Australian personnel aboard a US nuclear submarine during an attack on an Iranian vessel highlight the deeper implications of AUKUS – and the risk of Australia being drawn into American wars.

The AUKUS trilateral pact has cost Australia dear. Over the decades, it will cost the Australian taxpayers well over the projected A$368 billion being assessed by the wonks in Canberra. Nuclear-powered submarines of the Virginia Class may or may not be delivered.

An Australian-UK designed equivalent may or may not be built. Both these features of the agreement are academic, given that Australian maritime facilities will be the colonial outposts for both US and UK nuclear submarines to operate in their flailing attempt to maintain power in the Indo-Pacific.

But what of the lives engaged and lost in the whole nasty business? Getting submarines under the supposed Pillar One of the agreement is becoming an increasingly irrelevant feature of the pact: Australian sailors will be under the direction and supervision of the US Navy in any case. This means that any conflict the US engages in will automatically commit Australian defence personnel to it, whatever the wishes of parliamentarians in Canberra.

This abominable policy has been clearly shown by the revelation – after much initial reluctance – by the Australian government that Australian sailors were present on a US nuclear-powered submarine, most likely the........

© Pearls and Irritations