IT is impossible to overstate the importance of the new trilateral "security partnership" between the US, the UK and Australia, and the replacement of Australia's $90 billion French submarine contract with a fleet of US nuclear-powered submarines, also to be built in Adelaide.
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US President Joe Biden stressed yesterday that the submarine contract and the new AUKUS alliance were not aimed at any one country.
Tying the new alliance to the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS agreement was a modest fig leaf at best, and Chinese voices were quick to see AUKUS and the submarines as pointing their way, with an embassy spokesperson accusing the three Anglosphere nations of a "cold war mentality and ideological prejudice".
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We can expect more "wolf warrior diplomacy" as the implications of these new moves on the Western side of the global chessboard are absorbed.
But there are times in history when the self-interest of one nation or bloc will unavoidably displease the leadership of another.
Most Australians - experts and the general public alike - will back the right, if not the responsibility, of democratic countries to band together in the name of the rule of law.
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This is not to say that the US is perfect, or that its foreign policy has been free from mistakes.
Far from it. Indeed, it could be said that the situation we find ourselves in now is a consequence of failed prophecy.
Policy makers had hoped that "normalising" relations with China would encourage a hardline Communist country to become more democratic.
Instead, not only does China now challenge the US economically and militarily, it is doing so with an autocratic belligerence that leaves not only its near neighbours feeling uncomfortable.
Hopefully, the undeniable enmities between China and the US will de-escalate peacefully.
Nobody wants a repeat of the 20th century's two world wars.
But freedom of movement through the South China Sea - and the status of Taiwan, especially - will remain major flashpoints in the increasingly strained relations between the world's two major powers.
In that context, the implications for Australia of AUKUS will depend on its fine print.
But whatever happens with China, the submarines will be no help in the short term, given that the first vessel is not scheduled to launch until 2040, six years after the first French sub would have deployed.
France is understandably angry, but will get over the snub.
Closer to home, Australia's ties to New Zealand are inviolable, even if the Kiwis' determined non-nukes stand has excluded them from the new alliance.
Locally, there's a chance the Hunter's defence-oriented industrial sector will pick up work from the submarines contract.
Some might wish that this work was not needed. But it is.
And however things pan out, Thursday, September 16, 2021, may stand in Australian history as one of our more important days.
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