Why Australia and America Deserve Each Other

Not-so-slow Moving Chaos

Well it continues to be a busy time in both domestic and world politics and if you can tear your eyes away from the gradually unfolding nuclear-powered train wreck that is Trump dumping on the middle-east, there’s plenty here at home to take a look at. Let’s interrogate Australia’s actual position – economically, geopolitically – particularly in our starring role as America’s most reliable plus-one to every bad decision. Like a good little lefty I was recently listening to the Australia Institute’s podcast Follow the Money and I was struck by the perception of Australian values and what it means for us to align ourselves with the land-of-the-free. The conversation was being held in the context of the AUKUS debacle – that $368 billion fever dream where we’ve already blown half a billion propping up US shipyards for submarines that exist mainly in PowerPoint presentations, leaving us with nothing but the immortal image of Biden squinting at Morrison like he was trying to remember why he walked into the room. So let’s talk about the history of Australian/US values and think a little more about whether we are or are not misaligned.

From Post-War Romance to Fading Empire

The ANZUS treaty of 1951 marked the moment Australia traded British protection for American cuck-dom. Born from fear of a resurgent Japan and Britain’s inability to defend the Pacific, Australia demanded security guarantees in exchange for accepting Japanese rearmament. The treaty itself promises almost nothing – merely that each party “would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes”, yet from this we’ve built a foreign policy of reflexive obedience.

The pattern was set early. Vietnam conscription. Pine Gap, established in 1970, turning Central Australia into a key node in America’s global surveillance network. The base “has supported every US war since the Iraq invasion of 1991,” from Kosovo to Afghanistan. Former NSA employee David Rosenberg confirmed Pine Gap monitors “the Gaza Strip and surrounding areas with all its resources” – Australian soil enabling Palestinian deaths.

As meteoric as the rise and dominance of the US was, it’s fall is becoming exceedingly cataclysmic. The rules-based order stands exposed as American exceptionalism. Illegal wars. Weaponised sanctions. De-dollarisation accelerates, driven by US economic weakness since 2008 and aggressive sanctions against one quarter of the world’s countries. All while an increasingly malevolent, vindictive and likely sociopathic geriatric tosses his toys out of the sandbox.

The reward for decades of mateship-come-sycophancy? AUKUS – half a billion dollars for US shipbuilding and submarines we’ll never see. Biden forgetting Morrison’s name perfectly captures the relationship: we’re not allies, we’re expendable assets. Meanwhile, Pine Gap makes us a nuclear target, with experts confirming it would be hit in any conflict with China over Taiwan. We have traded one declining empire for another. The question isn’t whether American hegemony will end, but whether we’ll still be clinging to Washington’s coattails when it does.

The Democracy Delusion

Washington’s ‘democracy promotion’ is the geopolitical equivalent of a protection racket – nice country you’ve got there, shame if someone found WMDs in it. Let’s have a look at a bit of a shortlist.

In 1953, they orchestrated a coup against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalised the oil industry – “the first time the United States used the CIA to overthrow a democratically elected, civil government.” The next year, déjà vu: Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz was overthrown after he dared redistribute land to peasants, threatening United Fruit Company’s profits. Notably, both Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles had been partners at UFC’s law firm.

Then came Chile. After backing Pinochet’s coup, which “left over 3,000 dead or missing, tortured tens of thousands,” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger privately told the dictator: “we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here.” What Pinochet was “doing” was throwing dissidents from helicopters. Today, America embraces Saudi Arabia as it beheads dissidents and bombs Yemeni children with US weapons. Most recently, as Gaza’s death toll climbs past 40,000, America continues providing the weapons and diplomatic cover for what the International Court of Justice calls plausible genocide.

Even facing COVID – the ultimate test of global cooperation – America hoarded. The US procured 600 million doses while opposing intellectual property waivers that could have enabled global production. Despite taxpayers funding vaccine development, pharma companies raked in billions while poor countries waited. The truth is stark: America has never cared about democracy, only dominance

Mirror, Mirror: Why We’re Perfect Together

The Australia Institute wrings its hands over our misalignment with American values as if we’re some two-shoes nerd who has just fallen in with the wrong crowd. The level of naiveté is pretty difficult to hear when you draw up another column and start to compare out history alongside that of the States’. The synchronisation in cruelty, both in frequency and execution (pun intended) would win medals. Both settler-colonial states built on genocide, both prioritising corporate profits over human dignity, both using fear (other implied or otherwise) to maintain power while pretending democracy means something more than choosing which flavour of neoliberalism to swallow.

Our rap sheet reads like America’s evil twin and as an offshoot from a cretinous monarchy both apples haven’t fallen far from the tree. More than 600 First Nations people have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission, with 31 Indigenous deaths in 2022-23 alone – that’s our George Floyd every other week, just without the cameras. The Voice referendum? 60% of Australians voted against even acknowledging Indigenous people in our constitution, rejecting the most modest proposal for recognition imaginable. We approved Woodside’s 50-year climate bomb while preaching net-zero – like setting your house on fire while shopping for smoke detectors. America at least has the honesty to tell Paris to get fucked; we’re just the Southern Hemisphere remix, cosplaying climate action.

Queensland now locks up 10-year-olds, with the new government passing laws that “remove the principle that detention should only be used as a last resort” – and guess what? Over 70% of children in detention are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. That’s not misalignment with America’s school-to-prison pipeline; that’s the same machinery with a different accent. Our Robodebt scheme used algorithms to terrorise welfare recipients, raising $1.73 billion in illegal debts against 433,000 people despite the government knowing it was unlawful. Lives were destroyed, people died by suicide, and the architects got promoted – just like America’s welfare “reforms.”

We’re junior partners in Five Eyes surveillance, we’ve copied Florida’s trans rights attacks, we cage refugees on remote islands while America cages them in the desert. The Australia Institute’s blind spot is staggering: we don’t need to worry about being corrupted by American values – we’re already operating from the same poisoned playbook. The problem isn’t that we’re too close to America; it’s that we refuse to admit we’re exactly the same. Until we face that truth, all this ‘values’ talk is just the Australia Institute polishing brass on the Titanic.

Do Better

I’m not dragging Australia through the mud for sport – I’m doing it because watching us voluntarily vassalise ourselves to a dying empire makes me want to scream. We could be so much more than America’s eager sidekick in the global shitshow. New Zealand told the US to fuck off with their nuclear ships and survived. We could be leaders in climate action instead of Woodside’s enablers. We could actually close the gap instead of widening it with more jails. We could be the grown-ups in the Pacific instead of the bully’s mate.

We first need to stop pretending we’re different from America when we’re carbon copies. Own the ugliness, then change it. That’s not anti-Australian – that’s the most patriotic thing we could (and should) do. At least Greenland and Canada need to be threatened – we’re out here volunteering to be the 51st state, no coercion required.

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Banner image by Black Forest Labs

Model: Flux Ultra v1.1

Seed: Random

Prompt: 1940s US propaganda poster style, 4:3 aspect ratio, vintage lithograph texture. Uncle Sam figure with Australian slouch hat and American flag vest, one arm around a smaller figure wearing Australian flag as cape, both standing on globe focused on Pacific Ocean. Uncle Sam’s other hand holds puppet strings connected to the Australian figure. Background shows Pine Gap radar domes and nuclear submarines. Text reads “JUNIOR PARTNER” in bold red letters at top, “AUKUS - ANZUS - FOREVER” at bottom. Distressed edges, halftone printing effect, limited color palette of red, blue, cream and black. Style of James Montgomery Flagg meets Australian WWI recruitment posters.