The strength to succeed

Submitted by Lindsay
Melbourne Australia!

Friendship is not always the sequel of obligation.
- Johnson, Lives of the English poets

(4/2021) Australia has welcomed the election of Joe Biden with sighs of relief and dancing in the streets. Most of you have too, but we have a reason to be joyous that is unique. For the very first time, an American president has told China, in no uncertain terms, to lay off Australia, to stop the nonsense about trade embargos simply because they supported Trump.

‘We are not going to leave Australia alone on the field’, he told them, according to the president’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, ‘we’ve indicated both to Australia and China at the highest levels that we are fully aware of what’s going on.’ This was reported by one of Australia’s leading writers, Stephen Bartholomeusz, in the Sydney Morning Herald on March 18, writing on the ‘Quad’ meeting between America, India, Japan and Australia. He also quoted Peter Hartcher’s interview with him when he said the US would not improve relations with China unless it stopped its economic coercion of Australia.

In doing this, the new administration acknowledges the importance of Australia to not only America’s ability to monitor terrorists around the world, but to play a vital role in maintaining world peace.

This is almost certainly news to you, because the popular image you have of us is of a great country that produces wonderful movie actors - but we have some secrets that no other nation on earth has, something so valuable that it was first exploited by Britain in 1952, then by you in 1970. It is this: Space.

Australia is pretty much empty. Twenty-five million people live in an area of over seven and a half million square kilometres, and they live around the edge. There are no settlements more than a couple of hundred kilometres from the coast, meaning the interior is empty. Deserts, large pastoral holding and mining is all there is.

And it’s in a well-developed nation, among the top twenty in power and influence, very high standards of education and per capita income, so that space like ours has proved to be valuable to people wanting wide open spaces for -well, their own use.

Back in 1952 the nuclear race was on, with the US and Russia vying for top spot, with the British and French determined to have bombs of their own. The British saw our emptiness as a great place to test their bombs, so at a place called Maralinga they set up facilities and went ahead. That they left a thousand square miles of radioactive land behind them is still a point of sour contention between us, so when America approached us in 1970 asking to lease a small part of the desert so they could establish a vital part of their world-wide telecommunications network we jumped at the opportunity. In 1951 we had entered into a treaty between you and New Zealand called ANZUS, which had proved to be the basis of close cooperation between us, and the base was duly built.

It proved vital in space exploration - the moon landing would not have been possible without it – and the publicity was enough to cement our togetherness. But its use was not confined to space. Officially unknown to the government, it became a part of your world-wide surveillance program, supplying information about anything that was considered necessary. Three more bases were built. You were happy, we were allies, so we puffed up our feathers, shaking them in the face of the nay-sayers.

Disquiet grew as the secrecy became tighter, and anxiety grew until in 1974 there was a push by a couple of left-wing pollies to close them down. This produced a vitriolic response from Kissinger et.al., but it soon became clear that it was impossible to even visit them, let alone close them, because that land was American. (As an aside, the prime minister who voiced the idea was removed in a fascinating and clandestine coup.)

Over the years America used this willingness to make us toe the line; the Free Trade Agreements went through our parliament with only a few voices urging caution, (which garnered you some 50 billion in the first year to our one and a bit), and was the line you took with whoever was sucker enough to see the positives and not the negatives; our excuse was that we needed your support against the bogey-man of the day.

So, when it was politely suggested (ordered) we should make areas of land available for joint military exercises, we replied, ‘how many?’ Military sales? Why, is 130 billion in Aircraft enough, sir? Tariffs? No problem.

We had no backbone in standing up to your coercion; support for the Iraq invasion was reprehensible, Afghanistan was even worse, and we have landed ourselves in the wedge of Trade with China by echoing Trump and his idiocies.

This has all been changed in an instant by Biden’s statement above. It, and his other statements about foreign affairs, has already made him a statesman in our eyes. We are no more a nation to be taken advantage of, but one who is a valuable ally and friend.

Friendship means there is a closeness, a degree of trust between two nations who have similar values and mores. It usually does not apply to countries, even when it is trumpeted as a reason to work together, but this has been a genuine statement of unity.

The world was about to fall off a cliff, but has now edged back. The view we saw of the bottom was terrifying, and domestically it must have been horrible for most of your citizens who were bound for Covid hell. It is difficult, from this distance and with travel restrictions, to get a real sense the nation’s feeling; the responsible press has gone quiet, even the New Yorker seems gobsmacked. And it’s too early and unwise for the non-Murdoch press to give his team outright plaudits, but knowing we have a friendly leader of the greatest nation on earth who is determined to fight the real enemy has brough a sense of purpose to the free world.

Believe me, you have our full support.