VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
The Trump Administration has just announced a 30-day review of the AUKUS arrangements to make sure that they comply with Trump’s “America First” policy.
The announcement comes just days after Albanese publicly differed with US Defense Secretary Hegseth’s demand that we increase “defence” expenditure.
It is a signal to Albanese of US displeasure with Australia having the gall to think, even in a very hesitant and half-hearted way, that it should have the right to decide things for itself.
It really does expose how Australia, which is not a Third World country, but an advanced capitalist country, is quite secondary in importance and influence to the major powers.
The US joins the UK in conducting a review into AUKUS. Australia timidly refuses to conduct a review, believing that whatever happens, “she’ll be right”. So, the two beneficiaries of the arrangements are enquiring into AUKUS, but the country that has to pay for it – at an average of $30 million a day for the next 30 years – is not prepared to conduct its own enquiry.
The British House of Commons announced on April 2, 2025 a two-month public enquiry into AUKUS. The first submissions were published in early June.
In the meantime, the UK announced on June 2, 2025 its Strategic Defence Review. Among its 62 recommendations – all since adopted by PM Sir Keir Starmer – was that the UK would build for itself up to 12 SSN-AUKUS class submarines, with additional funding to production sites to produce one SSN-AUKUS submarine every 18 months.
This sounds very ambitious given a spate of reports suggesting that UK submarine production always runs behind schedule and is beset with workforce shortages.
The US enquiry, announced days ago, will be led by Undersecretary of Defense Policy Elbridge Colby. He said on March 6 that the US commitment to the AUKUS arrangements was “conditional on U.S. industry building enough attack boats to meet domestic needs first”.
Both the US and UK have “opt-out” clauses in the AUKUS arrangements and are not required to refund any of the billions (nearly $5 billion each) that Australia has committed to giving them in order to pump-prime their industries. These amounts are just gift donations - we are not buying anything with them.
It should be no surprise that Australia is at the beck and call of the imperialists controlling AUKUS.
Scott Morrison’s original AUKUS arrangement was for the sharing of technology that would enable Australia to build its own nuclear-powered submarines. It was not taken to parliament for debate.
After sleeping on the matter overnight, and not consulting his Cabinet colleagues, new Labor PM Anthony Albanese was persuaded to incorporate into the AUKUS agreement a plan to purchase three and possibly five US Virginia-class submarines. Parliament - supposedly representing the voice of the people in a bourgeois democracy – had no say.
This stupid arrangement, however, was conditional on the US President of the day certifying that the sale of these submarines, which would be half-way through their operational life, would not compromise US submarine strength.
And that is where we are today, with Donald Trump about to say whether AUKUS goes ahead.
Maybe it will, and more’s the pity if it does.
Will Trump demand further non-refundable pump-priming of US industry for it to go ahead?
Will he demand Australia agree to follow the US into more of its unjust and unwinnable wars for it to go ahead? We currently say we will not join them over Taiwan so we can expect pressure from Trump to pull us into line there for it to go ahead.
Will Trump say the US is so far behind in Virginia-class production that it cannot afford to sell even second-hand clunkers to Australia, and that we must further expand facilities here for the basing and maintenance of US subs?
Whatever the outcome, there will continue to be complete Australian subservience to the US demands, with the Australian government claiming that duckshit has been tuned into ice-cream, jobs have been saved, and the great Alliance remains as strong as ever.
This moment presents a really clear example of our sub-imperial power status, of our Second World status, that while the government might try and exercise some sort of imperial authority in our neighbourhood (and behave ruthlessly to Indigenous people within our own country), at the moment where Australian and US policies diverge, we'll be quickly put back in our place.
Stop AUKUS now!
For an anti-imperialist independent, peaceful and socialist Australia.