The Duran Podcast - China, AUKUS And Control Of Asia-Pacific w/ Jeff Rich Live

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

China, AUKUS And Control Of Asia-Pacific w/ Jeff Rich Live

Okay, we're live. Sorry for the delay, everybody, but YouTube is giving me some issues. To be quite honest, I'm not even sure if we're live on YouTube because I can't get into the back office. So let me know if you are watching this from YouTube. I see there are people in the chat. So obviously, you can enter the live stream from YouTube, but I can't enter the back office. So anyway, let's press on Alexander Mercuris.

How are you doing? I'm very well. I'm very happy and excited to have Jeff with us discussing Australian things, Alka's and all that. And we have Jeff Rich. Jeff, welcome to the Duran. I have all your information where people can follow your YouTube channel, where people can follow you on Substack. Welcome to Duran. How are you doing?

Thank you, Alex and Alexander. It's a real delight to be here because I'm just a humble member of the Duran community. And hopefully I can offer a little bit of insight as to what's going on down here in the southern Indo-Pacific about Alcus and how it relates to some of the global developments. Fantastic. Fantastic. And once again, I have all your information in the description box down below. And I will add your substack and your YouTube as a pinned comment as well. I will have those links as pinned comment.

Hello to everybody that is watching us on Rumble Odyssey, Rock Finn, the durand.com and hopefully on YouTube. Hello to everybody. And let's get started, Alexander. Let's talk about August, China, the Asia Pacific, Australia. Let's get into it. Well, because we are now seeing a major game of power politics play out in the Pacific region. This is becoming increasingly the area which the United States is most concerned about.

They're up against the other superpower, which is China in the Pacific. They're becoming increasingly worried. about the buildup of the Chinese fleet. I've been hearing comments. We've had comments from the United States who come to our programs and who've actually discussed them about how concerns there are in the United States

that the Chinese are able to build up their naval fleet much faster at the moment that the United States can because China's shipyards are so much larger, so much greater China accounts for something like 40% of world shipyard construction, the United States less than 1%. So they got all these concerns. And of course, right in the middle of all of that, a traditional ally of Australia and by the way of the United Kingdom,

sorry, of the United States and of the United Kingdom, which is Australia. Australia, we have a particular fondness in Britain. They still have the same king as we do. I wonder for how much of how long, but anyway, they do. And of course, some years ago, I remember Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, to the fury of the French, announcing that there'd been this great deal, Alcus done with Australia to provide Australia with nuclear submarine technology. The French, as I remember, were furious about it, lots of sound and fury from Paris

and the Chinese, of course, were not happy as well either, because until just about five years ago, Australia and China seemed to have a burgeoning relationship. Australia providing all kinds of goods and materials to China, and the Chinese valuing, as I remember, their relationship with Australia. And a little bit like the Russians with Germany, the Russians assuming that they had a solid relationship based on economic self-interest with Germany. The Chinese made the same assumptions about Australia and it's turning out otherwise.

The question is, given this transformation in the geopolitical situation and its own situation, what is Australia getting out of this? Is this working? Is this new realignment working? for Australia. So we're very lucky to have Jeff Rich, member of the Durand community, joining us today. He's able to give us insights about all of these questions, telling us where Orcus is going. There's articles in the British media, we suggest that it's not doing particularly well as a programme, but anyway, as a, but perhaps, Jeff, you can fill us in, provide all the, you know,

fill in all the gaps, tell us what's going on. Absolutely, Alexander. And I think it was like September 2021, that the, you know, Orcus deal was announced and it was kind of announced in sort of two phases first under the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and if you go back to September 2021 it's like a month or so after the fall of Kabul and there's a lot of angst around the world about the robustness of you know US alliances US primacy that sort of thing and there was a big debate about that in Australia. And it was a huge surprise announcement and it received enormous attention in Australia, you know, a few months before a likely election. And it was generally seen as

kind of a good thing that, you know, Australia was sort of stepping up to the plate, so to speak, and, you know, it was now kind of a premier military power having nuclear submarines, which is the main aspect of the August deal that Australia would gain access in a number of decades to nuclear submarines. And then I think it was 12, 18 months later, the sort of final deal around August was announced under a second Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, from the Labour Party rather than the Liberal Party, the sort of, you know, the, I guess, progressive party versus the conservative party.

And the bill was even greater. The commitments were even more, you know, fuzzier. And the sort of lock-in, I guess, to the U.S. military system seemed to be even stronger. And after that, a lot of voices started to be come forward to say, well, this is really a not such a great thing. One of the most prominent been a former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, who really questioned the whole rationale.

And like today in Australia, there's a significant body of opinion that really views Orcus' is a big, big mistake. In fact, I think you can probably see that. This is the Australian Foreign Affairs. It's the sort of Australian equivalent, I guess, to foreign policy or foreign affairs, that sort of thing.

And it has an article by a guy called Hugh White, who's sort of Australia's leading defence strategy analyst, and has long been a critic of Australia being too unthinkingly locked into the alliance with America. And he's saying that Orcus is dead. in the water that it is a plan to develop nuclear submarines in decades time that will likely never be delivered. And in the meantime, Australia's sort of kind of naval defence capacity is sort of deteriorating and needs to be replaced, which was the original impetus for the Orchasteel.

that our submarines are outdated and we needed to get new ones. But this enormously expensive decision, which is sort of, I guess, damaged relations with China, has an increasing number of critics who say it's a bad defense strategy, it's a bad foreign policy, and it's just too expensive and it's not really achieving things. So I guess the question is, why? Indeed, very, very interesting.

It reminds me, I have to say this a little bit again of Germany. Germany, pressed by the United States to build up its military capacity, being pushed in effect by the US to buy weapons in the United States, because realistically, it can't crank up military production to the same levels, to the levels that would be needed in order to fulfill. fill all the demands the Americans are making from it. And at the same time, also press to supply weapons to Ukraine, so that the reality is that Germany's defense position is weakening,

even has its relations with Russia worsening. And the same it looks to me is happening with Australia and China. Now, can you just explain what, let's get, we just take a step back because I know a lot of people that are not familiar with this now. What Orcus actually was, because there was this deal with the French to provide nuclear submarine,

not nuclear submarines, conventional submarines to Australia. Now, would those submarines have been available fast? Because I think that's the thing that, and I can also remember Boris Johnson, you know, telling us all of Britain about what a wonderful thing. Orcus was nuclear technology in submarines is incredibly different, very different from conventional submarines, very difficult to build.

Where are these submarines going to be built? Are they going to be built in Australia, in Britain, in the United States? How is it all going to work? What's the plan? I think some of them are the part of the contention of it is some of them are to be, I guess, gifted from the United States to Australia. some of the nuclear submarines are to be gifted from, you know, gifted in a general sense to to Australia. And so that's snag number one because there's a debate within America as to whether it can actually afford to, you know, let go of a few nuclear submarines.

There's also to be some construction, I think, in Britain. And then there's that snag number too because there's increasing doubts as to whether Britain can actually kind of fulfil its end of the bargain. And I think there's meant to be some sort of R&D and, you know, defence industry sort of flow on to Australia. But unlike, I think, the French submarine deal, there's unlikely to be construction in Australia. And that was in some. sense as part of the political attraction within Australia of the French submarine deal, because the submarine construction was meant to happen in one of the states in Australia, but there were a whole lot of issues with the French submarine deal, which was part of what

was driving people to sort of look for a better solution, I guess. So the French submarine deal was by no means perfect. But Australia has also been sort of wrestling with this question of how to acquire a proper submarine fleet for like decades. It's like it's, I don't know what the comparison in other countries would be, but it's like the perennial sort of policy failures, so to speak, within the defence community as to, you know, how to hell. What's this decade's submarine deal that's going to fall over? What's it going to be? So Orcus is basically, it's got, I think, three components.

One is the nuclear submarines, and that's the major thing. And I think it's like six to eight sort of nuclear submarines at an enormous price, like $360 billion. And there's also some cooperation around like hypersonic missile research and AI and that sort of thing, which is a minor part of the deal. And then there's also agreements for basing American nuclear submarines in Australian ports in the sort of Indian Ocean port of Perth. which wasn't there in the original deal, but ultimately that's what happened. So it's nuclear submarines plus tighter integration, I guess,

into the American military command, so to speak, and some other sorts of defence cooperation with possible sort of industry flow-ons. And overall, it's also the question about what type of nuclear submarines hinges a lot on, well, what is Australia's defence strategy, is the point of the nuclear submarines to defend the coast of Australia from attack,

or is it to plant, you know, a kind of American-supported nuclear submarines off the coast of Taiwan and China? Because for the latter, you would need nuclear submarines, realistically. Yeah, because of the... additional sort of, you know, power and mileage and that sort of thing. And, of course, the Pacific is the world's biggest ocean.

And the distance is a huge. And sending conventional boats from Australia all the way to Taiwan would be, you know, it would not be practical in a military war situation. Six to eight nuclear submarines is an awful lot of nuclear submarines. I mean, I don't think Britain or France, for example, have that number of nuclear submarines of that nature. I mean, just just to make that particular point. Absolutely.

And that's what some of the critics have said, that, I mean, this is sort of leapfrogging Australia into, I think people used to take the top table of global naval power. And it's, I mean, you know, Why? Now, there is, now, coming back to the point that you were making first, as I remember Scott Morrison, very much part of the decision making in all of this. As you correctly, he was a conservative.

Then we had Anthony Albanese. He comes and he takes this whole thing a big step further. So it looks as if there's a bipartisan consensus behind this in our sense. Australia. Labour, Conservative, they both support this programme. Is this correct? Very much. And I mean, really, since the 1990s, there's been a pretty locked-in kind of, well, maybe not really since the Iraq War in the early 2000s, there's been a very sort of locked in, I guess, bipartisan approach to the American Alliance national security issues, most foreign policy issues on the whole within Australia.

So it's very much a bipartisan issue. And like, I mean, I don't, I'm not really wanting to comment particularly. on sort of domestic Australian politics, but there's opposition in parts of the Labour Party to it, indicated by, for example, Paul Keating, the former Labour Prime Minister's outspoken criticism. But there's a very strong, I guess, leadership consensus within the defence security establishment

in Australia around the American alliance, which, and, you know, in a way that's sort of one of the drivers of the decision. It's interesting that you talked about the German example because, I mean, I think there's really two two sort of main drivers to this decision. One is it's like a response to concern about the decline of American primacy.

So people around the world are trying to work out, well, how do we respond to things in this sort of change? world. And the response in Australia, it has been, it's sort of like, we've got to steal the spine of America to keep being primacy, you know, being number one. There's a very strong belief within, I guess, defence foreign policy circles in Australia that American primacy has been good for Australia and we'd like it to continue. And so we want to, and we can see the, you know, fading will or the concern about, you know,

Trump and nationalism or sort of a more isolationist approach in Australia. And so we want to be the best possible ally we could step up, make more contribution and, you know, go and get those nuclear submarines. So it's sort of like a, it's almost like a defensive sort of response to the fall of American primacy. And then I guess the other driver is just the sort of what Emmanuel Todd talks about in his recent book, The Defeat of the West, the sort of decaying sort of leadership culture in many countries around. the world and their sort of integration with the sort of, you know, the sort of post-imperial

American sort of system. And so that those two drivers have reinforced a long, long, long tradition in Australian foreign policy of really holding on tight to our great and powerful friend. First it was Britain and then after World War II it was America and the sort of trade and economic relationship with China has developed enormously over the last, well really since the 1970s but especially since the 1980s and but that's always been done within the umbrella of, I guess, believing in American primacy and the importance of Australia having that security partnership with America. So whilst America was strong and committed to Australia or defensive Australia,

the Australian said to themselves, well, we can do our deals with China. but as America retreats, we are becoming more nervous and we cling to the Americans even more. Now, some might find that a rather strange kind of logic, actually. I mean, if the Americans are withdrawing, or the fear is that they are, I mean, it might make rather more sense, perhaps, to work out a more stable relationship with the other power.

But is it the case, perhaps, that deep down many people in Australia are afraid of China? That's an interesting question, and I guess there's a couple of different interpretations, I guess, of what's going on. One is, you know, Australia has a bit of a tainted history of, like a lot of countries, of having race-related immigration policies. So the sort of white Australia policy, which began in the early 1900, and really continued on until the 1960s.

So there's some level of that. But on the other hand, you know, Chinese migration to Australia and Indian migration to Australia is enormous. I mean, they're the second and third largest immigrant groups within Australia. And I think like a huge proportion of the Australian population have, you know, family born overseas.

So, but some people say that's sort of an underlying racism. It might be the case. I don't think that's right. Then the other argument is there's a fear of abandonment. We're geographically isolated, huge coastline, a long way from London and New York. and we've had this famous incident in our history in like 1941, 1942, when the Japanese, you know, Empire came and took Singapore and as part of the general kind of collapse, so to speak,

the British Empire during World War II. And that's often seen as, you know, Britain let us down in our doctorate. need, and that was why we switched to America. So there is this argument that there's a fear of abandonment in, I guess, Australian political culture. And then I guess the third possibility is that, I mean, the Australian public didn't have a whole lot to do with the Orcas deal. It's a phenomenon that occurred as a result of, you know, elite decision-makers.

as a very small circle of decision makers. People say in Australia, the culture of foreign policy is very dominated by defence and security issues. It's very dominated by, you know, or the network around the American Alliance, the firebyes, the, you know, the intelligence sharing and all that sort of stuff.

So it's perhaps, and there's enormous amounts of kind of relationship building that goes on between, you know, America and the political elites in Australia through things like the Australian-American leadership dialogue and other sorts of things. So I guess the third possibility

is that it's more a case of not so much the Australian people being worried about being abandoned as the Australian defence elite being worried. being worried about losing the control of all those amazing toys that they currently have. And I suspect it's a little bit more that. It's as well as clouded thinking, really. And this is what Hugh White says in, he's utterly, utterly, utterly scatving about the decision and says it's, it's.

It's perhaps our greatest ever defence policy failure and perhaps the greatest defence policy failure anywhere in the world. So he's sort of not, well, no holds barred there. I think he should speak to General Kuyat, who's the Inspector General of the German army, because he's been saying many of the same things in Germany as well. I'd like to turn to actually public opinion in Australia because, you know, Australia has had radical political movements and peace movements in the past.

There's some very radical Australian journalists that I've known at various times. John Pilger, for example, we died recently. I knew him slightly. So what is Australian public opinion? How are they talking about, I mean, is this a big issue in Australia? And once upon a time, war and peace issues were very big issues, certainly in Europe. And people came out and protested about them and they worried about them and they were worried about war situations. You don't see that very much in Europe anymore.

Maybe there's the first stirrings of it. But as you rightly said, it's still very much within an elite consensus, at least in Europe. What about Australia? Are people concerned? saying, you know, we're getting these enormous weapons in 30, 40, 50 years time at huge cost. And in the meantime, we are making serious mistakes in our long-term relationships, both with China and also in our strategies on defence questions. Are people talking about this at all? I mean, is this an issue? Are the protests, is the opposition in Australia to this

at a popular level. Look, absolutely people are talking about it. I don't think there's really broad protests at a popular level. There's a lot of iffiness, like, you know, the $365 or whatever it is, billion dollars has occurred at the same time as a few other economic problems in Australia, you know, government priority type questions. But there is very significant, like people like Hugh White, leading voice. There's a guy called Sam Rogaveen from the Lowy Institute,

which is otherwise a very kind of centrist, pro-American kind of institute. And he's by no means anti-American, but he absolutely is scathing about Alcus and proposes a whole different kind of defence strategy. And then there's like there's a, publication called Peels and Irritations that's published by the former kind of head of the Prime Minister's Department in Australia, John Menendew, which has carried many, many articles, and there's a whole lot of critics there. But I don't really see it breaking through as a broad scale protest issue. I mean, the situation in Gaza, there's been like kind of weekly protests

march as now in various Australian cities over the last few months around that. So it has cut through in a way that hasn't perhaps with Orcus. And I mean, for, I guess, totally understandable emotional reasons, it's a terrible situation, isn't it? I have to say, there's some sense of deja vu for me in some of this, because my memory, as I've said many times, does stretch back to the 1960s. And I remember that in the 1960s,

Australia seemed to be on something like the same trajectory as it is today. It sent troops to fight in Vietnam. It was becoming very strong with the United States. It bought F-11 fighter jets from the United States. About the only country in the end that did, as I sort of remember, which were in their day.

I mean, they were, you know, they were the most complex, expensive fighter jets that you could possibly own. I seem to recall that were flops, but that was very young at the time. Exactly, exactly. So, I think, you know, but in the end,

it did trigger a kind of backlash and a sort of radicalisation. So you got briefly, the Gulf Whitlam government, which I'm sure we both remember. You've got to sort of swing away from some of this and baby an opening up of debate in Australia for a certain period of time. Could we see something like that again? I mean, we're back to, you know, the Manglo-American alliance, the friendship with the United States, buying expensive weapons from them, getting involved in American quarrels with other countries.

Will there be a backlash one day, do you think? Look, I think it's partly driven by situations that let us find themselves in a little bit. I mean, there's this terrific book here, which is by a guy called James Curran, Australia's China Odyssey, from Euphoria to Fear. And he really traces the whole, the history of Australia's foreign policy relationship with China all the way back to, like, you know, World War II sort of thing. and it's a lot more complicated than it's often presented. But broadly, you know, Australia switched to the United States at World War II.

It took a little bit, you know, a decade maybe to really fully embrace the American alliance versus the Buddhist Empire. And then in the 1970s, I guess there's this period, which is when the Whitlam government is in power for three years or so, there is this period where, I guess, partly in response to America's problems, I mean, we've got the, you know, the removal from the gold standard.

We've got the loss in Vietnam War. We've got the political crisis. We've got the, you know, economic problems, and we've got the, I mean, I guess cultural challenges. maybe within America. And Britain is now utterly irrelevant, is by the 1970s pretty much irrelevant. And so there is this strong surge

to a more independent foreign policy for Australia. And that's partly, there's a significant development of the relationship with China and Vietnam and others through the 1970s. And then in the 1980s, it's again, Australia's pursuing a much more pro-America alliance, but it has an extraordinarily good relationship with China

under the Prime Minister Bob Hawke. He was reputed to have the best access to the Chinese leadership anywhere in the world and was relied upon very much by the Americans for that. And he also, I guess, repositioned Australia economically to be more of an open trading country and to have the economic complementarity between China and ourselves.

But then, you know, there's the end of the Cold War. And for a while, Paul Keating does pursue a more independent foreign policy. But he becomes Prime Minister literally, like as the Soviet Union collapses in, you know, at the end of 1991, he pursues a more independent nationalist sort of foreign policy, but again, broadly within the American umbrella.

So it's no surprise that he's, He's the only prime minister since the 1990s who has come out so strongly against Orcas, because he was really the last one who, I guess, had perhaps a broader vision of where Australia could be in the world, including relationships of Indonesia and all that sort of thing. And then under John Howard, Proud, in 90s in early 2000s, he kind of cemented the relationship. He sort of does a similar thing to, I guess, what we're doing with caucus, you know, the Twin Towers happens, John Howard's in New York at the time, and he sort of feels the pain of the American leadership and says, you know, we're going to invoke

the alliance between Australia and the US because it's been attacked. So there's this, I guess, more locked in sort of feeling under. John Howard, then from 2007, there's the sort of Rudd Gillard, Rudd governments, which, you know, there's a lot of expectations, I guess, of Kevin Rudd because he, you know, was a former diplomat, he spoke Chinese, he knew a lot about at least Chinese literature and politics. but things started to get a little bit difficult there. And then especially as America starts to do it sort of pivot to Asia, there's growing, growing pressure on Australian leaders, really,

to sort of lock in behind that. And there really has been a bit of a push. And throughout that whole time, America has sort of kind of had a little bit of a worry that the trade relationship with China will sort of turn Australia as, you know, make them, you know, I guess dependent on Chinese trade the way Germany was dependent on Russian gas. But and I think that's just gradually increased over time. And then it's really from about 2015, 2016, when things started to get really, really a bit sour and nasty, I guess, in the relationship between Australia or in China, because, I mean, there's that old dynamic between Australia and the United States. but there's a dispute over Huawei, there's a dispute over foreign influence, there's a range

of trade disputes, and then the sort of 2016 happens with Brexit and Trump and everyone goes a bit crazy about America's role in the world, and then it gets a little bit difficult. And it's really only in, I guess, the last year or so. I mean, literally Australia's diplomats and ministers and prime minister were sort of frozen out from kind of diplomatic contact with China for, I think it was like about five years, some pretty hostile rhetoric. And there was a feeling from Australia's side that, you know, maybe China was going a little bit hard and being intimidating Australia, trying to influence us too much. and I guess China probably also felt well, you know, what are all these guns pointed at us? I have to say, I read articles, in fact, not just articles,

editorials in Chinese media, the Chinese media, a couple of years ago especially, well, they were absolutely shocked and very, very dismayed about this turn in Australian policy towards them against them. And this, by the way, predates Orcas. I mean, I remember reading articles like this. I mean, they hadn't expected.

They assumed that they had a good, steady, stable relationship with Australia. And the Chinese are, you know, they were astonished at how suddenly, from their perspective, it changed. And I think they were also very disappointed, just by the way the Russians have been about Germany, about the fact that all these things,

of these people in Australia, the business people, the business community there, which presumably has done very well from the trade with China, how quiet it has been, even as this great change has happened. Has there been any pushback from the business community in Australia? I mean, you know, look, I mean, it has been to some degree. I mean, in a funny sort of way, I feel that, like, what we have said in Australia for, I mean, I don't, decades, it was certainly something that, like John Howard said from 96 to 2007 or whatever, was, you know, America is our security partner, China's our economic partner. We can live with both.

We don't have to make a choice. But, like, people like John Meersheimer used to come over here and say, well, you know, America's going to force you to make it to his fellas. Can I just say he's made that very same point to me as well. He's actually spoken about the fact that he came to Australia and he was telling the Australians. You know, you think you can have your cake and eat it, but the Americans won't let you. Yeah. And I mean, I think, and you know, this is just my opinion, but I think we'd probably,

And in a way, back in the 70s, this and in the 90s, this was a little bit more of the case that China wasn't just in like our economic partner box. It was, we were looking to intensify diplomatic and political relationships. We were looking to intensify cultural relationships. And, you know, security relationships might be a bit far. But it was perhaps to one-dimensional, a sort of diplomatic relationship. And as a result, it was fragile. It was, you know, at risk, I guess, of those other forces coming by. And like from the 70s, there's been a huge, huge push to, you know,

promote Asian language study, Asian, you know, area study type. activities, many people who I've known over my life have done enormous work in that regard, but it simply hasn't really taken off as much as you would like. So I just feel that, you know, perhaps the less and longer term is not just to have this idea that we have an economic partner and a security partner. we actually have to have to have these dimensions of the relationship with all countries. I see never. Yeah.

I mean, that sort of goes to what some people, you know, some of the critics of Orcas and current foreign policy direction are saying, which is they, you know, we need to try to get some people talk about concert of powers or some sort of, I guess, You could say collective security arrangement in the West Pacific or Indo-Pacific, Maritime Asia, that isn't solely reliant on US dominance, but has buy-in from all the powers of maritime Asia, which include China and include Indonesia, which is a, you know, super, super important country to Australia. it's, you know, our nearest neighbour, and includes India, obviously, as well as all of

Southeast Asia and even, you know, heresy of heresy, Russia, because Russia is a Pacific power after all. Absolutely. I mean, can I just say on the fact that Australia was at one time heavily involved in involving itself in developing Chinese studies and things like that? I have actual personal knowledge of this because a friend of mine, Kerry Brown, is a synologist, an important British synologist, and he actually, for a time, had a post in an Australian university, a teaching post, by the way. And the point that he made to me many, many times is that the Australians were perfectly positioned to use both China and America, they exert leverage against both. that their particular skill, their great utility to both the Americans and the Chinese

was that they were able to talk to each and understand each and work with each and that in a situation where US-Chinese relations were fracturing, it was not in Australia's interest to over-commit to one side or to the other the best thing for Australia to do was to act as a sort of communicator between both of them. I don't suppose this debate or dialogue ever happened in Australia. But I mean, it makes sense to me. Oh, look, I agree. I think it did happen and a lot of people devoted their careers in, you know,

diplomatic and, you know, academic and bureaucratic careers too. to that sort of objective, I think. To some degree, that was definitely the case. Like with Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, I think, to some degree. Also kind of Malcolm Fraser. But I think in a way it just comes down to this long intellectual habit or ingrained habit in Australia. of four good reasons for believing that being the first mate of the most powerful country in the world is our best strategy.

So we'd rather be the kind of first mate of the number one power rather than, I guess, pursue a kind of a multilateral. strategy within a multi-polar world, I think. And in some ways, I would say that the way India has used its advantages of diplomatic power over the last decade, but especially over the last couple of years, is perhaps a lesson to Australia that you don't necessarily need to be the world's greatest military power to, I think, Dr. S. Jay Shanker, the Indian External Affairs Minister, talks about India's not choosing sides, but standing on its own ground. And I think we really ought to do that in Australia. And this is also what some of the critics of Orcus say.

It's locking our foreign policy very much into defense strategy rather than Australia being a diplomatic superpower. Well, I mean, even with six to eight nuclear submarines, I mean, what are we really going to do to try? Whereas where we could be, you know, we're in a really pretty secure position, you know, down there in the Southern Pacific, Southern Indian Ocean. China's got, you know, a lot of countries it needs to get past first before it gets to Australia. It's not really in China's interest to sort of shoot out its own iron ore and, you know, minerals and all the rest of it, food. So why don't we find a way to sort of get along with all the parts of the world and not just trying to be the loyalist first mate to America? I've got two last questions and before I hand over to Alex.

But the first is this. Does it never occur to people in Australia that there are historical precedents for Australia that suggests that it might not be a particularly good idea to over-commit to one power, however strong, which has lots of interests around the world. As a British person, I always remember the fact that in 1914 and 1939, the British king declared war for Australia. I mean, the Australians weren't even consulted. I mean, they weren't told by the British that they were at war with.

Germany and whatever. And maybe the Australians had interests in becoming involved in those wars. But I mean, it was not a decision ultimately made by them. And America has its global commitments. They might come and press Australia and ask Australians to do things which might not be either desirable for Australians or in their interests. That's the first thing. The second, and this is the big question that I think a lot of people want me to ask

I'm going to ask it. What about Julian Assange? Because of course, Julian Assange is right in the centre of this whole issue because he's an Australian citizen. He's, of course, in London, where I am at the moment. We've just had a hearing about it. But many, many of his supporters have been very disappointed about the fact that the government of his own country, Australia,

hasn't spoken up for him. as they feel it should have done. And is that also, because he's been sacrificed, in effect, on the altar of this relationship, that Australia seems to be determined to forge with the United States, or at least the Australian elite is? So I'll do Assange second, but so the first question was, you know,

have we thought about the risks of being, you know, first mate to an overcommitted power. Look, I think a lot of people have. I've written a few articles over last year or so where I sort of compare America to the sort of Moby Dick. You know, the story of Moby Dick, the Captain Ahab wants revenge against the white whale and he sails says Peckwood with his revenge

all around the world and ultimately sinks the ship. And I feel at times Australia is caught on the Pequid subject to revenge. But a lot of people have thought about that. But I guess it goes back to that sense that, you know, there's a lot of people who have a very strong interest and there have been a lot of benefits to Australia. And Australia hasn't been like a vassal in its relationship with either Britain or America.

It's actually been a relatively powerful and influential ally within, you know, a kind of a world system. So I think it's less the sort of general attitudes, it's the sort of, I guess, the leadership circles, the key decision-making circles, who are institutionally surrounded by these relationships and these connections, et cetera, and it's sort of like it's the sort of ear that they breathe is the American Alliance, and they can see many of the benefits. I mean, there was a great debate between John Mearsheimer

and a guy called Peter Vargasie, who was the former. head of the Foreign Affairs Department, which you can watch on YouTube. And probably because John Meersheimer was involved, it's had like 350,000 views. I don't think that would have happened with Peter Vargasi. But it goes to this question. I mean, Peter Vargasi, who used to be the head of foreign affairs, basically said American primacy is good for Australia. So we'd like it to continue.

So the sort of assessment of the risks and benefits is like that amongst many. And then Julian Assange, you know, I don't know an awful lot around Julian Assange. And I don't know whether he's been sacrificed, as you say. Certainly earlier on in his political career, the current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made comments supportive of release of Julian Assange. And there was a vote in the Australian Parliament just in the last couple of weeks kind of along those lines. But it just has a little bit of a feeling of a limited gesture very late in the day

that will allow the government to say that it's made efforts when it, really perhaps could have done so, like, I don't know, 10 years ago. Jeff Rich, thank you very much for an incredibly informative program. I'm going to hand over to Alex. I think we are now getting some questions through, and there may be some questions you might want to put to you. Cool. Yeah, we have a couple of questions and comments,

and we will wrap the live stream up, and whatever other questions we have, Alexander, me, and you can knock them out. But Danielle says, how about we get our sovereignty back in Australia and gets chewing in home? Yeah. And Daniel also says we had a great anti-war bands and songs that became our anthems, Midnight Oil, Red Gum, no Australian voices in our music now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, Peter Garrett, who was the lead singer of Midnight Oil, you might know him. he subsequently, you know, and famously had this song, you know, US forces, get the nod, not, you know, look out for your country sort of thing.

It's an absolutely iconic song in Australia in the, I don't know, late 1970s, early 1980s. And he subsequently became a minister in the Kevin Rudd Labor government. And I think he might have made comments critical of Orcus, I'm not sure. but yeah, he's perhaps symptomatic of this sort of, that spirit of the 1970s, that spirit of independence in the 1970s has been kind of closed down a lot over the last 30 years. And the question from Darwin is right. Australia, UK, Canada, they were involved in the election 2020, the Biden-Trump election. They pushed the dossier.

They also targeted the Trump campaign. And I view the UK, Australia, and Canada as enemies of the U.S. What do you, I guess the question is, what are your thoughts about Australia's involvement in the election, the 2020 election? Alexander Downer or Downing? Right, that was the 2016 election, just. Well, that was the 2016, yeah, the 2016. Yeah, that was 2016. Yeah, well, all of that.

What do you make of Australia's, it's all relative, yeah. What do you make of Australia's connection to all this stuff from 2016 going all the way up to 2020? I don't know, Alex. Look, I've got a very small YouTube channel, so I don't know if I'm really safe to say much on this point. Okay. But Alexander Downer was the foreign minister for Australia. through the Howard government from 96, I think, to 2007. And I think he was then subsequently like the High Commissioner in London,

so the ambassador to London. And I think it was when he was there that he had this odd meeting with George Papadopoulos that played a role in Russia Gate. And I don't know if he's ever really good. commented or really been asked terribly much with in Australia about that. So I don't know, maybe you should invite him on to the Duran one day. Ask him. If we could find these guys, we'll invite Professor Miff's suit.

All right. Jeff, thank you very much for joining us on this live stream. I have your, yeah, Alexander. I was just going to say we're going to have you again, definitely, Jeff, because we need to discuss Australian foreign policy many times because it's going to become increasingly important. Thank you very much. Over back to Alex. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. I have your information, your YouTube channel and your substack in the description box down below. And I will add it as a pin comment as well. Can I just add one quick? So I think I've just put up on my YouTube channel a podcast I did back in 2021. Actually, a week or so after August was. announced, it goes into a lot more detail about the decision and foreign policy and I guess the history of foreign policy in Australia. So people might want to check that one out in particular.

All right. Definitely check it out. Check out Jeff's YouTube channel. Check out Jeff's substack. Jeff Rich. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. All right, Alexander. Let's go through some of the remaining questions and we'll wrap up this live stream. Robert, thank you for that super sticker. Nick, thank you for that super sticker. Christian, thank you for that super sticker. Let's see here.

Nico says, I replayed the OGMW3. And when Makadov was talking about how Russia will take over all of Europe, I realized Vladimir Makadov is based on Vladimir Putin. The entire war is Newlands fantasy. They treat war as a video. game. Right. I have to say, I'm not familiar with this. It looks as if you're talking about some fictional character in some novel or film or something or video game, which I'm not, I'm not familiar with. But yes, an awful lot of fiction is getting mixed up with facts. I've made this point many

times myself. People have a mythological view of the other side of the Russians especially. And this distorts our understanding of facts and of their policies. I think that is absolutely correct. I'm not going to pretend, I know specifically what you're referring to. The the work of fiction that you're referring to that. Sparky says Free Assange. Sparky says, go Yemen, fight the power. Sparky says, Do you notify Israel? Sparky says, build a better world for bricks. Four or five super chats in a row from Sparky. Let's see. Sparky also

says, is he kidding? Australia's been a total battle of the globalist, especially American ones? You know, this is not actually always true. I mean, there have been, as a British person, you know, we're fairly close to Australia here. And it has always had a sort of radical edge, even in the sort of late period of the British Empire, late 19th, early 20th century. There are always people in Australia who are kicking back in some kind of ways. because you need to know about the history of how Australia was built up by the British, the kind of people who went there. So it's never been an entirely easy vassal.

But I suspect, going back to some of the things that Jeff Rich was talking about, it makes the elite in Australia even more determined to attach themselves first to Britain and then to the United States, because they sense, they see some part of Australia, always, as they would say, wanting to take a walk on the wild side. It's not quite as conform as a society, as many people imagine.

Yeah, Lou Reed, take a walk on the wild side. Robert, thank you. Thank you for that membership to the drag community. Elsa says, thank you, gentlemen. And the jungle Jin says hard to see Australia as anything but a vassal. We've been involved in every U.S. military adventure, most of which had nothing to do with Oz as a nation. Indeed. And I mean, that is the risk that Australia runs.

I mean, I said about how Australia was committed to two world wars by the British king. I suspect that in both cases, especially the second one, they would have decided anyway if it had been put to them that they wanted to be a part of it because of the issues involved But the fact is, the king just went ahead and just issued, you know, declarations of war. And the British just assumed so that the Australians would loyally follow. And sure enough, they did. It does seem astonishing, given that by this point, Australia was already, to a great extent, you know, an independent state with, you know, its own government, its own parliament, its own laws, its own public opinion. you would have thought that there would be at least some murmurs of, you know,

concern and reflection from the Australian people about the way in which they were committed. Especially, you know, after, you know, disasters like Gallipoli and that kind of thing. Yeah, Jungle Jin also says no one is kicking back in Oz, not against the US. All right, thank you, Jungle Jin. All right, that is Sparky says, I agree with Alexander. as for historical Australia goes, but not of late. Yeah. Thank you for that, Sparky.

That is everything, Alexander. I'm just going to ask you one quick question. And then we're going to sign off. And it has to do with Macron. Yeah. And his statements. Yeah. Alexander, what do you make of Macron's statements about NATO troops or EU troops?

possibly entering into the conflict in Ukraine. Your thoughts? Well, I think it is, first of all, a symptom of panic. I mean, they can see the way in which the situation in Ukraine is now accelerating out of their control. So it's panic. But people who are in panic, and, you know, he called this urgent meeting to the Elysee Palace, brought people from, you know, all 20 countries to come along and attend. people who are panicking do incredibly reckless and dangerous things.

And I have to say, I'm not until surprised that it is Macron who's advocating this. And it may happen. I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about this now. You remember we were talking a few days ago about this talk about setting up this iron triangle of fortified cities on the Nipa River to try to hold the Russians back. We've had all this rhetoric now for several weeks about, you know, the fact that the Russians are coming and we've got to stop them on the NEPA or somewhere else. So I could just quite easily see the political leaders in France, Germany, of course, enthusiastically embracing this, wanting to send troops into Ukraine. Now, various governments, Sweden, for example, I believe Germany as well, have said that they're not going to.

to do this. And the Polish foreign minister, I think he's also said, yeah. And, you know, Poland's got, really, they've already got, you know, massive protests on the borders with Ukraine, farmers protesting. It isn't just apparently farmers. People of Poland, right across Poland, are becoming angry. And, you know, they're flying Soviet flags and fitting up pictures of Putin, which you know anything about Poland.

You would know how extraordinary that is. So, I mean, I can understand why the polls are not, you know, well, rushing to welcome this. But, you know, I can't help with think that Macron, in his panic, is talking for a very strong sentiment, very strongly felt in brussels and within some factions within the German government as well. And they might do it. I mean, it's the sort of crazy thing that these people could do. It would be the most dangerous thing. One can possibly imagine they think, again, perhaps, that, you know, the Russians are bluffing and, you know, simply sending troops into Ukraine. The Russians will simply back off.

The Russians have been launching missile strikes searching for French mercenaries who they already say on NATO soldiers and have been killing them. So, I mean, you know, the Russians are not bluffing, and I can easily see how the situation could completely escalate out of control and could become unbelievably dangerous. Macron, we were looking at him before the war started to impart some sense. I think with this affair, we can see what a dangerous man he actually is. Now, Russia has been preparing for this. They don't want this to happen, but they have been preparing for this. They have hundreds of thousands of troops, just waiting in reserve in case NATO does do something. And definitely the EU is panicking.

I think this goes back to the video that I'll have up today where we discuss Tom Longo's article that goes back to the preservation of Europe and trying to keep Europe afloat. and it goes back to the war bonds and the Eurobonds. And I think that's why you see the Europeans are really panicking at the collapse of Project Ukraine. Absolutely. I mean, the other thing just to say is that, of course, any idea of sending an European expeditionary force without the United States is absolutely crazy. and if you know anything at all about sentiment in the United States at the moment, you know there will be enormous opposition in the United States to the United States sending troops to Ukraine.

There will be enormous opposition in Europe. But the European military is in no condition to take on the Russians. Everybody knows this. But panic, anger, fear, they're all a dangerous cocktail. And one sense is that these are how the decisions are being made at the moment. I just add one last point, which is, of course, that for Macron to be panicking in this way, and he called this meeting in such a rush, that suggests that they're getting information from Ukraine, which suggests that the situation there is even worse than even we who follow the war day by day, hour by hour,

know about. So just think of that too. Yeah, just a final comment and we'll sign off, Alexander. I just get the sense that things are moving very fast now. Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying this is going to wrap up in a week or in a month, but it does feel like things are accelerating.

And I kind of have this sense of, you know, when I listen to Zelensky and all the people around him, I do have this type of Baghdad Bob type of rhetoric sense that's coming out of them, where they're talking up a big game, but they're done for. I mean, I don't know. Do you have the same type of feeling about what's happening? And I'm not saying this is going to end in a week or in a month, but you can feel that something is happening.

I mean, I absolutely hate this, you know, this metaphor, the people used about the Russian steve roller going all the way back from the First World War, by the way. But that is what we're now starting to see in Ukraine. The Russians are just driving forward. And of course, they didn't expect this. The Western powers, at least the Europeans, didn't imagine that this could possibly happen. And they're freaking out. They're absolutely panicking. And they're sensing that the Americans might not be there for them and might not be able to come to their rescue. They're seeing all their great plans and strategies and ideas, turning to dust, and you're right,

the pace of events is accelerating. When each of us publish our videos today, we will be providing more details of that. But you can see this. Literally, the situation now is changing by the hour. And, you know, Baghdad Bob, 31. thousand dead Ukrainians. I mean, really? I mean, if that is not an example of that, what is? One final question about the UK. A Lord Cameron, he was at the meeting with Makron. Is the UK in any position to send troops to Ukraine or West Ukraine or anything like that?

Well, he can send troops, but he can't send many troops and it can't send many tanks and it can't send many tanks and the one part of the British military that still has some viability is the British Air Force, but apparently even that is not in a particularly good way. Apparently only half the planes work and there aren't even enough pilots to fly those. So, you know, I mean, there are problems, you know, all of those. I mean, there are problems. We can send troops, but I mean, you know, not enough, not by any. means enough and why would we want to? I mean, it would be an absolute disaster for us. And I have to say, I think that again, if the British public, which has been quiescent about

this issue, because the entire media is united in support of it, but if the British public was suddenly confronted with a decision to send troops to Ukraine, I think you start to see, for, you know, the Arnese that now exists and which has been spreading for a long time. Oh, you don't see Ukrainian flags in front of houses as you used to, you know, a year ago. I mean, they've all disappeared. You'd see all that nervousness and doubt and worry and fear. It would finally burst out into the open. And, of course, if George Galloway is elected to Parliament on Thursday,

then you will have a powerful anti-wall voice. anti-Ukraine war choice voice for the first time in the House of Coleman. Yeah. All right. And always keep in mind, this is Macron. He can say one thing today and say something else tomorrow. Yeah. That's very much his style. Yes. And of course, the other thing, though, is the Fezzo, the Slovak leader, called him out. What do you mean?

I mean, he disclosed. This is Macron's thinking even before Macron actually went ahead and said it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because Fito said he's not going to have any part of any type of intervention, incursion into Ukraine. Obviously, Orban is not going to have any part of it. Hungary's not going to have any part of it. So you already mentioned Poland.

It's got all these issues with the border and the farmers. I don't know if you saw the images at the EU headquarters the other day with the farmers. Absolutely. I mean, this could break, if they do this, it will break the EU. That's my own personal view. I mean, you know, assuming we get through it without World War III breaking out, then the most likely outcome of it will be that it will break the EU. If the EU starts committing European troops to fight in Ukraine,

then as I said, it's the one thing that would galvanise the entire European public against it. And it ends in disaster, well, I can't see how the EU could get out of it. but panicky, frightened, angry people. They do all sorts of crazy things. And I agree. Macron says one thing, one day, something completely different to the next. Rafael Ligonde says,

German chancellors just said, no NATO in Ukraine. I've just seen that. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of opposition. But, you know, we can't assume this isn't going to happen. Unfortunately, on this issue, they've been on the escalatory,

escalator all the time. And this is the obvious last point of it. Yeah, one final comment, question. Berbach didn't expect the sanctions to work. Macaron probably doesn't expect the military to win either, but Europe could do it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the Biden administration is now telling us they're not wanting to cripple the Russian economy because it's too systemic for the world economy. You're kidding me? Now, I've been at the end they really didn't believe that it would. I mean, mustn't take all of this series. I think, because they're panicking, and this is a sign of panic, and a sign of how bad the situation on the ground actually is. But it's very dangerous. Mere raising these ideas is very dangerous. And let's hope that calmer, sena heads step in and

stop this taking us where it seems to be going. Yeah, it could also be Macron threatening the United States in Macron's own way, you know. Either you give us. Either you give us. to 61 billion or we're going to go in. So he may be trying to thread into the house in Mike Johnson, which Mike Johnson will have to call his bluff. Well, absolutely. Well, I mean, that's the kind of absurd, overcomplicated thinking that Macron likes.

So it's entirely possible. But I mean, you know, if he thinks that he can intimidate people like Mike Johnson, I mean, that he's an absolute fool. But then Mac Ron is exactly that. He's a very clever man who deep down is really a fault. I mean, that's been the consistent reality, macro, throughout his presidency. Jupiter, little Napoleon. All right.

I believe he's popular. He's down about 17%. He's running away from farmers. I mean, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, all right. Any final thoughts, Alexander, we'll sign off for today. No, I mean, just to go back to what Jeffridge was saying, I mean, the parallels between Germany and Australia are striking.

And again, you see the nervousness of some people in these countries that they want to show their loyalty to America. And not really to America, let's put that aside, to the entire Collective West project. Because they don't have that rootedness in their own countries to understand the, you know, to see things in terms of their own country's interests. And that's why we're getting all these crazy decisions

that are being made. The one place, I want to say this again, where you actually get intelligent debate about Ukraine, is the United States. You actually get articles there of a kind that you will never see published in any European country actually strongly disagreeing and challenging the policy. listen. All right. Thank you, Tim, for that. All right, we are going to sign off. Take care,

everybody. Thank you to our moderators, by the way. Thank you to all our moderators. And thank you to everyone that tuned in for this live stream. Take care.