US national interests, but we are no clearer about how the US intends to supply Australia with a couple of second-hand subs when it cannot yet guarantee a production rate that meets its own supply needs, let alone those of Australia.

Compounding the uncertainty about AUKUS was a statement on December 6 by a former Chief of the British Royal Navy that Britain was “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures had pushed it to the brink.

Rear Admiral Philip Mathias called for Britain to pull out of the multi-billion AUKUS defence deal with America and Australia to build 12 new nuclear submarines.

He said the AUKUS programme should be “cancelled now”.

Toadying up to their US masters, Australian politicians are set to send another gratis payment of $1 billion to try and pump-prime the ailing US submarine program. This is in addition to previous payments of $1.6 billion and is part of a promised $4.6 billion of non-refundable payments to US submarine builders.
If anything about AUKUS is “full steam ahead”, it is the handing over of Australian billions of dollars to the US with no guaranteed outcomes. 

Meanwhile, Australia is to have its own “review” of AUKUS, conducted by a committee of 7 politicians and 6 others.  As Dr Albert Palazzo, former director of war studies for the Australian Army, and adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales said on the 7am podcast, they will all be AUKUS loyalists and “it will not be a review committee but a rubber stamp committee.”

The demand for a genuine Australian independence is growing.

There is no place for the grovelling subservience of the US loyalists in Canberra.

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