How would I sum up Australia’s geopolitical situation? We’re in bed with an axe murderer. There’s no kinder way to describe the Donald Trump administration, now that it’s taken to practising “regime decapitation” in countries including Venezuela and Iran.

Meanwhile Australia’s military establishment, backed by our rich and powerful, are actively complicit with the head-choppers in Washington. The US submarine that torpedoed an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka recently had three Australian service personnel in its crew, fully embedded.

Not only that, the order to strike would almost certainly have been transmitted via the Harold E Holt Naval Communications Station at North West Cape in Western Australia.

The collection and processing of intelligence information that led up to the attack would have relied extensively on the Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility, near Alice Springs.

That gives you some idea of the background and purpose of the “AUKUS Trilateral Security Partnership” between Australia, Britain and the United States, announced initially in 2021.

AUKUS, of course, is mainly about creating an Australian fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines, fully interoperable with American and British boats. But, in a general way, the pact also signals a shift to an ever-tighter integration of Australia into US and British war making.

The Scott Morrison Coalition government, in September 2021, abruptly ditched an agreement with a French consortium to jointly design and build 12 conventional subs for the Australian navy. By one account, the cost of shredding the deal came to $5.5 billion, including $830........

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