The world’s greatest remilitarisation since the World War II is underway, driven by the imperatives of the flailing United States empire.

The AUKUS war pact places us at the centre of this drive towards war. How should we imagine Australia’s role in the world?

Australia is not just a settler-colonial state; it is a sub-imperial power that has transferred subordination from its one-time colonial ruler, Britain, to the US, its new imperial master.

It is now acting to preserve the military and economic interests of its master state. This is encapsulated in the AUKUS war pact, which, despite no public debate, commits the country to eight nuclear-powered submarines, high-tech weapons development and sharing and the subsequent invasion of US personnel and weaponry in the event of our “interoperability” in a contrived future conflict with China.

Through AUKUS, Australia acts as a mechanism for US force projection into the Pacific, to rattle the sabre against China.

AUKUS makes Australia the first non-nuclear-weapons state to use a loophole in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons for naval propulsion with weapons-grade uranium.

That sets a proliferation precedent.

Climate change is the real security threat. Pacific leaders named climate change their main security threat in the 2018 Boe Declaration. Yet Australia keeps expanding fossil fuel exports while spending hundreds of billions on submarines.

But AUKUS is about so much more than submarines; its more sinister part is AUKUS Pillar II, which is about “advanced capabilities” including: undersea capabilities; quantum science; artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy; advanced cyber; hypersonics and counter-hypersonics; and electronic warfare.

Any pretense about “defensive” capabilities is put to rest with Pillar II because these technologies are about highly efficient offensive war-fighting capabilities.

The Australian Human Rights Commission said it is arguably impossible for AI to comply with the proportionality rule, because AI is unable to understand the intrinsic value of human life.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that machines determining proportionality in life-or-death situations is “politically unacceptable and morally repugnant”.

Australia said in 2018 that it was premature to regulate Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. Nearly a decade later, it maintains this position despite significant advances and uses of the technology.

It is instead barrelling ahead with developing the most advanced and lethal forms imaginable.

The first “signature project” of AUKUS Pillar II was announced in May — payloads and systems for uncrewed undersea vehicles are due from 2027, covering surveillance, reconnaissance, strike, anti-submarine and electronic warfare, among other missions.

The stated aim is meeting near-term war fighting objectives. The Ghost Shark project for Australia is being developed by Silicon Valley-based defence contractor Anduril. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy said they will conduct surveillance and can strike at extremely long distances. It means the weapon is designed to operate far from our shores — not for defence.

Pillar II extends into the realms of software and artificial intelligence. Tests for active warfighting scenarios to integrate Australian, British and US AI models have been ongoing for years.

A 2023 pilot had Australia PA-8 Poseidon aircraft sharing data for submarine detection, amid other tests of “AI-enabled assets” and machine-learning models.

There was a large-scale US trial in 2024. The US Department of War was enthusiastic: “These trials demonstrated significant progress since the first AUKUS........

© Green Left Weekly