The US submarine base was always going to come first, not for the sake of supplying useless boats for Australia’s phantom defence needs, but for keeping an ever watchful US imperium stocked.

When news comes from across the Pacific about AUKUS, that laborious, unequal trilateral pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, it is almost never good. On reaching Australian news outlets, the material is accordingly laundered and starched for common consumption, giving the impression that all is well. Nuclear-powered submarines, albeit of the bottom shelf range from the US, will eventually make it to the Royal Australian Navy – or so we are told. And, even more remarkably, a special AUKUS submarine will be the product of the collaboration.

If you believe those sorts of things, astrology might be your calling. The promise of nuclear submarines was always the hook on which to hang US strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific. Whether Australian military personnel will ever see such beasts of the sea under their operation is less relevant than the creation of a fortified US outpost to quell any regional upstarts.

With AUKUS entirely focused on keeping the US war machine ready, with some bribing morsels thrown Australia’s way, all decisions will, ultimately, concern Washington’s own production targets. On November 25, the Office of Management and Budget delivered a........

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