The Chaser Report - The Coalition Of The Not Needed

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Sure, America may have left Europe to defend itself. But we don't need to worry, because Australia, France, and the UK can defend the world.Watch OPTICS on ABC iview here:https://iview.abc.net.au/show/opticsCheck out more Chaser headlines here:https://www.instagram.com/chaserwar/?hl=enGive us money:https://chaser.com.au/support/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Charles, you are in Global News Headquarters, Adelaide, doing your Wankanomics show. What's everyone talking about on the street there? Yes. Well, the reason why Adelaide is just the place to be when you want news is because it's just half an hour out of step with everyone else.

Indeed. So it gives you a whole new perspective because the news is either you're either half an hour behind the news or half an hour in front of the news, depending on how you tune your radio. And so it just gives you this wonderful new perspective. But look, I think the fight back is on, Don. Really? I think that, you know, we've all been worried that there's been a plunge into sort of authoritarian, nay, totalitarian regimes across the globe led by Trump. but, you know, spearheaded over the past 15, 20 years by Putin, Xi Jinping, Orban, you know, just a range of, you know, supposedly strong man things.

But I think it's the first glimmer that things are happening that will finally lead to a bit of a fight back. So I'm very excited. I think actually it's all right. It's going to be, this is a good news. Really? Because I just listened to Matt Bevan's new podcast. I'm talking about Putin's dream and how all that transpires is essentially in keeping with what Vladimir Putin most wants in the world.

So I'm interested to hear how you're saying that actually, no, no, it's all going to be just fine. Should we figure out whether Putin's dream or Charles's fantasy is the more correct after this? So I might say, Dom, that the way you characterised it as Putin's dream or Charles's fantasy is just a little bit. sort of like, it suggests that I'm going to be wrong. Was that unkind?

Was that, I'm sorry, I'm half an hour off from you. I'm half an hour behind your thoughts. So why don't you explain why things are going to be okay? Because we're not really optimistic enough on this podcast. I think, no, let's be upbeat. Give it a go. Have a crack. So, and look, I might just also add that Matthew Beaven's latest podcast about Putin's dreaming

is just a complete rip-off of my 2017 article about Putin's. He goes back even further than you. Amazingly enough, in it, he goes to site sources even older than your 2017 news.com. Dot-a-U article, which we really can't discuss enough. This is the man who sells fuck Murdoch stickers on the internet and Antigrace Tame. Does he go back to Peter the Great? Because I'm pretty sure I mentioned Peter the Great in, and Ivan the Terrible. Does he mention Ivan the Terrible?

Actually, he doesn't in this episode. You win again, Charles. Congratulations. He didn't previously, I'm there's some mistaken, he hasn't once written for news.com.com. But anyway, that's fine. Which counts in his favour. But anyway, so Dom, Dom, Dom. Yes.

The reason why there's green shoots of hope is that, okay, so everyone's been predicting, well, at some point, you know, like, Trump is basically going to war against the entire world, right? That suggests that there's a level of overreach there. At some point, people will start chatting amongst each other. and just sort things out and ignore what America's doing, right? And that happened over the weekend. We said the first glimmers of that with this whole new coalition of the willing thing that Australia, England and France have all said that they're going to commit peacekeepers to Ukraine.

No matter what, just ignoring whatever the US is, finally we're going to actually just sort of come up with a foolish military intervention halfway around the globe that doesn't involve the US for once. I think this is so interesting, Charles, because I don't think when Vladimir Putin do his calculus of the global superpowers who he might be risking if he invaded Ukraine, I don't think he would have predicted a coalition of the willing featuring and apparently only featuring the military might of Britain, France and Australia. Those three countries together.

Let's go through the might in inverted commas of those militaries. You've got France who are, you know, last time they went into battle. How long did the Blitzkrieg last? That's about 48 hours, 36 hours. Don't forget that they built all those. Remember the Maginot line or the fortresses they built along the border to make sure they could never be invaded again? unfortunately forgetting that it was possible to just walk through a forest and avoid them all.

The impenetrable Ardennes. So if Ukraine wants a series of fortresses along its border with Russia, which Russia can then walk around, I think France could be enormously useful with that. But also, the one thing that Ukraine has been very bad at militarily is surrendering, right? That's true. They haven't surrendered at all. Whereas France is like top class. Like out of all the militaries in the world,

France knows best how to surrender. I mean, to have occupation with a degree of panache is that's not easy to retain your culture and yourself while, you know, the jackboot of whatever it might be, German militarism is in, I must say, Charles, of the European capitals, certainly in Western Europe, Paris was almost entirely unaffected by World War II. The beautiful buildings of Paris, the houseman era 18th century Paris, it's beautiful. It's still there because no one bombed it because they surrendered so quickly. Why didn't the Ukrainians think of that? Think how beautiful Kyiv could be if it hadn't been bombed for the last three years. Then you've got the UK, which... As we know, the world's strongest navy several centuries ago.

But if you want naval power in, I don't know, the 17th and 18th century, perhaps even the 19th century, some might say, Britain's your guy. Well, the whole thing, I think you're being a little bit unfair, Dom, which is, I think, their naval power extended well into the opening decade or two of the 20th century. Oh, okay. I'll give you that. About 1905 or so. Yeah, great.

And I think the other thing you've got to realize is the world has changed a lot since then. Sure. And nowadays, you know, as we learned in the last couple of world wars, the concept of attrition, you know, wars of attrition means that what is most important to succeed in war is your industrial base. Like, how many bombs can you make? How much ammunition can you make? How many tanks can you make? And the answer in the UK is none at all. None at all.

They invented it. They invented the Industrial Revolution. They invented industrialisation. And then gave it up. And they came along. And they were so far ahead of all the trends, weren't they? Yes. They really were. I mean, now China's the country that's churning out warships at an absolute rate of knots.

Not the UK anymore. But Charles, I also remind you, when you talk about attrition, if you think back to the trench warfare, and this has been true in Ukraine somewhat, the ability to just grind out a war to just keep going, no matter how miserable and depressing it is. That's something that the British bring to every aspect of life. They invented the longest and most drawn-out form of sport in test cricket. They endure the climate that essentially is, it's essentially trench warfare as a lifestyle living in the UK. It's deeply unpleasant and it seems never to end the climate over there. I think that the spirit, the tough British spirit of just keeping going even though there's no reason to, this could be very useful in the Coalition at the Willing.

What are we bringing? Well, the thing that we glorify most, if you go down to our war memorial, is we glorify our losses. Oh, that's so true. So Gallipoli stands to this day as the symbol of our military conquest across the globe. Sorry, Charles, did you say conquest? What's the opposite of conquest? I don't even know the word. Defeat. Dequest. Dequist. Gallipoli. Yeah. No, it was a noble, it was a noble failure. A little bit like the wallabies.

It's losing with dignity and integrity and keeping your head held high. That's what the Anzax is able to do. Those of us that still were alive after the conflict, which is not many. They have enormous dignity and honor. I'm looking forward to a movie, admittedly, it'll be in about 50 years time, of some beautiful movie about Australia's involvement in the Battle of Kiev or whatever, where we all get defeated, but it feels a bit like a victory. And it's a cherished defeat. It's a defeat that means something. Yeah, because it led to mateship. It led to mate.

And about a sense of national identity. I mean, we didn't think of ourselves as Australians. until Britain so thoroughly abandoned us in our moment of need and sent us to die on a foreign field in Turkey in large numbers. That was the moment when we went, actually, we are not them. We are different from them. No, wait a minute. I don't think that's true.

I think that we held onto that and thought that England was pretty good for another 20 or 30 years. Oh, it's still on our flag, isn't it actually? Yeah, because, oh, yeah, for another 100 years. Because it wasn't it more sort of like then in World War II? when it became apparent that they really honestly didn't give a shit. Like, literally, they weren't even turning up to defend it when, you know, there were Japanese submarines in our harbour. Singapore, did they?

Yeah, and they got on the phone and the British was sort of going, hey, you know what, maybe you just need to concede everything north of Brisbane, which admittedly might have been, you know, like looking back, you go, hmm, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea after all. But, you know, because the famous, I mean, what I'm a standard by is they don't teach the Brisbane line in every school in Australia. That is quite interesting that they don't discuss the Brisbane line, particularly in all the recent discussions. I mean, Clive Pimer wants North Queenslanders to see, doesn't he? Doesn't he want an interesting interpretation of trumpet of patriots, by the way?

But, yeah, there's talk of a North Queensland nation, or at least of a different state, I should say. Go for it. Go for it would be my thing. But the Brisbane line, for those who don't know, is that during the Second World War, Britain didn't have the resources to send anyone down to Australia, even though we were actually under threat. Yeah, the resources were the constraint, weren't they? It wasn't a lack of interest. And to Menzies, of course, who was Prime Minister at the beginning of the Second World War,

a lot of people also don't know that. Like, he had his first Prime Minister's ship at the beginning of that war. He travelled over to England, and they said, well, chaps. Why don't you just concede everything north of, north of Brisbane? And he went, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And that's partly the reason why they sort of went, okay, maybe Menzies is not the fighter that we need during a war. Yeah, just having conceded a large swaths.

I mean, that really conceded. It was the Crimea model. This is going to become relevant shortly. We would have had a Crimea at the north of Australia had that happen. Yes, yes, exactly. And just let the Japanese take over everything north of, You know, so essentially... It would have meant that the Japanese wouldn't have been able to buy the Gold Coast in the 1980s, though.

True. And yeah, Charles, is this why Menzies is known for the statement, you know, that famous quote, I did but see her passing by of the Queen. I did but see her passing by, but everyone north of Brisbane's going to die. Isn't that what he said? I think that was it, yeah. But actually just thinking about it, because then what happened was MacArthur, the famous American general swooped in and he went,

well, you can't do that. You can't just concede half your country to the Japanese. And he's the person who, so it was actually the Americans who gave Australia a bit of fighting spirit and went, no, no, no, you should actually defend yourself. Charles, I'm just reflecting on how superior our podcast is to the rest of history. I mean, they do such extensive research. And there aren't even many jokes in that.

They just make fun of the rest of politics. The quality of this podcast, let's just take a moment to reflect on our own brilliance. And I'll explain to you why everything you just said is, in fact, not even a problem. It's an even more optimistic outcome, in fact, than what you've just said. Okay. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser Report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. So, Charles, you've just told us that the combined brilliance and military force of Australia,

Britain and France are going to defend this country, and no one else. And I'm just in that reflecting that, of all the submarines in the world that we wanted to choose, we Australians chose Britons for Orcas. So if we mock the military might of Britain, and we have, they're the ones providing our submarines on which we would rely entirely. So we'll note that. But Charles, the good news, perhaps, if anyone is so rude as to think

that France plus Britain plus Australia might not be all that you need to contain Vladimir Putin, the good news is it won't be needed. Charles, the coalition of the willing will be the coalition of the not-neutral. needed. It's all going to be absolutely fine. There's some breaking news out of Washington that's going to render it all fine, Charles. And that is because Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are going to have a chat this week about the ceasefire. And Steve Witkoff is the envoy to try and resolve Ukraine. Trump's envoy says that they're going to have a chat and that Putin accepts the philosophy, the philosophy, Charles, of Trump's ceasefire and peace terms. So we don't know the

details, but he told CNN that the conversations were positive and, and I quote, solution based and so the deal's going to be fine it'll all come through they've narrowed the differences and it will be fine and other stakeholders are included as well uh ukraine's included begrudgingly france britain Norway and finland it's all going to be sorted out by this time next week charles mark my words it will all be over wow that's uh that's that's great news and so uh just to clarify like will there be a nation of ukraine after next time Tuesday or... That's to be determined.

It's not really clear. I mean, Vladimir Zelenskyy has now agreed, having realised that you must give a security guarantee isn't going to work. He's holding that question off, as is the question of territorial integrity until after the ceasefire. So there'll be a ceasefire for 30 days, and then they'll try and figure things out there. They'll do the deal.

Are the conversations going to be in person? I don't know about whether Trump's going to. actually meet, because he may go to Yalta, this is the Putin's dream thingy. If there's a meeting it, basically there's a statue in Yalta of Trump and Putin and Xi Jinping, meeting to essentially divide the world up into three spheres of influence. And what we will see if this is to be believed is that essentially the whole point is that Trump will not really have much of an interest in Europe at all as a continent. That's not really in America's much more interested in Canada and Mexico and so on.

Europe doesn't really register, except for the bits of Scotland where Donald Trump owns golf courses, I think that's part of his sphere of influence. But you won't see... So I don't think Vladimir Zelensky is going to be happy with this deal, but the important point is, Charles, that it doesn't matter.

Because as long as Putin's happy, that's what matters. It's his sphere of influence. You write it yourself on news.com that are you in 2017. As long as Putin's happy, it's his eastern Europe and he can do what he likes. Isn't that the new world order?

I don't think I wrote there. I don't think I said that... No, you said that's what they wanted. The Russians wanted. Yeah, that's what they wanted. Was the sphere. Yeah, yeah. And ironically, Charles, they haven't been able to win it through military.

They haven't even been able to knock over Ukraine in three years. I mean, it's not a... No one else in Europe is particularly scared of Russia, I don't think, at this point. After they failed to destroy Ukraine in three years. But, yeah, the deal's going to be done. And I expect that everyone will have to lump it. They'll like it or they'll lump it or they won't get anything. Isn't that how it's going to be done?

I'm going to go down? So it'll be a little bit like the way Germany annexed Austria in, what, 36, you know. Yeah, or perhaps a better. And it's just like, you know, you might not be happy, but, you know, whatever. No, it's more like 1945. That's it. It's over. It's over now.

It's more like 1945 where big powers got together and just put a line through the middle. I don't know if there'll be like a Donbass wall the same way there was a Berlin Wall, Charles. But I think you'll see the same thing. You'll see a line of partition down the middle. that the Ukrainians can't do anything about and it will just be handed to them. Isn't that what's likely? So they'll have peace, but they'll also be in pieces.

And the idea that Ukraine will keep fighting until they get back what Russia seized, I just think that's an argument of principle, Charles, there's no room for principle when the Great Powers talk. It's not what they do. You're probably right. See, it's an upbeat.

This is an upbeat optimistic outcome here because it means Australia won't have to do very much, I don't think. Oh, yeah, I suppose that's true. I don't know who's fear of influence we're in, actually. You make an interesting point, Charles. If the options are Russia, China or America, and Trump's only really interested in, you know, the Americas. Yeah, yeah.

Well, this is the whole thing. Who's looking after us? No, but this is the whole thing. Like, everyone thinks, oh, America's involved in the Pacific. They haven't been for 30 years. But the truth is that the reason why the USAID cuts that have devastated. Africa and many parts of the world. The tuberculosis apparently is not really affecting the Pacific.

It's because USAID accounts for 6% of all aid in the Pacific. China is a much bigger player. Australia is the biggest player in the Pacific. And America are not interested. They're interested in Pine Gap, but that's about it. So as long as we have U.S. military bases on Australian soil, where it will be okay. So as long as we go and move near Pine Gap, we'll be safe.

I've got a really good idea, though, with the Pine Gap thing. I reckon, because it's on our soil, we just take it back, we cut the US out. Because I reckon you probably can be fairly certain that any Five Eyes intelligence that goes back to the US now is also ending up in Russia's hands. I like that you think Pine Gap is our soil, by the way. And then, no, but then we do a deal with the rest of the Five Eyes, and we call it Four Eyes. All right.

I think that's it, Charles. I think that's mission accomplished. Well done. We are part of the Oconiocles Network. Catch you tomorrow. In one week, there will be peace. Or pieces. Ukrainians.

Peace and in pieces. That's right. The pieces deal. You heard that depressing pun here first.