https://www.smh.com.au/national/on-...-mad-sheriff-has-in-mind-20200518-p54txp.html Opinion On the brink of peril, Australia is left wondering what the mad sheriff has in mind Peter Hartcher Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald What does a deputy sheriff do without a sheriff? Australia has spent the last three-quarters of a century as America's uniquely loyal ally. Again and again, Australia signed up for US wars that other American allies refused to join. The Brits were too smart to join the American war in Vietnam. Canada was too wise to touch the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. And Wellington was so wary of US nuclear weapons that it, in effect, took the "NZ" out of ANZUS. But Canberra sent troops into even the dumbest American wars in the belief that it was paying an insurance premium against the day when Australia needed US help. US President Donald Trump has questioned the F-35 fighter jet program.Credit:AP Now that Australia finds itself facing its most precarious geopolitical situation since World War Two, the insurance policy is looking pretty threadbare. Donald Trump has shown that he is happy to ignore, insult and injure American allies whenever the mood takes him. On Friday it was through the F-35 fighter jet program that Australia, among other allies, has relied on. Trump called it "crazy". Australia decided to join the US in supporting the F-35 program more than a decade ago under the Howard government, when it was just an idea. It was then known as the Joint Strike Fighter project. Part of the deal was that if US allies committed to buying some of these high-tech planes, Washington would give them a share of the manufacturing work to make them. Eight American allies signed up. Canberra agreed to buy 72 jets as part of a $17 billion program. In return, some 50 Australian companies employing about 2400 people are now making components for the jets. The work is worth $1.3 billion. Until Donald Trump decided to threaten the whole deal in an interview on Friday: "The problem is, if we have a problem with a country, you can't make the jet. We get parts from all over the place. It's so crazy. We should make everything in the US." Fewer than half the jets so far have been delivered to Australia. Scott Morrison's response? Hoping that it's just electioneering bluster from Trump, the Australian leader said he'd "wait to see" what happens. But whatever happens with the F-35s, the episode is another reminder of how unreliable the US has become. Deputy sheriff Australia now uneasily fingers the six-shooter in its holster, wondering what the mad sheriff has in mind for the future weapon and ammo supply. This is not the first time that Australia has had to fret about how much to trust America. Malcolm Turnbull made an important revelation in his recent memoir, A Bigger Picture. The Australian Navy sometimes joins the US Navy in patrolling the South China Sea. Both countries assert freedom of navigation in international waters to hold China's territorial advances in check. But Australia refuses to follow the US all the way into the 12 nautical mile territorial zone that China claims for its artificial features in the sea. Turnbull explained why. The Chinese navy "knows that if it conflicts with a US ship, it runs the risk of a rapid escalation into full-blown conflict", writes the former Australian prime minister. "But an Australian ship is a different proposition altogether. If one of our ships were to be rammed and disabled within the 12-mile limit by a Chinese vessel, we don’t have the capacity to escalate. If the Americans backed us in, then the Chinese would back off. But if Washington hesitated or, for whatever reasons, decided not to or was unable immediately to intervene, then China would have achieved an enormous propaganda win, exposing the USA as a paper tiger not to be relied on by its allies." It would leave Australia exposed and humiliated too, of course. Turnbull concluded that "it wasn’t a risk worth taking". Illustration: Andrew DysonCredit: So that's the question of US reliability, but there's also the question of American capability. In a new book called The Kill Chain a US expert, Christian Brose, reports the startling fact that "over the past decade, in US war games against China, the US has a nearly perfect record: We have lost almost every single time”. In a war against China, "our spy and communications satellites would immediately be disabled; our forward bases in Guam and Japan would be 'inundated' by precise missiles; our aircraft carriers would have to sail away from China to escape attack; our F-35 fighter jets couldn’t reach their targets because the refuelling tankers they need would be shot down", as summarised by The Washington Post's David Ignatius. And last week two of the top officers in charge of US Special Forces said that their 70,000 troops and $US13 billion a year were unsuited to the threats posed by China. "Maybe we are further behind than we know,” Colonel Michael McGuire, director of US Special Forces combat developments, told a conference, according to the Financial Times. “Things just moved much more quickly than we expected.” So if the US is unreliable and perhaps not even especially capable, should Australia look to China? As Scott Morrison frequently reminds us, Australia has a "comprehensive strategic partnership" with Beijing. This might sound good but, in fact, the China relationship is neither comprehensive, strategic nor a partnership. It can't be comprehensive because the Chinese Communist Party is an authoritarian political movement that does not tolerate an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, freedom of worship or freedom of association. It can't be strategic because Beijing wants to "take over" control of Australia's political system, according to former national security adviser Duncan Lewis. And it can't be a partnership because President Xi Jinping bases the relationship on "bullying", to quote Turnbull's memoir once more. In the immortal words of the sinologist Geremie Barme, "being labelled strategic by China means, ‘You’ve got shit we want’.” A deputy sheriff without a sheriff might be tempted to hand in his badge, except that much of his neighbourhood and a third of his international income is in the hands of a big bully. The deputy must do the only thing he can do – form a posse with other deputies and like-minded nations who want to keep the peace.
Yeh. Well, what is missing in this article is that there is a chicken and the egg factor here. It's nice to lay out how America is an unreliable partner so you may have to look to more of a partnership with China. Problem is, America sees Australia as increasingly unreliable because its government and private sector are so deeply in the pocket of China these days. Can Trump and the Americans really be blamed for worrying about putting part of its nation defense supply chain in the hands on Australia while the Australians themselves are openly worried about how much control that China has over your country? We went through that with the Brits. They were up to their arse with the EU and had given major parts of their sovereignty over to Brussels. Americans were seen as America First Barbarians. But now that they have left the Brussels Plantation and are suddenly in need of friends and strong trading partners and people who respect their sovereignty and traditions, the Americans are looking pretty good to them again. As it should be. Same with Australia. You have a domestic tussle going on- that is boiling over a bit- about whether you want to be Australia or just another colony of China. If you resolve that in a way that sounds more convincingly that those who want to Make Australia Great Again, you will find that Trump- even though he can be difficult to deal with- is the best friend you have. Just put the chop sticks down if you invite him for a state dinner. As I said, the Brits too argued that Trump cared only about the American barbarians but who turned out to be Britains biggest cheerleader to Make Britain Britain Again? It's all good. And the writer babbles on about how Australia has signed up for American wars and that Australia just wanted to stay close to U.S. to have military protection for Australia, as if that is a bad thing. China would not be the first Asian country that came one island at a time to take Australia would, it? And those were not Europeans and Canadians fighting on those islands. Get your shiite together. Call Trump up, waive the Australian flag a little. He likes that. And it will all be fine. You guys are earning points by insisting on an investigation of the BatEaters. Trump likes that. Also you can support Taiwan's membership in the UN or at least in the WHO and Trump likes that. Build on all those things. But don't have another one of your Prime Ministers call trump and remind him that Australia cut a private deal with Obama before he left office. As you know, that is the quickest way to go down hill immediately.
As far as allies go, Australia is the best the US has, or I should say had. They are not blowhards that stir up a bunch of shit and leave the fighting to us like some so called allies. The Australians show up every time we need troops. Every. Single. Time. Without fail. They never get involved in our politics either. It’s a shame China now looks more reliable because of Trump and his deplorable idiot army.
Don't be a pussy. Everything is not Trump's fault - only in your lefty world. Australia is having a pretty good sized skirmish with the Chinese right now and it is a beautiful thing. Let em work it out. Trump is there for them bigtime once they flush all that Chinese shiite out of their system and remember their roots and their friends. They are getting a full wake-up call about what it looks like after you have spent too much time in bed with the Chinese. The same wake-up call that got Trump elected. They have more in common right now than some of the lefty Australians and lefty Americans would like to admit. As I said yesterday, same thing with the Brits. They went through/are going through a rough period after having given a lot of their country away to Brussels, but now that they have worked their identity crisis through a bit, there is nothing but opportunity and cooperation ahead between the Brits and the US. The rest of the EU will start to fall apart one by one too. Good. A bad day for you lefties is a good day for those countries.
Ahh King Donald will be there for them, not the United States. Your language shows your still deep in the Trump cult of personality. Reminder: this actually a republic.
Your language shows that as an American lefty you are cheering for those Australians who want to continue to allow China to colonize Australia- because China good and Australians and Americans bad according to the script you get from Soros. Fortunately the Australians do not listen to you, and normal Americans don't listen to you either.