Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was in Sydney at the weekend for high level ministerial talks with her Australian counterparts. Not surprisingly, former prime minister Paul Keating had something to say.
In a typically combative spray published in public policy journal Peals and Irritations, Keating called Truss “demented” for her suggestion that a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine could inspire China to similar aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
But beneath the bluster was a deeper point about Britain’s place as a serious strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific.
“The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia,” he said. “Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its ‘East of Suez’ policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back.”
The comments came as Truss, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and his British counterpart Defence Secretary Ben Wallace discussed further security cooperation in the region under the AUKUS pact signed last year.
And while Scott Morrison’s government has touted the controversial deal as a key bulwark against an increasingly assertive China, there are real questions about whether a Britain distracted by Brexit and Boris Johnson can ever step up as a serious strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific.
What AUKMIN delivered
The Australia-United Kingdom Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN) provided some good photo ops and quotes for defence reporters, but little of substance. Two Royal Navy boats would be deployed to the region. Wallace and Dutton hinted that more permanent British defence assets might be based in Australia at some point.
Truss, meanwhile, made concerned noises about Russia and China. But in the context of AUKUS, billed as critical to a safer, more prosperous Indo-Pacific, Britain’s reentry to the Asia-Pacific was tentative at best.
For Keating, the whole thing was a “desperate” attempt to promote Britain as a serious counter to the last gasps of an imperial has-been suffering “delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation”.
Does Keating have a point?
Whatever AUKUS delivers (in a few decades, we may have some nuclear submarines), Keating’s analysis of Britain’s abilities has merit, according to some foreign policy experts.
Speaking to Crikey late last year, Australian National University defence and strategic studies professor Hugh White said Britain hadn’t exercised serious strategic weight in Asia since the early 20th century.
“Forget the UK and the idea that it’s going to exercise serious weight in Asia,” he said. “In Whitehall, it’s one of those harmless trappings of empire. In Canberra, it’s a dangerous fantasy.”
The UK’s apparent pivot towards the Indo-Pacific should also be looked at in the context of domestic politics.
Australian Institute of International Affairs president Allan Gyngell says Britain had been weakened in the international arena by Brexit. Since becoming prime minister, Johnson has started talking up the idea of “global Britain” which Gyngell sees as a “nostalgia trip” to a grand imperial past long gone.
“The idea that Britain will be anything other than a useful outside contributor in a minor sort of way to developments in the Indo-Pacific I think is a fantasy,” he said.
Gyngell believes France — which has actual territorial possessions in the Pacific — could be a more reliable security partner. But that relationship has been tainted by Australia cancelling its French submarine contract ahead of AUKUS, with President Emmanuel Macron willing to call Morrison a liar.
If Truss’ warnings about Chinese aggression in the region come true, and things really do escalate in the Indo-Pacific, a limited, nostalgia-driven British presence might not be enough.
UNSW Canberra international and political studies Professor Clinton Fernandes says while the UK continues to play a role “upholding US primacy in the region” and could contribute to any US effort, the military centre of gravity is China’s formidable integrated air defence system (IADS).
“That prevents the US from having air superiority, and without that, it cannot win in the Taiwan Strait. Britain can try to thwart the IADS but cannot defeat it,” he said.
Many of Keating’s views, always expressed with a dose of invective, aren’t fashionable among a foreign policy establishment that is far more hawkish on China. But on the reality of Britain’s reentry to the Indo-Pacific, he may just have a point.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this story said Paul Keating’s comments were reported in The Australian. The comments were first made in and opinion piece published by Pearls and Irritations .
Is the entire AUKUS system in absolute denial of the obvious enemy at present? The last decade has released upon global humanity weather/climate events that far exceed our fossil fuel excesses of this era alone. Surely our science can recognize when natural systems as big as our planet’s atmosphere and oceans have reached a tipping point that our present behavior is simply worsening. It is quite possible that we have already put so much energy into the atmosphere and oceans that our and millions of other species wont survive. Since WW2 we have increased waste heat and greenhouse effect of fossil fuel combustion over seven fold. According to BP statistics it stands at an equivalent of 11,500 million tonnes of a specific grade of crude oil per annum. Over 50% of the heat release from that has gone straight into our atmosphere or waterways since almost all human machinery is less than 50% efficient. But science tells us the greenhouse gas effect in the atmosphere is more damaging than that horrific number. Well folks that tonnage of fossil fuel is producing at least 28,000 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. Anyone think they can realistically capture and bury that?
We must start a global PROPER FIGHT now and that involves making FRIENDS not enemies so that 50% at least of defence budgets goes toward elimination of fossil fuel use. The reason I started with AUKUS is because it is the craziest idea ever from three nations acting amongst the worst. Did anyone point out that the only (6 I think) nations with nuclear subs have substantial home nuclear industry for support. UK and US are half the globe from us. UK getting out of Europe is a climate disaster. Until we power ships and aircraft with something other than fossil fuel trade AND TOURISM need restriction to local. UK trading with Australia is climate disaster compared to across the English Channel.
I’ll close with a query for the idiots who deny man-made climate change and say “its always changed”. Ask yourself “What in the last few million years of time has had the ability to extract and burn billions of tonnes of an unknown percentage of what nature took those millions of years to produce until 20th century humanity?
Admire the passion Robert.
How come this doesn’t have 100 up-ticks?
Never underestimate the comfort of complacency – aka I got mine, screw you.
USUKA – political theatre – a distraction from that climate change mitigation inaction – an acronym for those swallowing such diversionary therapy.
Spot on Robert.
‘He may just have a point.’ Very condescending towards a commentator of experience and vision. And the general tone is off. ‘BUT’ he may be right as if we’d all agree Keating is usually wrong. I do not share your lofty disdain for him
I like Paul Keating, he is smart, articulate along with being a guy whi can shatter his opponents by his sharp witticism
Truss may also have been promoting the Anglosphere libertarian vision of some US linked think tanks sharing architecture, behind Brexit and Trump, that according to ByLine Times (UK) are to be found at 55 Tufton St. London, and in Koch Atlas Network; IEA (=IPA/CIS), NetZeroWatch formerly Global Warming Policy Foundation (Nigel Lawson), Taxpayers’ Alliance (Oz too) and Migration Watch (immigration restrictions & population growth).
Further, Truss has also visited the same in the US in 2018 i.e. Heritage Foundation (Tony Abbott has presented; formerly led by Paul Weyrich who brought Christian right and GOP together for the ‘moral majority’ while stating his role ‘to litter the world with right wing think tanks‘), AEI (behind the Tea Party street movement), corporate supported ‘bill mill’ ALEC (with an Australian media group journalist as member) to lobby Congress, committees etc., Americans for Tax Reform and Cato Institute (though she managed to avoid the Tanton Network immigration restriction groups that informed Trump White House).
Most of the niche Koch linked organisations lobby against climate science then delay through opposing any sensible regulatory measures, ditto Covid, then it’s ‘freedom & liberty’, low taxes, low PS spending and service delivery, low regulation and smaller government; very much promoting a US segregationist inspired radical right libertarian economics of James Buchanan’s ‘public choice theory’ with a whiff of fossil fuels and eugenics……
ByLine Times is not dissimilar to Crikey except more focused upon investigative journalism of MPs/Govt.; full article can be found as ‘LIZ TRUSS: The Tufton Street Candidate’ Sam Bright 18 Jan 2022.
Thank Christ someone in Australia has the balls to call this mob for what they are and this agreement for what it is
The Coalition still tied to the British apron strings.
I do enjoy the odd acerbic put down by Paul Keating. When he takes aim, he doesn’t miss. Ouch! : )
None of the current politicians have offered any intelligent critique of the AUKUS deal apart from the interminable delivery time of the unpriced submarines. Keating always reminds us of an era when federal parliament was more inspiring. In recent months his comments on Britain have been cruel – & spot on.