Realpolitik by no means precludes the possibility of decisions, of action, bound by assumed morality or accepted ethics; but it assumes that such things are derivative, not foundational. Realpolitik does not prevent a selfless act, but would construe it as an indirect act of self-interest; and likewise mutual benefit as an ancillary or tangential result that benefits the acting party in the short or long term, directly or indirectly. Being the tallest tree is the goal, but it is obvious such a tree may prefer to be amongst other trees, not a sole pillar in a desert.
AUKUS is a trilateral arrangement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. One, the former coloniser and head of state; the other current suzerain ("owner"). Australia finds itself in an unsual part of the world as an Anglosphere nation with Commonwealth heritage; a prosperous off-shoot in many ways from Great Britain, and in stark contrast to its Asian neighbourhood, a group of relatively new nations, the majority of which were previously subject to British and European colonialism. However, thanks to sustained and modern forms of exploitation and resource and wealth extraction, many Asian nations are finding serious economic success; and Asia certainly appears to be the economic hub of the future thanks largely to China, Japan and South Korea. It should be no surprise then that Australia, given its geographic importance, is being re-appraised by both the US and the UK, as they both desperately attempt to shore up what economic and political potential remains, despite squandering such obvious leads and positions of success.
AUKUS is driven by the US as it simultaneously retreats from the role of "World Police" but is not an acquiescence to its position of global hegemony, merely a shift in the paradigm. It recgonises that cementing global reach must be increasingly less expansively militaristic and more political and economic. America is structurally challenged, and without dramatically re-shaping the economy, it will simply grind to a halt; it's already on the precipice of a criminogenic empire, led by a profligate autocrat who is allowing the state to be looted to the last dollar. AUKUS, and other recent American policies, have all been about reshaping its economic and political levers – if there's one thing America understands, it is business. By continuing to maintain its position as a massive economic magnet it can sustain for some time yet economic control which gives it real pull technically and technologically and thus slowing its decline, but never averting it. America is a failing state, but what many critics fail to admire, is that, it can spend a lot longer in the process of failure before any real collapse. Likewise, what is not considered beyond the inevitable presumption are alternative mechanisms to avert collapse – nothing rallies a nation like an external enemy and a patriotic sentiment.
America is a Realpolitik nation and always has been; its activity and actions have always served its own interests first and foremost. From the United Nations to the "Global Rules Based Order" to its persistent disregard for the international systems it established and expects others to adhere to; it permits itself special status, and to their credit, have long been able to bankroll such exemptions with its immense military power. America has always cast itself as the land of freedom, the champion of peace and propserity; and any criticism should not deny that plenty of good has followed America; Realpolitik does not exclude mutual or tangential benefit – but what it does highlight with exceptional clarity is the why and how, and that is, American power. A nation is just like an organism, survival is in its interest, and America is a predatory and dangerous organism that wants to make sure it alone occupies the apex. When considering the good America has done, one must never exclude the counterfactual, or the many – there is no reason things could not be different, the world we are in is the one that has been carefully crafted by choice; it could be much worse, and, it could certainly be much better.
So where does that bring us to on AUKUS?
Well. First and foremost AUKUS is an economic agreement; huge amounts of economic resources are being extracted from Australia and flowing to the US and the UK to prop up the stagnant and dysfunctional economics, in particular, their military industry, to help ensure that both nations can retain serious military advantage and leverage in the decades to come. The involvement of the UK should be construed as an American design. The UK nuclear arsenal is subject to significant management by the US; the US has a conventional presence on UK territory; and the UK is friendly "Five Eyes" Anglosphere nation with land mass and resources on the other side of the Atlantic. Maintaining control of the UK, is maintaining a foothold in Europe, one the US desperately needs given the extent to which it has voluntarily dispossessed itself of NATO.
Australia equally fits this bill. Marine rotations in Darwin. Pine Gap Defence Facility^. Space Telescopes and Submarine Communication Networks and JORN. B-2 visits and soon-to-be nuclear submarine base, in Perth. America has immense conventional presence across Australia, and this presence is only expanding. By ensuring the ADF mirrors the American forces, it ensure that Australian facilities neatly provide for an American presence, small or large.
^ "Australia is not only a beneficiary of the US policy of extended nuclear deterrence, it is an active supporter of it..."
AUKUS is a particularly crucial step in this, because the Anglosphere is the last bastion of legitimate, potential allies – and the UK as the second largest of these is in desperate need of support too. Australia, unlike Guam, is a far more secure foothold into Asia, particularly for strategic staging. It is a much larger land-mass, much further away from China – not immune to kinetic strikes, but the risk level is significantly lower. Its large continental land mass means supplies shipped in across the Indian or Pacific ocean are basically guaranteed to arrive, as no nation could feasibly police so much blue water and interdict successfully that much commercial shipping; least of all without creating enemies of a few dozen other nations.
Unfortunately, access for conventional forces, and economic exploitation are merely secondary goals of AUKUS for America. Its true aim, is nuclear proliferation.
Not proliferation of nuclear-propulsion. Proliferation of the American nuclear umbrella. The sublime goal of America is the staging, basing and operationlisation of the American nuclear arsenal from the continent of Australia. By entrenching Australia under the nuclear umbrella, it permanently binds Australia to America's future. America already bases weapons abroad as a part of NATO, and there is no reason to assume it will not stage weapons out of Australia either.
Firstly, B-2 Spirit bombers are already regularly hosted by Australia. B-52s have routinely participated in exercises historically too. Australia, despite being a signatory for nuclear non-proliferation, simply chooses to operate on a "don't ask, don't tell policy".
Secondly, whilst some might claim that that rotational nuclear-submarines at Perth are only attack class (SSN); most people have failed to acknowledge that America has already committed to arming these submarines with tactical nuclear weapons. There's also nothing stopping America adding SSBNs to the roster later down the road.
In both cases, the pretense is already there, and America will, in a "time of crisis" push the envelope and allow further normalisation of the presence of nuclear-capable (and nuclear-armed) assets on Australian territory.
Of course, what choice does Australia have? Well, like New Zealand historically did, it could just say no. But Australia being entirely subservient to US interests has chosen alignment under the US nuclear umbrella, entirely without the consent of its citizens and only with the meekest acknowledgement^ by the Australian Government. American nuclear weapons make Australia not just a significant target for conventional attack, but bring it into the realm of nuclear victim too. This is doubly convenient for America, for it might in future conflict incite lower-level nuclear exchange from forward positions such as Guam, Diego Garcia and Australia, whilst ensuring the homeland remains free from radioactive craters in return.
^ "For Australia, the best protection against the increasing risk of nuclear escalation remains United States’ extended nuclear deterrence..."
Australia's position is worsened by its lack of capacity to seriously monitor, track and engage ballistic missiles in self-defence; let alone modern cruise missiles, sea-launched strikes or a variety of hypersonic weapons including hypersonic glide-vehicles (HGVs). There are some niche arguments that might be had with respect to this, but the practical resolution does not change. Australia is terribly positioned to enter into a nuclear-umbrella arrangement, because it will have no control over nuclear exchange and even less opportunity to defend itself. It has placed all of its trust in America. Truly the worst decision possible.
Some might argue that such a position is necessary in a dangerous world. If such a position was necessary, why would Australia not just acquire its own, sovereign, nuclear weapons. Make no mistake, nuclear proliferation is coming. Russia and America have violated a lot of sovereignty of late; a stark reminder of the reality of might and Realpolitik potential. Any nation interested in long-term survival needs to recgonise where the status quo sits:
In my view, what most theorists miss about the nuclear deterrence model is that the most critical element of have nuclear weapons is not using them. If Russia uses nuclear weapons on Ukraine, the only honest and real response, is nuclear disarmament of Russia, by force if necessary, no matter the cost. Nuclear weapons exist to prevent the end of the state; any nation will therefore, logically, not risk the end of an adversary, nuclear-armed, state. Thus, any use beyond that (i.e. never) implies a breakdown of trust that is unrecoverable. I suspect many may speculate to say that "tactical" nuclear weapons used on Ukraine would not result in a major NATO response; be that as it may, it does not mean that is the correct response. NATO has already failed to resist Russian aggression twice in Ukraine (2014, 2022), and there is only more horror in store for Europe for failing to acknowledge the terrifying necessity of facing that threat.
It is likely we will see genuine nuclear proliferation in the future, no thanks to America, also. Deals with Saudi Arabia act as a precusor, and both Japan and South Korea are prime candidates for their own weapons; or at least nuclear-sharing agreements with the US. Japan's militaristic jingoism and South Korea's pursuit of nuclear-propulsion are strong signals in either case. Scandinavian countries have mulled over a joint arrangement or pan-European access; and Berlin is sponsoring German access through the UK.
What should never be ignored, least of all for the Australian people, is the true aim of AUKUS. Australia has never volunteered, and the Australian people were never questioned on their desire, to be under the US nuclear umbrella. These developments under AUKUS are an inflection point from which Australia may never escape; and can have deleterious consequences in the future as the US spirals into further deranged and unstable adventures. Thucydides trap was doing the rounds quite heavily a few years ago, and it might just be correct, not because it is, but because the US will be searching for convenient excuses in the not too distant future. Such convenient excuses will inevitably rope Australia in, and future global conflagration might have far more catastrophic consequences if Australia is substantively and in-effect, a nuclear state, thanks to American presence. Australia has abandoned any sovereignty in the matter and that is a failure of Government that should not be tolerated.
This is where Realpolitik leads us on AUKUS and its true aims; the subtlely couched and the obvious that is not stated. Such a framework facilitates a more rigorous review of the landscape from boundary to boundary, permits no assumptions and investigates with dispassionate intensity all that might be before us. We might ultimately draw conclusions that will not come to pass; but that does not mean we have drawn false conclusions. The premises presented here are entirely feasible, irrespective of their moral colour. Of course, we must always update our premises, and re-evaluate a changing world, but, I think we may yet see more confirmation to come of such a thesis. Denying the simple reality of American encroachment and control vis a vis AUKUS is simply dishonest. Arguments in favour of that such a course of action is correct are horifically dishonest, and other choices exist for Australia. We can be absolutely certain that other choies exists; and that does not mean denying any real uncertainty or the precarious nation of international affairs, but embracing an authentic desire to solve the problem and implementing genuine solutions. This will not be possible as long as AUKUS exists. This will not be possible until we acknowledge our subservient dynamic with America.
]]>But, the hypocrisy is a cancer, and it has metastasised. There is no saving the organisation now. Make no mistake, Defence has many wonderful human beings amongst its ranks – but it is not enough. I understand that you do not believe me – let us begin.
On 19 November 2020, Defence announced the release of the Inspector-General of the ADF Afghanistan Inquiry – led by a man of questionable integrity, Major General Paul Brereton. This was the day Government and Military leadership cemented their hypocrisy and certified it beyond doubt.
When you commence a career in Defence, particularly an officer career, you are taught many things about leadership – one of the crucial aspects of command taught is that a commander has authority, and responsibility. You are taught that authority can be delegated, but never responsibility. This inalienable aspect of integrity is necessary to provide leaders the privilege of command, to facilitate their authority to kill, and send others to their death. Without integrity, the military does not and cannot function. You do not need to take my word for it, this has long been baked into Defence’s own leadership philosophy and doctrine.
The Afghanistan Inquiry formally broke this. It permanently suspended the notion that leadership was responsible. It propped up the case that somehow, in the far-away Middle East, all of the things leaders are, were, should be, responsible for, did not apply. This is not to excuse the obvious wrongdoings of the soldiers – but anyone who understands this, knows that the leadership created, systematically, and intentionally, an environment where such events were guaranteed to occur if alone by circumstance, and more likely, by covert licence. Leadership failed the soldiers in how it managed deployments, in how it managed people, in how it managed missions, in how it supported operations, in how it enabled people, and in how it willingly turned a blind eye to many, many things. Defence leaders today, and for some time, have been sophisticated bureaucrats – they know what to know, what to admit, what to put in writing – they know which discussions need to be had in private – and what needs to follow in the email afterwards, the politically correct stuff that may one day be found by FOI request.
The Afghanistan Inquiry is only one of many reviews Defence has been subject to – in the past two decades or so, they also underwent the Grey Review and the Broderick review – and yet , ADFA undergraduates just can’t stop committing crimes against women. The basic issue of facilitating even the most essential level of protection for women is so severe, and so incapable of being managed, that Defence is subject to a class-action lawsuit by thousands current and former serving women. Defence is not a safe place for women, because it is not a safe place for people. What many will not understand is that senior Defence leadership tends to despise its own people, and more importantly, they are feckless cowards who will do anything to preserve their own careers and hurriedly iron-out problems. This does not mean they act to resolve issues correctly, but merely to extricate problems as cleanly as possible to create the facade of a flawless complexion; regardless of whether anything has been achieved at all.
Defence consistently markets itself as an exciting and interesting place to work, that people are its focus, its highest priority, and its most cherished capability. One must wonder why then, a Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is required to get leadership to treat people with a shred of dignity. There is no need to excuse or reform the policy however – the policy itself is there, it is robust – the issue is, that the people in command simply do not care. Defence has all the tools – it would just rather that you killed yourself^. If you do manage to escape, or survive, Defence will do anything for its Veterans, as long as its within budget.
^ “The risks were obvious and known to Defence through existing policies and guidelines. These policies can only ever mitigate risk if they are applied and followed in practice, and if they are supported by training those responsible for implementing them”
Defence commentary is always propaganda, with major work being invested in creating the social licence for immense amounts of government expenditure in a "dangerous and uncertain world". If things are so dangerous right now, why are nuclear submarines in the 2030s and 2040s the solution for today? If things are so complex, why has Defence so constantly thinned out and reduced training to its people. Every part of Defence has seen a hollowing out of its training, with examples abundant: most Western Fighter pilots are flying well below hours-flown relative to Chinese Fighter Pilots – and capability sustainment and readiness rates are struggling everywhere from Collins-class submarines to the persistently dysfunctional LHDs (with a heathy dose of corruption). The entire Defence portfolio has been heaving for many years now in ineffectual agony; the antithesis of everything it is supposed to be on the label. Defence is not training its people to succeed; not investing in getting the right amount of training; and critically, unable to actually spend money in any manner that generates tangible results, or cost-effective outcomes, in essentially any domain. It is obvious that any reduction in training is counterintuitive in an environment of increasing complexity and uncertainty. Such a plain contradiction, of word relative to action, is one of the most observable examples of the consistent dishonesty in which Defence leadership engages the public and the extent to which Government, constantly misreprsents the readiness and capacity of the nation's military.
Such issues can never be addressed whilst the hypocrisy lives in every action and every deed. Defence consistently sells itself as a fair and equitable organisation. But elitism is baked into its payscales – fighter pilots are paid the highest tier within the Officer Aviation Payscale, separate from the ordinary payscale most plebs and regular officers find themselves on. We are all in it together, but some people are more equal than others. You would not think this possible in an organisation of “service” and “sacrifice” but these intangible things apparently do not hold up in reality against competitive remuneration in the real world. If these competitive pay-incentives were sufficient, why is it always in, or on the buffet of, a retention and recruitment crisis? Defence has constantly hollowed out pay and benefits for its people – Defence Housing benefits have tended to fall well below inflationary requirements, and superannuation has been consistently downgraded (the legacy pension scheme, to MSBS, to now just ordinary public-service superannuation).
It is partly that Defence is never satisfied in the way it mistreats some, and gilds others – fighter pilots are already the best paid personnel in the ADF, and certainly have the best conditions overall. You would think flying the most magnificent machines man has ever built would be enough, but, fighter pilots are just ordinary and sometimes greedy people. Defence is happy to self-inflict its retention woes, for one need only look at the F-35 Simulator Contracts in Williamtown to understand the very peculiar manner in which full-time (SERCAT7) instructor pilots were allowed to reduce their working rate to part-time (SERCAT5) so they could pick up instructor roles, contracting, doing the exact same work they would have already been doing (or could have been doing in uniform, full-time) whilst also staying flying. Such a crossover is effectively non-existent in any military because of the obvious conflicts of interest; particularly given the financial incentives of contracting whilst engaged in enduring participation in classified programs; and the underlying loss-of-control the organisation has on someone once they leave the uniform (even partly). No doubt senior leadership in Air Combat Group sold this as an efficiency; but it is just double-dipping at the expense of the taxpayer.
It should be clear by now that Defence leadership is a perpetual paradox – the MRH-90 Taipan incident has been an apt, and horrifying look, into the culture in Defence for many outside the veil. One important thing to understand is that the risks associated with aviation, with any part of Defence business, are “held”, that is, signed off for operational approval by senior leadership. Many senior commanders talk about the “risk they hold”. Indeed, hold quite loosely – since none have even been held to account when risks are realised. There are some important lessons to be learned about systemic factors and human factors – but the buck must stop somewhere; someone signed off on something that sent those men to their death. What’s the value of the signature if there is no consequence; we could just replace all these people and their signatures with rubber stamps and save quite a bit on senior leadership salary, no doubt. Here is Dan Davies Fundamental Law of Accountability from his book The Unaccountability Machine
The extent to which you are able to change a decision is precisely the extent to which you can be accountable for it, and vice versa.
The Taipan crash and the lack of accountability makes me furious, so let me enlighten you further. Talisman Sabre is a huge exercise; flying during this exercise is often one of the most exhausting experiences an aviator can have because of the intensity over several weeks. The entire Aviation Safety Framework in Defence, and honestly, globally, is built on a human factors model – machines are well understood, and redundant – and assuming companies like Boeing don’t design machines to fail – the machines should fail and degrade gracefully; and only in the most truly impossible circumstances will things occasionally go wrong in a way that is or was beyond feasible human management. Almost all aviation incidents today are human factors related – the squishy, fleshy, perfectly fallible operator, maintainer or engineer. Defence builds its entire safety model on the precept that their “humans perform at the required standard and therefore nothing will go wrong” – and this applies equally to those operating the platforms as it does to those who maintain them. Well.
Given the serious issues with the Top Owl helmet – that instrumentation critical for attitude flying would spontaneously be in error during certain head movements – alone should have been enough to recognise it as not fit for purpose. Safety protocols, like memory-immediate action drills and recovery actions require instinctive recognition and reaction by the pilot to preserve the aircraft. So a heavily fatigured MRH-90 pilot is already under further stress owing to their duties; adding in the inherent complexities of formation flying, low flying and night flying – then human factors model is already at, if not beyond, its limit. When something inevitably goes wrong, a pilot reacts; but the Top Owl is permitted to give the pilot the wrong information. A pilot will either then be disorientated, delaying the correct response or inputting the incorrect response; or input the perceived correct response based on the incorrect, but instintive, parsing of the data available. Layer on fatigue, layer on mission compelxity, layer on degraded situational awareness; was such a flight ever within the risk tolerance? Was such an outcome really surprising? People are dead because of the apathy endemic to Defence leadership, that desperation in command to "perform" no matter the cost or consequences. Where is the person who signed off, who "held the risk"; it is easy to sign off on anything when you will never be held accountable – either in court, or by reality itself.
This is the tip, of the tip, of the iceberg. Defence never publicly acknowledged the Australia Day 2019 near-miss controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) of the C-130 in Sydney – and the fact the crew flew a second mission that day, even though it happened in plain sight during a display. The F/A-18F Super Hornet ejection in 2020 had over a year-long precursor of degradation in standards and performance, exacerbated seriously by demanding and unreasonable leadership – for which they were also, in-effect, exonerated of any contribution by the investigation. As is only natural of course. I do not think Defence has ever explained why the M1A1 tanks it sent to Ukraine, that it never used, needed to be replaced by M1A2 tanks, it also never intends to use. Who knows, Defence has no Plan B for submarines, but if you never intend to use them, I suppose contingencies are not required. Accountability is just word. Accounting is merely a financial process.
The Australian Government will never tell you so many things, so many public, obvious things. I do not decry the keeping of real state secrets – technical secrets, intelligence, espionage – the things it needs to keep secret. The Government wants no accountability and so it simply chooses not keep records (a different department, but it is official Defence policy to use Signal) – I suppose that makes it easier to reject FOI requests, if nothing exists. But that resistance to transparency and the cloak of secrecy espoused as necessary on the pretext of “National Defence and Security” is so broad and all-encompassing that, that I suspect soon, even the air you and I breath will be classified or redacted under such a premise – anything and everything is a threat to an institution that knows it is wrong. It is the pathway to dictatorships, of all kinds.
But the unassailable position of hypocrisy that Defence has built for itself, is its own doing and undoing. People sense it. People feel it. People know it. It is death by a thousand cuts. I fear the next phase though, partly because many more are likely do die in the interim unnecessarily and partly because it is hard to believe there is a peaceful or optimistic resolution to this. Defence will have to come clean sooner or later on many things – the impotence of the military, its lack of strategy, its subservience to American doctrine, technology and goals – its mountains and fields and continents of failure slowly cobbled together over decades of dishonesty and illusion. If it does not seek reform during a period of peace, it will be a horrifying revelation in a time of conflict. War is the most honest device; tragic, unnecessary, wholly undesirable; but it is so abrupt, frank and direct that it simply cannot be ignored, it bears no excuses and disregards all pleas. This is not a homage to war, but a recognition that it is an unstoppable force against anything with even a hint of fallibility.
There is no fixing nor reforming Defence, not from the inside. I strongly suggest, if you are considering a job in uniform, to reconsider. Do not join the ADF. Perhaps one day it will resonate with all the pretenses it currently claims, but that is a distant future. Joining the uniform is accepting the hypocrisy. Becoming a member of the ADF is take on the mantle of contradiction. Your talents are of value – and you are of value – so go make a real difference somewhere else.
Until then, let the hypocrisy fester. Every tumour eventually kills its host. We will know the day when Defence is ready for change.
]]>Modern Australia is a country of perpetual exploitation, from the First Nations people to its stately duties in service of its motherland, Great Britain, and since World War II, the United States of America. It is a nation used by others; for resources, for political clout, for geography, for human capital. It possess nothing of particular importance, other than being an Anglosphere nation in a particularly unique, and currently important, part of the world.
The Australian Defence Force ('Defence') is more marketing than military, an obvious cut-out of of the American military, designed entirely to be a neat, detachable sub-component mirroring American equipment, technology and doctrine. Australia does not deny America is its closest ally, but it does constantly deny that it has not lost its sovereignty in such matters. The ADF itself is an equally hilarious political bureaucracy that spends more time on reputation management than actually building a solid reputation; and whose people must exist in a state of permanent existential crisis because of the obvious reality of its purpose.
The ADF knows that it is not a real military, and cannot do, real military things. At best it recognises, that any real military action it undertakes is purely at the discretion of the United States. The ADF, therefore, is predominantly an important piece of political theatre and economic policy, to shore up political confidence and win votes. The Australian Government, obviously, is not concerned with the defence of Australia, because they know, they are defended by America. But they recognise that the military represents an important tool with which they can direct and misdirect public attention and cultivate favour amongst the public.
That the Australian Government, would never, of course, acknowledge Australia as modern vassal or protectorate state of the US is entirely unsurprising. But not acknowledging it, does not make it untrue. Claims to its prowess as a "Middle Power" are equally performative given it struggles to even sustain influence over a handful of impoverished pacific-island nations which nobody as any interest in. Beyond that, who is Australia influencing in the world? More ironically, Canada, a northern Commonwealth mirror-state to Australia, apparently has more political and economic capacity to resist the US in the face of invasion threats and aggressive trade-wars despite literally being a prime target for an actual invasion due to geography. Apparently half a world away is not enough for Australia to resist, even at the margins US preference and direction.
Adherence to the American vision is paramount for Australia, and little else can be expected from a country of third-rate leadership devoid of integrity or imagination.
It is important to explore and disassemble the narrative that the Australian Government (of all colours) and Defence has painfully attempteed to construct. It should be obvious by the end of this process, that Australia, is not a nation for Autralians.
]]>A full account of the state of play in Venezuela is not necessary. It is fairly obvious the country, like many Central and South American nations is entirely questionable in its constitution, organisation and operation – Maduro just another character in the never-ending play. Although worth pondering, if narcotics is such a big issue – why was a small-fish like Maduro targeted? And; given that America is plainly happy to routinely act extra-judicially and violate sovereignty of other nations – why bother with the legal aspects at all?
What is interesting is why such a bold operation occurred only in Jan 2026?
On 27 Feb 26, barely two months later, despite all the experts agreeing Iran’s nuclear potential has been obliterated, President Donald J. Trump announced the commencement of Operation Epic Fury. This operation, given a name one might only imagine possible in schoolboy fiction, is still ongoing, prompting global intervention in energy markets. OPEC nations were already looking to accelerate production despite anticipated energy price declines – and now they compelled to continue responding to the supply shock as oil prices stay high. China has been an important lever reducing oil demand to help offset some of this supply constraint – and thanks it is intense domestic policy of energy independence.
Venezuela only produces in the vicinity of ~1m barrels per day of oil, compared to a US production rate of around ~14m barrels per day at this current time. Thanks to the US operations in Iran, one might think Venezuela has some extra cash coming in. Well, where is the money? (Patrick Boyle’s explainer is also great). And of course, Venezuelan oil is being processed in America.
One cannot help but wonder, did the USA delay operations against Maduro, until it was sufficiently positioned to capitalise on resource extraction and exploitation, choosing a moment when they would themselves, artificially drive up the price of oil, by attacking an already beleaguered Iran, and subsequently refuse to achieve any normalisation of maritime traffic in the critical Strait of Hormuz. Is it merely coincidence that America secured unilateral access to Venezuelan oil just prior to a major (American-inflicted) global oil shock to help buffer the imminent impact on US strategic petroleum reserves?
America has always been a self-interested, realpolitik nation. It should come as no surprise that America uses its military to achieve political and economic aims. It has, and always has, attempted to stay ahead through the intimidation, subjugation and destruction of other nations – or in the case of the Middle East, a constant and unending source of rationale for injecting government money into the Military-Industrial Complex to ensure its military remains the largest and most sophisticated on the planet; as well as expanding control over its own population and across the globe. America pioneered the digital surveillance state, and has always been ahead of the pack despite typical assertions on China.
You can see this behaviour directed not only at adversaries, but also friends (who are in fact, actually adversaries too in the view of America). America has actively decried NATO despite the immense access benefits the Europeans have provided for American power, both conventional and nuclear. But NATO has increased spending significantly – and plenty of that on American technology. America’s “closest ally”, Australia, is also not quite cutting the mustard. Apparently Pine Gap, a nuclear submarine base, and unfettered access to the continent are entirely insufficient. Even Oman, who helped the US pioneer earlier deals on nuclear proliferation with Iran (), is on its way out of the friendship circle.
Geopolitics, amongst the general study of international relations and strategy is particularly interesting, and perhaps most salient because we live in the real world – no matter the ideas, the culture, the philosophy of any people or nation, they need real things to survive and thrive, to manifest their desires, wants and whims in reality. Where a country is, and where the things it wants or intends to acquir or effect are, is crucially important, and the physical distance and other barriers and hurdles in the physical world make the means and ends interesting to analyse and evaluate.
What I find most interesting though, is that, what is happening is many ways entirely mundane. The world is quite an uninteresting place in many ways given the largely myopic economic paradigm estabilshed and heavily managed and filtered discourse in which we find ourselves entrenched. There are indeed, many interesting things happening, but most people remain entirely unaware, apathetic, or intentionally disinterested. From this follows my real interest – why are so many so ignorant, or willing be be so ignorant or inattentive? Is it really choice? Are people genuinely choosing to accept things the way they are in the world? Do not get me wrong, not every single person is like this, but the lack of authentic thought, rigorous contemplation and genuine action is certainly concerning – it truly is an almost-impossibility that America, from its philosophical birthplace is now lead by a dementia-riddled autocrat, convicted criminal, and nation-state level gangster. It is not just that it occurs, is occurring, but that the entire bureaucracy of America and its population writ large is simply permitting it, enabling it, facilitating it.
And it all happens in plain sight. There is no reason it cannot be stopped. But perhaps this is is evidence of widespread acceptance that corruption is merely the way of the world now; why be good when only cheats prosper? This is the world we’ve built over decades and it is difficult to assess any path forward out of it that is achievable and feasible. Particularly since almost all of this occurs publicly; that responsibility and accountability have been abandoned entirely, even in pretense; and that almost no effort at all is made to conceal the conncetions, the actions, the activity so it really is possible to know all details. And yet.
Australian Defence Industry is a superb example of modern corruption – that a social network engages in a confluence of activity, that ultimately benefits them, under the guise of public good, pilfering from the taxpayer. It is right there. It always has been.
What to do? I will need to write, at least for a while. And then, maybe do some other things.
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