Droppie [infosec] 🐨:archlinux: :kde: :firefox_nightly: :thunderbird: :vegan:<p><a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8941018/mark-kenny-peter-duttons-alliance-gamble-amid-us-tariffs/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">canberratimes.com.au/story/894</span><span class="invisible">1018/mark-kenny-peter-duttons-alliance-gamble-amid-us-tariffs/</span></a></p><p><strong>QUOTE BEGINS</strong></p><p>Peter Dutton said only what most Australians were already thinking after Donald Trump flatly penalised America's most dutiful ally.</p><p>Tellingly though, the plain-speaking indignation from Australia's political class was reserved for the Liberal leader.</p><p>By raising the US alliance during trade frictions, Dutton had broken the major-party omertà.</p><p>Defence Minister Richard Marles called him "reckless". A former DFAT trade negotiator told the ABC it might be "dangerous".</p><p>Even John Howard, when asked about the Liberal leader's comments, raised his famous eyebrows, saying, "...we should never treat that [the US-alliance] with contempt that using it as a bargaining chip would represent".</p><p>Anthony Albanese jumped in too, declaring the Liberals "simply aren't up to" national leadership.</p><p>"They are reckless and there is a huge risk from Peter Dutton," Albanese intoned.</p><p>Risky. Dangerous. Reckless. The hyperventilations came from everywhere. From all the men of unbreakable US devotion, all the serious men of defence, all the president's men.</p><p>Dutton's sin?</p><p>"Resolving this matter [tariffs] will centre around the defence relationship," he had said. "We have troops in the north of our country, we have the AUKUS deal, we have the ANZUS treaty."</p><p>Presumably, Dutton believed such comments were of a piece with his breathless refrain that Albanese had not muscled up against Trump's tariffs whereas he, Dutton, would've played hardball and secured exemptions.</p><p>But it wasn't Dutton's unprovable boast that brought reproach. It was the terrified thought that an offended America would fold its tent and withdraw.</p><p>Summoning his trademark piety, Marles accused Dutton of engaging in "reckless and dangerous thought bubbles".</p><p>"What we will do," Marles reassured quaking voters, "is engage Australia's national interest".</p><p>The "national interest" is a political term of art. As an unquantified "good" it can justify anything - holding or denying negotiations, joining or not joining wars, and even signing up to alliances unscrutinized by the people or their parliament. It also validates keeping schtum in the face of economic harm and insults lest a powerful "friend" takes offence.</p><p>A case in point. Foreign Minister Penny Wong was asked on Melbourne radio if she trusted Donald Trump. The short answer, of course, is no. This would also be the sane answer.</p><p>Yet sane can also be crazy. Touching off a Twitter war with the man-child in the White House would be "unhelpful" in an election campaign and could even spark more punitive sanctions on Australian goods.</p><p>Wong's answer then? "I trust him to do what's in America's interests." Invited to say something negative, Wong cleverly finds something positive instead. At one level, this is a skilful diversion. At another level, it is not even correct. There are no credible economists, trade experts, foreign governments and non-cult Americans who believe Trump's mayhem serves US interests.</p><p>What they do accept reluctantly is that Trump alone gets to define those interests right now. They accept, too, that MAGA America has changed the world, fundamentally and irreversibly.</p><p>In Australia, we seem much slower on the uptake. Dutton's indiscretion, however, has invited us to do some fresh thinking.</p><p>In its unvarnished disdain of friend and foe alike, Trump's belligerence offers an insight to security ties as well. Bluntly, it is this: if attacked, the US will come to Australia's aid if, and only if, such involvement serves Washington's perceived advantage at that time. That's it. End of.</p><p>Emotion plays no role. Or, to paraphrase the great British statesman Lord Palmerston, a country has no friends, no enemies, only interests.</p><p>Fretting about America's feelings in the way Howard and others insist we must misses the real basis of US defence ties with Australia - the projection of American power in the Western Pacific through an ongoing allegiance with Australia, its unsinkable aircraft carrier.</p><p>US strategic bombers now operate permanently out of RAAF Tindall 300 kilometres south of Darwin. There are also US Marine rotations in the NT, and other air and naval assets routinely positioned around the country. US nuclear submarines regularly visit and will operate permanently out of Submarine Rotational Force-West and from a new east coast submarine base in coming years. With the crucial Pine gap facility, all would be early targets for the Chinese in the event of war with the US.</p><p>Australia needs to get real. Trump's lack of sentimentality articulates a cold truth - what America feels for Australia is not amity but utility. This is why AUKUS is so iffy. Australia's major parties make out this $368 billion multi-decade punt to be somewhere between an article of free-world faith and the only certain path to national survival. But is it?</p><p>MAGA Republicans are not interested in safeguarding liberal values, democracy, free trade and the rule of law. They detest these things.</p><p>The British Parliament has initiated a review into AUKUS in light of the wooliness of its obligations, its large costs and distended timelines, and the changed geo-strategic environment - to wit, a rising China, a resurgent Russia and an unreliable America.</p><p>A parallel Australian inquiry is a must.</p><p>Ordinary Australians know America has upended the global trading system and weakened the international settlement.</p><p>Sometimes, in foreign policy, it serves a useful purpose to remind a partner "democracy" that Australia has voters, too. If they lose confidence in the value of an alliance, it will affect American interests.</p><ul><li> Mark Kenny is The Canberra Times' political analyst and a professor at the ANU's Australian Studies Institute. He hosts the Democracy Sausage podcast.</li></ul><p><strong>QUOTE ENDS</strong></p><p><a href="https://infosec.space/tags/AusPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AusPol</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/ClimateCrisis" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ClimateCrisis</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/WomensRights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WomensRights</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/ShitParty1" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ShitParty1</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/ShitParty2" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ShitParty2</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/FsckOffDutton" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FsckOffDutton</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/WhyIsLabor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>WhyIsLabor</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/NoNukes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>NoNukes</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/VoteGreens" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>VoteGreens</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/ProgIndies" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ProgIndies</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.space/tags/OzElection2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>OzElection2025</span></a></p>