The Duran Podcast
China, AUKUS And Control Of Asia-Pacific w/ Jeff Rich Live
Ok, 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 Mirkurs, 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 into what's going on down here in the southern Indo-Pacific about Alka's and relates to some of the global developments. Fantastic, fantastic and I want to get to 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 Rumbel Odyssey, Rockfin, the Duran.locals.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. 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 build-up of the Chinese fleet, I've been hearing comments, we've had comments from people 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 there, navel fleet much faster at the moment than 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've 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 key as we do, I wonder how much, 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 had been this great deal, Alkis done with Australia to provide Australia with nuclear submarine technology, the French as I remember with 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 seem to have a burgeoning relationship, Australia providing all kinds of goods and materials to China, 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 Duran community joining us today, he's able to give us insights about all of these questions telling us where Alkis is going, there's articles and the British media we suggest that it's not being particularly well as a programme, but perhaps Jeff, you can fill this in, fill in all the gaps, tell us what's going on. Absolutely Alexander and I think it was like September 2021 that the Alkis deal was announced and it was kind of announced in 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 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 a few months before a likely election and it was generally seen as kind of a good thing that Australia was sort of stepping up to the plate so to speak and it was now a premier military power having nuclear submarines which is the main aspect of the Alkis 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 Alkis was announced under a second Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from the Labor 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 locking I guess to the US 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 not such a great thing and one of the most prominent being 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 Alkis is a big big mistake in fact I think you can probably see that just 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 to unthinkingly locked into the Alliance with America and he's saying that Alkis is dead in the water that it 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 is sort of deteriorating and needs to be replaced which was the original impetus for the Alkis deal that our submarines are outdated and we need it to get new ones but this enormously expensive decision which is sort of I guess damaged relations with China has has has an increasing number of critics who say it's a bad defence strategy it's a bad foreign policy and it's just it's 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 the levels that would be needed in order to fulfill all the demands the Americans are making from it and at the same time also pressed to supply weapons to Ukraine so that the reality is that Germany's defence 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 the let's get we just take a step back because I know a lot of people are not familiar with this now yeah what Alkis actually was because it was this deal with the French to provide nuclear submarine not nuclear said conventional submarines to Australia now would those submarines have been available fast because I think that's the thing that and what and and I can also remember Boris Johnson you know coming on telling us all of Britain about what a wonderful thing Alkis 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 two because there's increasing doubts as to whether Britain can actually kind of fulfill its end of the bargain and I think there's meant to be some sort of R&D and you know defense industry sort of flow on to Australia but unlike I think the French submarine deal is 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 with the 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 me 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 you know the countries would be but it's like the perennial sort of policy failure so to speak within the the fence community is to in how to hell what you know what's what's this decades 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 three hundred and sixty billion dollars 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 so which wasn't the original deal but ultimately that that's what 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 defense cooperation with you know possible sort of industry flow ones and overall it's also the question about what type of nuclear submarines hinges a lot on what is Australia's defense strategy is the point of the nuclear submarines to defend the coast of Australia from attack or is it to plant a kind of American supported nuclear submarines off the coast of Taiwan and China because for the latter you would need nuclear submarines realistically I mean because of the additional sort of you know power and mileage and that sort of thing and and of course the Pacific is the world's biggest ocean and the distance is a huge and spending conventional boats from Australia all the way to Taiwan would be an you know we would not be practical in a military war situation six to eight nuclear submarines is a north a lot of nuclear submarines I mean I don't think British and all France for example have that number of nuclear submarines of that nature I mean just just just just to make that particular 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 to the top table of global naval now and it's I mean you know now there is now the 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 and as he corrected 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 Australia Labor conservative they both support this program 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 rack 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 all within Australia so it's very much a bipartisan issue and like I mean I I'm not really wanting to comment particularly on sort of domestic Australian politics but it's it's there's opposition in parts of the Labor Party to it indicated by for example Paul Keating the former Labor Prime Minister's outspoken criticism but there's a very strong I guess leadership consensus within the defense security establishment in Australia around the American alliance which it and in a way that's sort of one of the drivers of the decision it's interesting that you talked about the the German example because I mean I think there's really sort of 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 changed world and the response in Australia it has been it's sort of like what we've got to steal the spine of America to keep being primacy you know being being number one there's a very strong belief within I guess defense 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 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 the sort of what Emmanuel Todd talks about in his recent book the defeat of the West sort of decaying sort of leadership culture in many countries around the world and their sort of integration with this sort of you know the sort of post-imperial American sort of system and so that 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 you know 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 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 out 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 had a bit of a tainted history of like a lot of countries of having race-related immigration policy so the sort of white Australia policy which began in like the early 1900s and really continued on till the 1960s so there's some level of that but on the other hand Chinese migration to Australia and indeed 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 where 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 of the British Empire during World War II and that's often seen as you know Britain let us down in our direst need and that was why we switched to America so there's 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 orcas I mean the Australian public didn't have a whole lot to do with the orcas deal it's it's a phenomenon that occurred as a result of you know elite decision makers a very small circle of decision makers people say in Australia the the culture of foreign policy is very dominated by defense and security issues it's very dominated by you know all the network around the American Alliance the five R's 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 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 defense elite 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 is as well as clouded thinking really and this is what Hugh White says in he's artily artily, utterly scathing about the decision and says it's it's it's perhaps our greatest ever defense policy failure and perhaps the greatest defense policy failure anywhere in the world so he's sort of not well not no holds bad there I think he should speak to General Kuyat who's the executive general of the German army because he's saying many of the 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 peace movements in the past there's some very radical Australian journalists that I've known various times John Pilger for example died recently I knew him slightly so what is Australian public opinion how are they talking about them is this a big issue you know 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 are they saying you know we're getting these enormous weapons in 30, 40, 50 years time 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 defense questions are people talking about this at all I mean is this an issue are the protests is the opposition in Australia to this room 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 effiness 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 Rogovine 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 August and and proposes a whole different kind of defense strategy and then there's like there's a publication called Pearls Nieritations that's published by the former kind of head of the prime minister's department in Australia John Menadue 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 the the situation in Gaza there's been like kind of weekly protest marches now in in various mil in Australian cities over the last few months around that so it it has cut through in a way that hasn't perhaps we've focused 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 memories 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 F1 11 fighter jets from the United States about the only country in the end that did as I sort of remember which were in in their day I mean they were you know they were the most complex expensive fighter jets that you could possibly um I seem to recall their flops but they were 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 radicalization so you got you got briefly the goth whittle and government which I'm sure we both remember you got a sort of swing away from some of this and baby and opening up a 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 Emmanuel American Alliance the friendship with the United States by expensive weapons from them getting involved in American quarrels with other countries will there be a backlash one day you think uh look I think it's partly driven by situations that later find themselves in a little bit um I mean there's this terrific book here which is by a guy called James Curran it's 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 British Empire and then in the 1970s I guess there's this period which is when the Whitland 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 the the um float you know 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 um within America uh and Britain is now utterly irrelevant that is by the 1970s pretty much irrelevant and so there is this strong surge to a more uh 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 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 for that and he also I guess repositioned Australia economically to be more of an open trading country and to to you know have the economic complementarity between China and ourselves and uh 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 um but uh even like he he becomes Prime Minister literally like as the Soviet Union collapses in you know at the end of 1991 he pursues a more uh 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 Walker's because he was really the last one who I guess had a 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 through the 90s and early 2000s he he kind of cements the relationship he sort of does a similar thing to I guess what we're doing with Walker's you know the the Twin Towers happens John Howard's in New York at the time and he 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 um I guess more locked in sort of feeling under John Howard then from 2007 there's um the sort of Rudd-Gillard um Rudd governments uh which uh uh you know there's a lot of uh expectations I guess of Kevin Rudd because he you know was a former diplomat he spoke Chinese he knew a lot about uh 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 um on on Australian leaders really to sort of lock in behind that and there really has been a bit of a push uh and throughout that whole time America is sort of kind of had a little bit of a worry that the 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 um but uh and I think that's just gradually increased over time then it's really from about 2015-2016 when things started to get really really um a bit sour and nasty I guess in the relationship between Australia and China because I mean there's uh there's the the that that old dynamic between Australia and in the United States but there's a dispute over a while way there's a dispute over foreign influence there's a range of trade disputes and then the sort of um 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 it gets a little bit um 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 uh 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 um intimidating Australia trying to influence us too much uh and I guess China probably also felt well you know what are all these guns pointed out so I'd have to say I've 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 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 it has there been any pushback from the business community in Australia I mean you know oh look I mean it has been to some degree I mean you know 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's 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 Mearsheimer used to come over here and say well you know America's gonna force you to make a choice 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 there was it was perhaps to one-dimensional 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 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 I've known over my life have done enormous work in that regard but it it 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 these dimensions of the relationship with with all countries and yeah I mean that that sort of goes to what some people you know some of the critics of Orca's 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 buying 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 neighbor 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 see on on the fact that Australia was at one time heavily involved in involving itself in developing Chinese studies and things like that I mean 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 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 I think exact leverage against both that that 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 that's I think it did happen and a lot of people devoted their careers in you know diplomatic and you know academic and bureaucratic careers to to that sort of objective I think to some degree that was definitely the case like with Bob Hawke and Paul Gedding I think to some degree also kind of Malcolm Malcolm Fraser but I think in a way it just comes down to this long intellectual habit or ingrained habit in Australia of for good reasons for believing that being the 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 in some ways I would say that like 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. J. Shankar the Indian external affairs minister talks about India not choosing sides but standing on its own ground and I think we really ought to do that in Australia and and and this is also what some of the critics of August say it's it's it's locking our foreign policy very much into defence strategy rather than Australia being a diplomatic superpower well I mean you know 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 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 power was 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 you know maybe the Australians had interests in becoming involved in those wars but I mean it was a not a decision ultimately made by them and America has its global commitment system 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 and I get to ask it what about the 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 them 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 a second but the so the first question was you know have we thought about the risks of being you know first mate to you know if it committed power look I think a lot of people have I've written a few articles over the last year or so where I sort of compare America to the sort of Moby Dick you know the the story of Moby Dick the captain I had watched revenge against the white whale and he sails his pick with his revenge all around the world and ultimately sinks the ship and I feel at times Australia is caught on the peckwood 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 are 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 you know relatively powerful and influential ally within within you know a kind of a world system so I think it's it's less the sort of general attitudes it's the 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 etc 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 Varghese who was the former head of the Foreign Affairs Department which you can watch on YouTube and probably because John Mearsheimer was involved it's had like 350,000 views I don't think that would have happened with Peter Varghese but it goes to this question I mean Peter Varghese who used to be the head of the Foreign Affairs basically said American primacy is good for Australia so we'd like it to continue so the sort of assessment of the the risks and benefits it is like that amongst amongst many and then Julian Assange you know I don't know awful lot around Julian Assange and I don't know whether he's been sacrificed as you say certainly the 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 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 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 programme I'm going to hand over to Alex I think we honor getting some questions through and there may be some questions you might want to put to you. Cool yeah we have a couple a couple of questions and comments and we will wrap the the live stream up and whatever other questions we have Alexander me and you can can knock them out but Daniel says how about we get our sovereignty back in Australia and get Julian home yeah and Daniel also says we had a great anti anti-war bands and songs that became our Anthem's Midnight Oil, Red Gum, no Australian voices in our music now. 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 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 orcas I'm not sure but yeah he's perhaps symptomatic of this sort of the that 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 and I view the UK Australia and Canada as enemies of the US what do you I guess the question is what what are your thoughts about Australia's involvement in the election the 2020 election Alexander downer or that downing yeah that was the 2016 election just was the 2016 yeah the 2016 election yeah I was 2016 yeah well all of that what do you make of Australia I think it's all yeah all relative yeah what do you make of of Australia's connections 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 I need to see that okay but Alexander downer was the foreign affairs the foreign minister for Australia through the Howard government from 96 I think to 2007 it's like 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 the odd meeting with George Papadopoulos that played a role in Russia gate and I don't know if he's ever really commented or really been asked terribly much within Australia about that so I don't know maybe you should invite him on to the train one day all right uh Jeff thank you very much for joining us on this live stream I have your uh yeah 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 and I have your I have your information your youtube channel and your sub stack in the description box down below and I will add it as a pinned comment as well can I just add one quick uh so I've just I think I've just put up on my youtube channel a podcast I did back in 2021 actually a week or so after Orca's was announced it goes into a lot more detail about the decision and foreign policy and the I guess the history of foreign policy in Australia some people might want to take that one out in particular all right definitely check it out check out Jeff's youtube channel check out Jeff's sub stack Jeff Rich thank you very much for joining us thank you all right Alexander let's uh let's go through some of the remaining questions and we'll wrap up this this live stream uh Robert thank you for that super sticker Nick thank you for that super sticker Christian thank you for that super sticker um let's see here Nico says I replayed the OG MW3 and when Makarov was talking about how Russia will take over all of Europe I realized of Vladimir Makarov is based on Vladimir Putin the entire war war is Newlands fantasy they treat war as a video game right I have to say I this I I'm not familiar with this it it looks as if you're talking about some fictional character in some novel or film or something or video game uh which I'm not I'm not familiar with but yes an awful lot of fiction is getting mixed up with facts I've met this point many times myself people have a mythological view on the other side of the Russians especially and um these distorts are understanding of facts and of their policies I think that is absolutely correct I'm not going to pretend I know uh specifically what you're referring to the you know the the um obvious the the work of fiction that you're referring to that yeah sparkly says for your science sparkly says go yep in fact the power sparkly says do not fight Israel sparkly says build a better world for bricks mm-hmm four or five super chats and a row from sparky um let's see sparky also says uh 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 we're fairly close to Australia here and it has always had a sort of radical edge even you know the sort of late period of the British Empire late 19th early 20th century there were always people in Australia who were kicking back in some kind of ways because you know 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 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 conformist as society as many people imagine yeah Lou Reed take a walk on the wild side Robert thank you thank you for that uh that membership to the direct community Elsa says take you gentlemen and jungle jin says hard to see Australia's anything but a vassal we've been involved in every US military adventure most of which had nothing to do uh with ours 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 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 uh you know declarations of war and the British just assumed so that the estate Australians would loyally follow and sure enough they did it's astonishing given that by this point Australia was already to a great extent uh you know an independent state where they 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 nervous of you know concerned and reflection from the Australian people about the way in which they were committed especially you know after you know disasters like gleefully and that kind of thing yeah jungle jin also says no one is kicking back in ours not against the US yeah all right thank you jungle jin all right uh that is uh sparky says I grew with Alexander as for historical Australia goes but not of late yeah thank you for that sparky that is that is everything Alexander um i'm just going to ask you one quick question and then we're going to sign off and it has to do with macaron yeah and his statements you know Alexander what do you make of macaron's statements about NATO troops or or EU troops possibly entering uh into the conflict in Ukraine your thoughts well i think it is first of all the symptom of panic i mean they 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 urgent meeting to the alize ballast brought people from you know all 20 countries to come along and attend um people who are panicking do incredibly reckless and dangerous things and i have to say i'm not at all surprised that it is macaron 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 uh days ago about this talk about setting up this iron triangle of uh fortified cities on the nipra 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 nipra or somewhere else so i i could just quite easily see the political leaders in france germany the 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 do this but and the pola farad minister i think it's also sorry erad exegorsky and you know poland score really they were really got them you know massive protests on the borders with uh um ukraine farmers protesting it isn't just apparently farmers people of poland right across poland are becoming angry and you know they're flying uh saw it flags and fitting up pictures of pooting 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 and think that mac brom in his panic is talking for a very strong sentiment very strongly felt in brottles 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 could possibly imagine they are 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 they've 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 um mac brom we were looking at to him before the war started to impart some sense i think with this from this affair we can see what a dangerous man he actually is now russia has 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 uh do something and um and definitely the EU is is panicking i think this goes back to uh the the video that i'll have up today where we discuss tom lung goes article and it goes back to to the preservation of europe and trying to keep europe afloat and it goes back to the war bonds and the euro bonds and and i think that's that's why you see the europeans really panicking at the the collapse of project Ukraine absolutely i mean i think 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 um 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 it's this these are the how the decisions are being made at the moment i just want one last point which is of course that for macron to be panicking in this way and you know 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 uh uh know about so just just just think of that too yeah just a final comment and we'll sign 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 in a week or in a month but it does it does feel like uh things are accelerating and and i kind of have this sense of uh you know when i listen to to zalensky and and all the people around him i do have this type of bag that bob type of rhetoric sense that that's coming out of them where where they're talking up a big game but they're they're done for i mean that i don't know if you have the same type of absolutely type of feeling about what's what's happening and i'm 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 no i mean i absolutely hate this uh power you know this uh uh you metaphor that people use about the russian steve roller okay all the way back to the first world war by the way but that is what we are now starting to see in ukraine the russians are just driving forward and of course they didn't expect this the western powers for 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 um they'll see 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 you can see this literally the the situation now is changing finally the hour and you know a Baghdad bulb 31 000 dead ukraine i mean really i mean if that is not if that is not an example of that what what what is um what one final question about the uk a lord cameron lord cameron he was at the meeting with macaron it is the uk in any position to to send troops to to ukraine or west ukraine or anything like that well he can send troops but he can't send many troops and he can't send many tanks and um the 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 planes work and there aren't even enough pilots to fly those so you know i mean that there are probably 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 unease that now exists and which has been spreading for a long time oh you don't see ukraine in flags in front of houses as you used to you know uh 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 colman's yeah all right and always keep in mind this is macaron 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 that feet so the slob act leader called him out and what do you mean i mean he he he he he he disclosed yeah this is macaron's thinking even before macaron uh actually went ahead and said it yeah yeah absolutely yeah because feet are said he's not going to have any any part of any type of intervention incursion into ukraine obviously our bond is not going to have any part of it hungry is not going to have any part of it so you'd already mentioned pulling it's got all these issues uh with the with the border and the farmers um i don't know if you saw the images at the eu headquarters the the other day with the farmers i mean absolutely i mean this could break if they do this it will break the eu that's my in personal view i mean you know assuming we get through it with that world war three breaking out then the most likely outcome of it will be that it will break the eu if if the eu starts committing european troops to fight in ukraine then as i said it's the one thing that would galvanize the entire european public against it and it ends in disaster well um i can't see how the you could get out of it but panicky frightened angry people they do all sorts of crazy things and i agree you know macaron says one thing one day it's something completely different the next uh rafael legon they says german chancellor's just said no nato in ukraine i've just seen that but 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 bear back 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 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 you know i've been doing it they really didn't believe that it would i mean we mustn't take all of this series i think gizzes said they're panicking and this is a sign of panic yeah and a sign of how bad the situation on the ground actually is but it's very dangerous merely raising these ideas is very dangerous and let's hope that calmer saina heads step in and stop this uh taking us where it seems to be going yeah i could also be macaron uh threatening the united states in macaron's own way you know either either you give us a 61 billion or we're going to go in so he may be trying to threaten the uh well the house in in mic charts you know which mic charts will have to call his bluff well absolutely well i mean that's the kind of absurd over complicated thinking that macaron likes it's entirely false but i mean you know if if he thinks that he can intimidate people like like johnson i mean that he's an absolute fool but then macaron is exactly that he's a very clever man who deep down is really a fool i mean that's that's the consistent reality macaron uh uh throughout his presidency Jupiter a little mopolian all right i believe he's popular he's down about 17 percent i mean we are maybe he's running away from farmers i mean that's a good idea all right any any final thoughts i would say and we'll sign off for today no i mean you know just to go back to what gibberish was saying i mean the parallels would be germany and uh australia are striking and again you see the the the nervousness of some people in these countries that they want to show their loyalty to america and to not to to 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 so you know to see things in terms of their own countries interests and that's the that's what 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 disagree and challenging the policy 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