America is amusing itself to death — and the media still can't face the truth

Chauncey Devega, Salon
October 04, 2021



America remains in the grip of an existential democracy crisis: Donald Trump's Republican-fascists and their movement are on the march, winning victory after victory while the Democrats and the "resistance" are hunkered down, doing little if anything to fight back.

Yet the gatekeepers among the American news media appear more interested in stories about Nicki Minaj's cousin's possibly imaginary friend, who supposedly suffered swollen testicles because of the coronavirus vaccine — supposedly damaging his marital prospects — than in doing the hard work of advocating for democracy and real accountability.

America is literally amusing itself to death, even as we learn further details about how Donald Trump and his agents attempted a coup to overthrow American democracy after his defeat in the 2020 election. The newest "revelation": Step-by-step plans for this coup were outlined in a memo written by right-wing lawyer John Eastman, who became a key Trump adviser during the latter days of his presidency.

Some of the most influential voices in America's mainstream news media — with the notable exceptions of CNN and the Washington Post — have largely ignored this story. At Mother Jones, Tim Murphy offers these details of Eastman's memo, and the media's non-response:
In six concise bullet-points, the memo outlined a process by which Vice President Mike Pence could use his powers on January 6 to throw out the electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won in the 2020 election. The plan counted on Republicans in those states to submit competing sets of electors, based on the false and fabricated premise that Trump had somehow won those states … .
Not knowing for sure what happens when you dissociate "peaceful transfer of power" from "a society entirely predicated on it," I sort of think this is a pretty big deal. This is a break-the-glass moment, as some have said, only someone else already broke the glass and took the axe and is running around with it.
But it is not such a big deal, apparently, if you watch network TV news. On Wednesday, Media Matters' Matt Gertz reported that the total number of minutes devoted to the story on either the morning or evening editions of ABC, NBC, or CBS News in the first two days after the memo was published was zero. "In fact," Gertz wrote, "the only national network broadcasts to mention Trump's coup memo were the late-night variety shows hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers."

In a new essay for the Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan offers this warning about what the media silence surrounding this newest "revelation" reveals about America's democracy crisis:

In a normal world, the "Eastman memo" would be infamous by now, the way "Access Hollywood" became the popular shorthand in 2016 for the damning recording of Donald Trump's bragging about groping women.
But it's a good bet that most people have never even heard of the Eastman memo.
That says something troubling about how blasé the mainstream press has become about the attempted coup in the aftermath of the 2020 election — and how easily a coup could succeed next time.

The news media gatekeepers would likely defend their choice to focus on Nicki Minaj's tall tale with an argument that stories about celebrities provide a way to pivot to larger issues of public concern. In essence, that a pop star's Nicki uninformed comments about vaccines offer a "teachable moment".

But the more basic and more plausible explanation is that the American people are attracted to juvenile and immature distractions, and that those impulses drive the mainstream news media's ad revenues. Those concerns should wither away in the face of an unprecedented democracy crisis. Of course, that is unlikely to happen.

The news media fulfills an important agenda-setting function in a society, and this is especially true in a democracy where freedom of the press is foundational. As a practical matter, the fourth estate tells the public what they should pay attention to and how they should think about it. In that context, elevating a story about a celebrity's perhaps-invented vaccine anecdote over the details of a coup plot offers one more indictment of an American news media that continues to normalize neofascism.

Moreover, the news media's evasion of any sustained conversation about the Republican-fascist coup attempt reflects the pathologies of an emotionally immature society, incapable of facing the crises it is now experiencing. Given that, how will American society possibly confront or address enormous challenges such as the global climate disaster, the continuing pandemic, mass shootings and gun violence, wealth and income inequality, profound technological disruptions to labor and the economy, racism and white supremacy, right-wing terrorism and other violence, dire threats to the rule of law and the constitutional order and so much more?

America's democracy crisis reveals another frightening truth about our culture of distraction and immaturity: There are some in the media who actually yearn for Donald Trump's return to national office. For many in the media elites — who believe themselves to be largely insulated from the day-to-day consequences of fascism, white supremacy, and other antisocial and anti-human behavior — Trump was a source of huge profits and heightened prestige.

Media critic Eric Boehlert explored this in a recent newsletter, writing that while "American democracy is teetering increasingly close to the abyss," the media "continues to play a dangerous game by refusing to acknowledge the danger":
Even in the wake of the newest revelations of how Trump and his team aggressively tried to engineer a coup by invalidating millions of votes last year, he's still being normalized in the day-to-day coverage, as the press eagerly awaits his return to the campaign trail. ("When Will Trump Answer the Big 2024 Question?" the New York Times asked.)
There's nothing Trump could do at this point that would invalidate him in the eyes of the political press, and that includes him shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue….
He remains a captivating topic who provides endless angles of intrigue and who is treated as a looming star of American politics. Forget about that coup stuff; Trump's lawless, violent mob that rampaged inside the U.S. Capitol for hours, knocking officers unconscious and destroying offices of Democratic members. Whatever shock Trump's deadly insurrection initially generated among Beltway journalists has since worn off.
Annoyed by President Joe Biden's "boring" administration, journalists seem eager for the chaos and clicks that Trump creates — no defeated candidate has ever been showered with as much attention as he has.

Boehlert continues by observing that "the D.C. press can barely contain its excitement at the idea of the 2020 loser running again," adding that "everyone knows if he wins a second term, every minute of every White House press briefing would be carried live and in full, just as they were for his first term. ... A dangerous autocrat who's devoted to wrecking the American election process is waiting in the wings to become the GOP nominee in 2024, and the Beltway press can't wait."

In other words, too many in the media refuse to focus on the serious threats to American democracy and society embodied by Donald Trump and the neofascist movement, largely because they find the spectacle so enthralling.

I continue to ask myself what kind of movie this is. What version of the simulation are we stuck in as America continues to slip deeper into fascist unreality?

Perhaps it's as simple and complex as Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," where the ignorant masses live in a full-on corporate dictatorship, where the most popular movie in the country consists of a naked butt farting on screen. Or perhaps America has surrendered to the prescient warnings of the 2018 film "Sorry to Bother You," where the most popular reality show on television features contestants who allow themselves to be physically abused and otherwise humiliated.

As the country succumbs to fascism, the American people, for the most part, are like the moviegoers in the cover image of the classic edition of Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle," sitting transfixed in 3D glasses, seduced by the images on the screen and numb to the world outside. Trump's agents, allies, and followers have set the theater on fire, but to this point the audience hasn't noticed and likely would not even care if they did.

ROBERTS RULES SAYS NO NEGATIVE MOTIONS
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott orders a ban on all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state

October 11, 2021
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (seen here on Sept. 22) has issued an executive order banning private companies from enforcing COVID vaccine mandates.Joel Marinez/The Monitor via AP

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order Monday to prohibit any entity, including private business, from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on workers and called on state lawmakers to pass a similar ban into law.

The move comes as the Biden administration is set to issue rules requiring employers with more than 100 workers to be vaccinated or test weekly for the coronavirus. Several major companies, including Texas-based American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, have said they would abide by the federal mandate.

"No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19," Abbott wrote in his order.

POLITICS
Why Biden Has Taken Up Vaccine Mandates And The Political Fight Over Them

Abbott, who was previously vaccinated and also later tested positive for COVID-19, noted in his order that "vaccines are strongly encouraged for those eligible to receive one, but must always be voluntary for Texans."

Montana has passed a law preventing employers from mandating workers get vaccines, and a number of states have explicitly said schools cannot require vaccinations.

Abbott previously barred vaccine mandates by state and local government agencies, but until now had let private companies make their own rules for their workers. It was not immediately clear if Abbott's latest executive order would face a quick court challenge.

Abbott's new order also carries political implications. The two-term Republican is facing pressure from two candidates in next year's GOP primary, former state Sen. Don Huffines and former Florida Congressman and Texas state party chairman Allen West, have attacked Abbott's COVID-19 policies and have strongly opposed vaccine mandates.

"He knows which the way the wind is blowing. He knows conservative Republican voters are tired of the vaccine mandates and tired of him being a failed leader," Huffines tweeted.

West announced this this week he tested positive for COVID-19 and has been hospitalized, but also tweeted he remains opposed to vaccine mandates.

Texas has seen a recent decrease in new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. But a rising death toll from the recent surge caused by the delta variant has the state rapidly approaching 67,000 total fatalities since the pandemic began in 2020.

U.S. parades, protests mark Columbus Day, now also Indigenous Peoples’ Day

By Maria Caspani

Posted on October 11, 2021

Columbus Day Parade in New York City

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Christopher Columbus Day drew crowds on Monday with U.S. city parades marking the explorer’s voyage and Italian-American culture, as the focus increasingly turned to the heritage and plight of indigenous people subjugated by European settlers.

At the White House, where U.S. President Joe Biden had declared Oct. 11 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, community activists held protests on climate change, fossil fuels and the coronavirus which disproportionately affect Native Americans.

In New York City, crowds gathered along Fifth Avenue to watch traditionally the nation’s largest Columbus Day parade, which was canceled last year due to the pandemic.

Despite the cool, dry weather, the turnout seemed smaller than before. In 2019, the event, which features bands, politicians and marchers from Italian-American groups, drew about 1 million spectators, organizers said.

“I love it. Missed it last year,” Alphonse Vecchione, a resident of New York’s Queens borough. “We love our Italian heritage.”

Columbus Day parades were also held in Chicago and Cleveland. 

But a growing number of cities

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-columbusday/in-los-angeles-columbus-day-is-out-indigenous-peoples-day-is-in-idUSKCN1MJ016, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver and Portland, Oregon, have replaced Columbus Day with – or added – a holiday honoring indigenous people. States from Alaska and Hawaii to Wisconsin and Vermont have done the same.

Beginning in 1492, Columbus led three voyages across the Atlantic to the Caribbean in service of the Spanish throne. Many indigenous peoples encountered by the Europeans were enslaved or died of diseases introduced by the newcomers.

“We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country,” Biden wrote last week in a proclamation recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

He also issued a proclamation recognizing Columbus Day.

A few dozen people, many in traditional Native American garments, gathered at sunrise on Monday on New York City’s Randall’s Island and waded into the waters of the East River to mark the day.

“The only reason we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day today is because it is Columbus Day,” said Cliff Matias, one of the event’s organizers. “We celebrate the survival of indigenous people despite Columbus.”

The White House on Monday issued an executive order to help strengthen tribal colleges and universities and boost economic and educational opportunities for indigenous people.

“For more than a century, the United States imposed educational policies designed to assimilate Native peoples into predominant United States culture that devastated Native American students and their families,” the order said.

The order creates a government initiative chaired by three of Biden’s cabinet members to focus on improving the education system for Native Americans.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani, Shannon Stapleton and Mike Segar in New York; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)

People attend a Columbus Day commemoration in Washington

People attend a Columbus Day commemoration in Washington

Columbus Day Parade in New York City

People attend a Columbus Day commemoration in Washington

Fox News defends 'brutal' Christopher Columbus: His holiday 'is celebrating the ethnicity of America'

David Edwards
October 11, 2021

Fox News/screen grab

A Fox News segment on Monday celebrated the works of explorer Christopher Columbus, who is responsible for rapes, murders and genocide of indigenous people.

Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy began the segment by blaming "cancel culture" for the effort to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

Talk show host Joe Piscopo argued that Columbus Day should not be replaced because it would dishonor his Italian grandparents.

"They were treated with the utmost disrespect and they fought so hard," he whined. "They wanted to come here just to be American. That's all they wanted."

"Why are they trying to take this away?" the former comedian asked. "You diminish the fight and the journey of my grandparents by trying to cancel out Columbus!"

Campos-Duffy went on to slam historian Howard Zinn as a "Marxist" because he had advocated for ending Columbus Day in an effort for the United States is to reject its racist foundations.

"You know, I don't know how that got into the school system," Piscopo complained. "But you have to understand is, what we celebrate today, Columbus Day, is even beyond Columbus. It's celebrating the ethnicity of America. The ethnicity and the mosaic is the foundation of the United States. It's the strength of America. They literally, by their hands, built this great country, the Italian Americans, the Jewish Americans, the Latino Americans, the Black Americans, the Chinese Americans. We're all in this together!"

He added: "And once you cancel out one of these groups, the Italian Americans, you hurt all of America."

"They say that he was so brutal," Campos-Duffy said of Columbus. "It's interesting that those who are trying to cancel Christopher Columbus are the same people who are trying to cover up the brutality of communism and socialism in the 20th century."

Watch the video below from Fox News.

First Nations people and the security of Australia’s north

LIKE INUIT RANGERS IN THE ARCTIC
12 Oct 2021|Peter Yu and Russell Barnett North of 26° south

Australia’s strategic policy leaders have long been acutely aware of the importance of the nation’s north to economic, ecological and tactical security. The vast expanse of country has been continuously cared for by First Nations peoples for over 65,000 years. Through their cultures and languages, they have deep understandings of the land and its inland and marine waters, an immutable connection to country and historical economic and cultural connections to Australia’s northern neighbours. But consideration of the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their perspectives has been largely absent from the policy agenda until very recently.

To understand the role First Nations people have to play in the north, it’s worth contrasting the historical and present-day experiences of Indigenous Australians living in northern regions with those in southern jurisdictions. While Indigenous citizens across Australia are more likely to experience economic disadvantage and suffer the consequences of institutional (and personal) racism, geographic and demographic differences play a substantial role in shaping the lives of individuals, communities and economies.

Well before European settlement, First Nations people in northern Australia established trade and cultural relationships with what are now Southeast Asian nations, including Macassan Trepang traders of southern Sulawesi and across the Torres Strait to what is now Papua New Guinea and Indonesian New Guinea. These millennia-long relationships present an opportunity to reactivate a new dimension in not only trade, but also regional defence and biosecurity arrangements. Historically, cultural exchanges were also an important part of the trading relationship and it’s worthwhile considering them in the development of free trade agreements.

First Nations people account for 15% of the overall population in the north compared to just 3% in the south. Outside of the major northern settlements, the proportion is even higher—between 15% and 25% across the Northern Territory and northern parts of Queensland and Western Australia. First Nations people make up more than 50% of the population in a third of local government areas. And, according to current demographic trends, Indigenous people will make up around half of the working-age population in the north by 2050.

Historical and more recent political and policy developments have resulted in Indigenous Australians now having ownership or legal interests in over 80% of the northern landmass, including around 85% of the Northern Territory coastline. This makes the Indigenous estate of the north several orders of magnitude larger than its equivalent in the south, and given Australia’s geographic location and geopolitical position, the strategic importance of this land to national security can’t be overstated.

While Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation in Australian Defence Force tactical units, particularly the North-West Mobile Force, or NORFORCE, is notable, the involvement of First Nations people in the operational security of the north remains substantively underbaked, given their existing potential and resources. In many parts of northern Australia, members of about 80 Indigenous land and sea ranger groups are the only human presence for thousands of kilometres, and their knowledge of these remote areas is unparalleled. From a surveillance perspective, Indigenous land and sea ranger groups are an underutilised security asset.

When considering the capacity of Indigenous ranger groups to support surveillance, it’s important to recognise that the scope of ‘surveillance’ in a national security context must include biosecurity surveillance. Australia’s multibillion-dollar agricultural and tourism sectors, along with our health system, depend on our ability to monitor and effectively control incursions of pathogens and invasive species. Given the sheer length of the northern coastline, and the remoteness and vastness of the northern landmass, providing a level of biosecurity surveillance that delivers adequate protection for Australia’s population and economy through conventional means verges on impossible. As custodians of the land, with knowledge of its form and management stretching from the deep past to the ever-changing present, Indigenous people are an obvious, yet too often overlooked, resource in Australia’s biosecurity arsenal.

Indigenous Australians are increasingly being recognised not only as ‘traditional’ custodians of the land, but as the rightful, legal owners. Third-party settlements and access agreements created by legislation or contracts pertaining to the Indigenous estate have resulted in billions of dollars residing in trusts and other arrangements for which First Nations groups are beneficiaries. Though we are yet to see the large-scale activation of this asset base, Australian jurisprudence, legislation and policy are increasingly following international trajectories in recognising Indigenous rights to land, resources and self-determination.

Optimal activation of the Indigenous asset base (in the north and elsewhere) requires further reform to provide legal rights with respect to the ability to appropriate value from land, water, cultural and intellectual property rights. Currently, the legislated interests of First Nations peoples in their traditional lands, to say nothing of their other assets, is unnecessarily complex and inequitable. These interests range from exclusive possession under fee simple or ‘fee simple–like’ title, to rights that provide a form of shared tenure. In many circumstances, that amounts to little more than a right to interfere in matters pertaining to their lands.

While reform to Commonwealth and jurisdictional legislation will certainly be required in this regard, significant and immediate improvements can be made through less complex measures. For instance, it requires no legislative change for third parties to demonstrate an appreciation of the legal and ethical rights of Indigenous owners as they engage in land-use negotiations, or for those parties to ensure that Indigenous rights are reflected in commercial contracts.

In addition, to be effective counterparties and developers in their own right, traditional owners require the rights and resources, including civil and economic governance arrangements and capacity development, to freely manage their own financial assets on their terms.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that the entire Australian community and economy stands to benefit from the expansion of economic activity in our north. The scale and abundance of natural resources and unique cultural and intellectual property belonging to First Nations communities and organisations, and the proximity of those assets to growing regional minerals, food, energy, carbon and tourism markets, means the region can’t be truly developed without genuine, equitable participation by First Nations people.

AUTHOR
Peter Yu is vice president of the Australian National University’s First Nations portfolio. Russell Barnett is an honorary associate professor with the portfolio. Image: Torres Strait Regional Authority/Twitter.

COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Swiss Re Estimates Hurricane Ida Could Cost Insurers $30 Billion

October 5, 2021

On an industry level, Swiss Re now estimates that total insured market losses from Hurricane Ida to be in the range of $28–30 billion, excluding federal flood insurance losses.

Hurricane Ida, the second-most intense hurricane on record to hit the state of Louisiana, also caused extensive wind and flood damage across the Eastern and Mid-Atlantic parts of the U.S. After making landfall on August 29, 2021, the category 4 hurricane caused wide-ranging power outages and severe infrastructure damages particularly in Louisiana, before triggering exceptional flash flooding and storm surges in the Northeastern regions of the country.

Swiss Re estimated its own preliminary claims burden from Hurricane Ida at approximately $750 million.

The estimates may need to be adjusted as the claims notification and assessment process continues.

Photo: Lyndell Scott walks past the debris of his gutted home in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in LaPlace, La., Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. With almost all the power back on in New Orleans nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ida struck, the city is showing signs of making a comeback from the Category 4 storm (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Shell warns over Hurricane Ida hit
The oil giant said Hurricane Ida will knock its overall underlying earnings and cash flow from operations in the third quarter.

Royal Dutch Shell has warned over a hit of around 400 million US dollars from Hurricane Ida in the US Gulf of Mexico (PA) / PA Wire

By Holly Williams

Royal Dutch Shell has warned over a hit of around 400 million US dollars (£294 million) from Hurricane Ida in the US Gulf of Mexico.

The oil giant said the impact of the hurricane will knock its overall underlying earnings and cash flow from operations in the third quarter.

And it cautioned over production losses of around 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in its key upstream division as a result of the storm.

Hurricane Ida slammed into a critical port at the end of August that serves as the primary support hub for the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater offshore oil and gas industry in the US.

This has combined with curtailed production to compound the recent spike in oil prices, with Brent crude recently surging to three-year highs above 80 US dollars a barrel.

The impact of Hurricane Ida was felt in large parts of the US 

(Hunter Dawkins/The Gazebo Gazette via AP) / AP

Shell also flagged rising global energy prices, which will see margins fluctuate significantly across its integrated gas cashflow from operations in the third quarter, but is not set to take its toll on earnings in the upstream division.

The update, which comes ahead of third-quarter results on October 28, set the scene for a year dominated by rising oil prices.

Shell said that over the full year, every 10 US dollar increase in the cost of Brent crude adds around three billion US dollars (£2.2 billion) to upstream earnings and 1.1 billion US dollars (£809 million) to integrated gas earnings.

Oil prices have soared amid rocketing demand as the global economy has rebounded from the early days of the pandemic, while oil cartel Opec has increased production slowly after deep cuts made last year as the crisis struck.

Shell’s update showed integrated gas production for the third quarter of between 890,000 and 950,000 barrels of equivalent oil per day, with the upstream division set to produce between 2,025 and 2,100 a day excluding the Hurricane Ida impact.

In July, Shell’s revealed its adjusted earnings raced more than eight times higher in the second quarter, to reached a little over 5.5 billion (£4 billion) thanks to steep rises in the cost of crude.

Foreign Experts Comment On AUKUS Trilateral Partnership – Analysis

Australian submarine HMAS Rankin. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman James R. Evans

 October 11, 2021 

By Penza News

The creation of AUKUS – a new security partnership between Australia, Great Britain and the United States, which led to the breakdown of the defense contract between Canberra and Paris for the supply of 12 Barracuda-class attack submarines totaling more than 50 billion euros, received mixed assessments.

As part of the agreement, Australia plans to build at least 8 nuclear submarines using American technology, as well as re-equip its armed forces with American cruise missiles. In Paris, Australia’s decision was called a “stab in the back” and betraying.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian noted that the start of trilateral cooperation on nuclear submarines “gravely undermines regional peace and stability, aggravates arms race and impairs international nuclear non-proliferation efforts.”

According to Christoph Heusgen, a former German ambassador to the UN, the emergence of the new alliance has led to a “big loss of trust” in the Biden administration.

Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his approval for AUKUS, while Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia has raised a number of questions with the United States in connection with the creation of the alliance and will also present them to colleagues from Australia and Great Britain.

Earlier, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne stated that the AUKUS partnership was created for the exchange of technology and is not a military or security alliance.

Analyzing the creation of AUKUS and its prospects, independent researcher Murray Hunter pointed out that the factual information provided on the new partnership is not yet sufficient to draw clear conclusions.

“At this stage there is very little detail about the actualities of AUKUS. The Australian subs will take a decade to go online into service. […] Australia today has little ability to militarily project itself, except for some naval ships more in Aux roles. […] I see AUKUS more as a regeneration of the ANZUS agreement with the UK taking New Zealand’s place,” the expert said.

According to him, on paper today, the AUKUS alliance makes no strategic difference in the Indo-Pacific – the only tangible issue so far is the intention of Washington and London to transfer nuclear submarines to Australia on a long-term lease and to give to Australia technology for their construction.

At the same time, the prospects for the development of cooperation, in his opinion, remain unpredictable.

“It will completely depend upon the next US presidency. Nothing can happen much in the next few years, except for some exercises. […] However, AUKUS will not replace any defense policy. It’s not a policy, just some undefined intentions,” the analyst said.

He added that there are some adverse effects – other than France – coming out.

“Singapore is not enthusiastic to the idea, but accepting it, Malaysia is critical that it may promote an arms race in the region. Indonesia is the most critical – it reminded Australia to observe treaties,” Murray Hunter said, stressing that the South East Asian response hasn’t been positive for Canberra.

In turn, Clive Williams, Visiting Fellow at the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, expressed the opinion that AUKUS is intended to contain China’s growing military capability.

“The AUKUS agreement covers cooperation on artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, underwater capabilities, and long-range strike capabilities. It will also include assistance with establishing nuclear support facilities, probably to be located near Adelaide in South Australia. AUKUS will focus on military capabilities, differentiating it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance that includes New Zealand and Canada,” the expert said.

“Under the AUKUS agreement, the US and UK agree to help Australia to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines as Australia’s major contribution to the AUKUS military presence in the Indo-Pacific region. Australian submarines will not be equipped with nuclear weapons but will probably instead carry Tomahawk Cruise Missiles with conventional warheads,” Clive Williams added.

According to him, the deal represents a long-term security arrangement between the three countries.

“Australia is expected to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines. Over the next 18 months, Australia, the UK, and the US will be planning the way forward, with expected delivery of the first submarine in the 2040s. In the meantime, Australia is looking at a leasing arrangement to familiarise the Royal Australian Navy with operating nuclear-powered submarines,” the analyst said.

From his point of view, the development prospects of AUKUS will depend largely on China’s actions.

“The AUKUS security partnership should ensure that the US, UK, and Australia are the dominant military actors in the Indo-Pacific during this century,” Clive Williams stressed.

Meanwhile, Grant Newsham, retired US Marine Colonel, said that the AUKUS deal is good from both a military operational and a political standpoint.

“The sharing of nuclear submarine technology with Australia is a big deal and a clear sign of commitment. But now the Americans and the British and the Australians need to make something happen – and fast. Get a sub or two to Australia quickly – the Americans have some spares available — and get the training and infrastructure going. Don’t wait ten years. It is needed now,” the expert said.

He also stressed that AUKUS is not just a submarine deal.

“It calls for cooperation in a range of areas including AI, advance technologies, and even missile systems. So there are plenty of other areas for cooperation beyond AUKUS’s ‘nuclear submarine’ part that gets most of the attention,” Grant Newsham explained.

“As for the French, they had to know the sub deal was on thin ice. The deal had become the equivalent of a mafia gang squeezing huge amounts of money out of somebody unwise enough to sign a legitimate seeming ‘deal’ with them. […] That said, this should have been handled better diplomatically,” the expert said stressing that the Biden administration showed its unprofessionalism in this situation.

In his opinion, the US will need extra effort to convince its partners of its own serious intentions for cooperation, since “AUKUS will not be enough by itself.”

“How serious is the US when Wall Street, Boeing, Apple, et al are pouring billions into the PRC and begging the administration not to anger the Chinese Communists? Letting that Huawei lady Meng Wanzhou go scot-free [her release was the result of a deal struck after lengthy negotiations between Chinese and American diplomats] will undercut AUKUS more than one imagines. All the Chinese have to do is scream, threaten, and pound the table, and the Americans will often back down, it seems,” the ex-diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Anthony Glees, The University of Buckingham, said that, according to British Prime Minister, nuclear powered submarines will allow Australia to “keep silent watch,” “observe,” undetected, Chinese movements in the Indo-Pacific region.

“It will have been negotiated with the US and Australia over many months, perhaps since Dec 2019, even before and, of course, this was done in secret and behind the backs of France, even though France had a contract to build diesel submarines with Australia, and unlike the UK, France is, genuinely in territorial terms, an Asia-Pacific power and has always been a close strategic partner of the UK, perhaps closer at times even than the US,” the expert said.

From his point of view, the exclusion of France was a major strategic error by the UK and by the US president Joseph Biden who seems not to have focused on the implications of deceiving France.

At the same time, Anthony Glees reminded that the UK’s national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove said AUKUS was “the most significant capability collaboration anywhere in the world in the past decade,” which means it is really a big deal that might be much more than just an 18 month collaboration.

“It seems to me [British Prime Minister Boris] Johnson really does intend this to be a big project, to begin to re-establish the UK as a global, rather than a European power,” the expert added.

He also did not rule out that the agreement may contain clauses that have not yet been announced publicly.

“It is possible that Australia will agree to build a harbour for the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet, or even that Australia might have some kind of access to UK nuclear weapons, which is hard to achieve without breaking the Nuclear Arms Limitations Treaties,” Anthony Glees said.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/67275-2021

AUKUS adds ambiguity to the Australia–New Zealand alliance
11 Oct 2021|

Soli Middleby, Anna Powles and Joanne Wallis

The Australian government often describes Australia and New Zealand as ‘natural allies’. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement of the AUKUS security partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom on 16 September—which he described as ‘a forever partnership for a new time between the oldest and most trusted of friends’—raises questions about the changing dynamics of Australia’s natural alliance.

Morrison called AUKUS ‘the single greatest initiative … since the ANZUS alliance itself’ for achieving the ‘stability and security of our region’. It is perhaps no coincidence that the announcement was made only weeks after the 70th anniversary of the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. On that occasion, Morrison said ANZUS was ‘the foundation stone of Australia’s national security and a key pillar for peace and stability in our Indo-Pacific region’.

But AUKUS doesn’t include New Zealand, which remains a treaty ally of Australia under ANZUS (the US having rescinded its security guarantee to New Zealand in 1986 after a dispute about nuclear vessels visiting New Zealand).

The new trilateral agreement will deepen defence and security integration between Australia, the US and the UK, strategically aligning Australia even more closely with the US. This will have consequences for Australia’s relationship with its only other formal treaty ally, New Zealand.

Much attention has focused on the fact that nuclear-powered vessels are banned from New Zealand waters. And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed that any nuclear-powered submarines Australia acquires under AUKUS will not be allowed into New Zealand’s territorial waters. When discussing the partnership, the head of Australia’s Defence Department, Greg Moriarty, said that Canberra is ‘conscious of and respectful towards New Zealand’s approach to nuclear-armed vessels’. Even so, for Australia’s natural ally not to permit the submarines, which (if or when they eventuate) will form a major part of Australia’s defence capability, into its territorial waters may create later tensions.

Ardern has clarified that, while New Zealand wasn’t invited to join the partnership, she wouldn’t have expected to be asked. Notably, she was the first world leader Morrison informed before the announcement, although not before the decision. The lack of communication has generated frustration in New Zealand, with opposition leader Judith Collins expressing her disappointment that New Zealand wasn’t involved in the discussions.

Ardern has taken a more neutral approach, making clear that New Zealand ‘welcomes the increased engagement of the UK and US in the region’ and reiterating that ‘our collective objective needs to be the delivery of peace and stability and the preservation of the international rules based system’. She also insisted that AUKUS ‘in no way changes our security and intelligence ties’ with Australia, the US and the UK.

But AUKUS does underscore two emerging dynamics in the trans-Tasman alliance. The first is that, after several decades trying to articulate its role in Asia and the Pacific, Australia has made explicit its identification with the ‘Anglosphere’. In contrast, while an ‘original’ Anglosphere member, New Zealand now presents itself as ‘first and foremost a nation of the Pacific’ that ‘views foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region’.

This divergence reflects a growing degree of ambiguity between the two allies about whether they’re part of the Pacific islands region. Although Canberra likely hopes that Wellington will help smooth over concerns about AUKUS with Pacific island nations, it’s unclear how long New Zealand will be willing to act as Australia’s ‘good cop’ in the region.

The second issue is that the defence alliance between Australia and New Zealand, considered the closest in our region, is already changing in practical ways. New Zealand already struggles to maintain interoperability with Australia’s defence capabilities. AUKUS, which seeks to deepen interoperability across many areas of defence and security technology, including artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities, may widen the gap with New Zealand even further.

Wellington may also find that Canberra’s expectations of what burdens its junior alliance partner will share, in a material as well as a soft-power sense, may actually increase if New Zealand is to demonstrate its contribution to the alliance. As concerns about China’s rise and influence in the Indo-Pacific rise and Washington prioritises renewing and strengthening its alliances, the demands that AUKUS places on Australia could also shrink the bureaucratic bandwidth that Canberra can grant to Wellington.

These dynamics raise questions about the future of the Australia–New Zealand alliance, including the sustainability of New Zealand’s perceived free-riding on Australian defence spending and the two states’ roles in their immediate region, the Pacific islands. The allies have overcome major shocks before—such as the collapse of ANZUS between the US and New Zealand—but as strategic competition gains pace in the Indo-Pacific the presumed naturalness of their alliance is likely to be tested.

AUTHORS
Soli Middleby is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide and a former Australian diplomat to the Pacific. 

Anna Powles is a senior lecturer in security studies at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University. 

Joanne Wallis is a professor of international security in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide. 

Image: Phil Walter/Getty Images.

How Much Will AUKUS Change Australia?

October 10, 2021
Zack Cooper
Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute

Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Sheean arrives for a logistics port visit in Hobart, Australia. The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have announced a new strategic defense partnership to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines and work together in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photo: LSIS Leo Baumgartner/Australian Defence Force, Getty Images

The recent submarine deal between Australia, the U.K. and the United States, known as AUKUS, is likely to initiate a profound shift in Australia’s defense posture. To better understand the commercial implications and how it might change Australia’s relationship with China, BRINK spoke to Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has been following it closely.

COOPER: The United States is shifting its strategic attention to Asia. And that means that it’s shifting attention to Australia at the same time. Australia has always been a critical ally of the United States, so I think of this deal more as using a strong existing alliance more closely, rather than necessarily making Australia more important.
A Critical Ally

BRINK: Could Australia become a major base for U.S. forces and operations?

COOPER: Yes, this is something that some of us have talked about for a long time, but it has been very slow in coming together.

The strategic logic of U.S. forces being able to deploy more frequently to Australia is very clear. Australia is largely outside the threat ring from China, and yet, it’s still in the region and has access to parts of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, which is otherwise hard for the United States to get to quickly.

This is not the end of U.S./Australia cooperation on defense technology. This is more like the beginning.

So there is clear logic for the United States to have a robust air and naval presence in Australia. The part of this deal that has received less attention than it should have is the U.S. being able to base aircraft in Northern Australia, and potentially for U.S. ships and submarines to be either based or rotate through places like Perth. That, in my mind, is even more important than the submarine aspects of this deal, particularly in the short term.

Some people think that this deal is really about Australia getting dragged into a conflict with China over Taiwan. That has never been my view. My view has been that this is a deal about Australia defending itself and making sure that it can watch the maritime chokepoints that lead to Australia.
The Australian Defense Industry Will Expand

BRINK: What will it mean for the Australian defense industry?

COOPER: I’m sure there will be some significant changes. It’s hard to know exactly what those will be right now because we don’t know all of the details of this deal. We don’t even know whether these are going to be American submarines, or British submarines or some combination. And we don’t know which parts of those submarines will be made in Australia and which parts will not.

It’s pretty clear that there is a desire on part of the Australian government to ensure that as much of this revenue as possible comes back to Australian shipbuilders. And so I think Australian companies will have a large portion of this work. But it does mean the Australians would be working much more closely with American contractors, especially as it comes to technologically challenging elements of the submarines.

We don’t know who’s going to be building the nuclear reactors, but I think it’s likely that a lot of that work will be done outside of Australia, and the other parts of the submarine are probably going to be developed and produced in Australia. So the bottom line is this opens up a lot of opportunities for Australian companies, and we’ll see at the end of this 18 month review period exactly what those look like.

This is not the end of U.S./Australia cooperation on defense technology. This is more like the beginning. I would expect cooperation on defense technology will go well beyond submarines as a result of this deal.
Australia/China Relations

BRINK: China has already imposed sanctions of varying kinds on Australia. Do you foresee that these will stiffen as a result of this?

COOPER: I think the Chinese pressure is going to continue and maybe even increase a little bit on the margins. But this is part of the problem that the government in Beijing has had — the more pressure they put on Australia, the less incentive Australia has to avoid the kinds of actions that China doesn’t want.

There are blowbacks in both countries. We don’t talk about this a lot. We focus a lot on the downsides in Australia to Chinese economic pressure. But if you read the headlines coming out of China, there’s an energy shortage, right? And part of the reason that there’s an energy shortage is that Australia is trying to decrease its exports of coal, for example, which is making it harder for China to come up with alternatives.

So yes, I think there will be an economic response. I don’t think we know exactly which sector it will come in yet, but I think this is something that Australia just has to assume is going to be continuing regardless.

But the Chinese have taken away one of their best levers to disincentivize this deal because they’ve been using economic coercion so actively for the last couple of years.

To put it more pointedly, I don’t think there would’ve been a deal if China hadn’t pushed this hard. Back in 2013, I proposed in a report that Australia would be wise to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. At the time, most of my friends in Australia sort of laughed at this idea — they thought it was ridiculous because they felt like it was politically untenable in Australia.

But the Chinese pressure over the last couple of years has made things that were politically impossible then political realities now, and frankly, Beijing has no one to blame other than themselves for that.


Zack Cooper is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy. He previously served on staff at the Pentagon and White House, as well as at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is writing a book on the rise and fall of great militaries.

 

Mozambican slave descendants fight for ‘full victory’ after Durban land claim win

Bureaucracy, disagreements keep Makua from their property

BY KIM HARRISBERG -08 October 2021 - 

The KwaZulu-Natal Land Claims Commission ruled in 2004 that the Makua were the rightful owners of the land..

Image: 123RF:/ginasanders

Abey Canthitoo was eight when tractors roared in to demolish his home and turn his neighbourhood into a whites-only area during SA’s apartheid regime. Six decades on, his community is reviving its fight to get back the confiscated land.

Canthitoo is one of thousands of descendants of freed northern Mozambican slaves - known as the Makua people - brought to SA by the British in the 1870s after they intercepted illegal slave ships en route to Zanzibar.

Now 67, Canthitoo said his memories of the eviction forever called to mind his great-grandmother’s kidnapping by slave traders in Mozambique - and her struggle to build a new life in Durban.

“I remember children screaming and crying and my parents having to throw our belongings into a truck,” said Canthitoo from his home in Bluff - the neighbourhood his family was forced to leave and where Canthitoo later returned to buy a house.

“That’s why this land claim means so much, we need a place for all of us to call our own,” Canthitoo, a businessman, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, as his grandchildren ran and played through his house.

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The Makua were taken to Bluff in what is now KwaZulu-Natal to fill the province’s labour shortage - an idea British Empire officials found so useful that they sent for more Makua to expand this growing labour force, according to community elders.

From the Ogiek in Kenya to the Hai//om in Namibia, the Makua are one of many African communities still battling the after-effects of colonial rule including slavery, land grabs and racial classification.

The KwaZulu-Natal Land Claims Commission ruled in 2004 that the Makua were the rightful owners of the land. But Makua elders say that the handover process has been unclear and that reaching an agreement with some of the current land owners has stalled.

When contacted, Durban authorities and the commission said they thought the land had already been handed back to the community.

“We would like an opportunity to go back and find out what is going on so we can try and do some mediation for parties involved and figure out why it has been delayed for so long,” said Nokuthokoza Zulu, a commission spokesperson.

Frustrated by the impasse, in August some Makua elders asked the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), an independent institution, to help facilitate the land handover.

The SAHRC acknowledged receipt of the complaint and said they were assessing the information provided.

“Winning the land claim was a partial victory, but we want a full victory, we want what is due to us,” said Canthitoo, adding that they plan to build housing, a business park and a cultural centre for the country’s 200 Makua families.

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Divide and rule

Though Britain once enthusiastically promoted the slave trade, the Slave Abolition Act in 1833 outlawed slavery throughout the Empire, so naval patrols were set up to intercept illegal traders, according to Durban-based researchers.

The interception of the Makua - also known as the Zanzibaris because some passed through or were en route to the Tanzanian island - changed their descendants’ lives forever as they were pulled into the beginnings of white-minority rule.

SA became a nation state within the British monarchy in 1934 and over a decade later, after earlier wars between the British and Afrikaans Dutch descendants, the country was ruled by Afrikaner nationalism and racial segregation.

The Group Areas Act of 1950 used a divide-and-rule method to physically segregate racial groups into specific residential and business areas. For the Makua - as with other communities in SA - the forced racial classification split up families with different shades of skin or hair types.

“They wanted us to fit into boxes, families were torn apart,” said Alpha Franks, a Makua leader and activist from his home in Chatsworth, a township established by the apartheid government in the 1950s to segregate the Indian population.

Despite being uprooted, more than once, and segregated from family, the Makua held onto their traditions and culture, said Franks, pointing to the vegetable patch he had set up on his street where cassava and other traditional crops are grown.

The Makua are now one of SA’s smallest and lesser-known minorities - many still speak the Makua language alongside Zulu or Afrikaans and practice their ancestral traditions.

“Land would afford us the chance to keep our community together and our culture alive,” said 64-year-old Franks, sitting in his family lounge.

Justice

When the KwaZulu-Natal Land Claims Commission handed over title deeds to 5.2-hectares (12.8 acres) of land in Bluff, it felt “like a dream”, said Canthitoo, who has been working with an attorney since the late 1980s to pull together a case.

But logistics, bureaucracy and failed talks with some of the landowners - as well as what the Makua view as suspicion from surrounding homeowners - have prevented the Makua’s return.

The delay has left many members of the community “disillusioned and divided”, said Franks.

“We’re trying to rekindle the passion,” he said.

Canthitoo often visits the cemetery where some of his ancestors are buried in Bluff, as well as the mosque built on the original worship site of his Makua forebears.

“What keeps me going is justice for my community. We were robbed of something and this land won’t heal us, but it will help us close an ugly chapter,” he said. 

Thomson Reuters Foundation