Tag: defence policy

One Careful Owner

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The interview never happened. It should have. John Clarke died in 2017, and the genre died with him: the po-faced minister, the patient interrogator, the absurdity delivered in the flat tones of a man explaining a routine procurement. So here is the sketch he might have written, had he lived to watch us buy three used submarines and call it a defence strategy.

The set is two chairs and a desk. We join them mid-interview.

DAWE: Minister, under the original deal Australia was to receive three submarines. Two second-hand, one brand new.

CLARKE: The new one was the exciting one.

DAWE: And now?

CLARKE: Three submarines, Bryan. The number remains unchanged.

DAWE: But the new one has gone.

CLARKE: The new one has been streamlined.

DAWE: Into what?

CLARKE: Into an older one.

DAWE: So all three are now second-hand.

CLARKE: All three are proven. We’ve placed a premium on simplicity. The brand-new one had never been to sea. We didn’t know it. These, we know everything about. We even know how old they are.

DAWE: How old are they?

CLARKE: Between six and fifteen years.

DAWE: The design life is thirty-three.

CLARKE: So someone’s taken care of the difficult early years. We’ve outsourced the running-in. The Americans have very kindly absorbed the depreciation.

DAWE: The country is paying an extraordinary amount of money.

CLARKE: You could buy a great many doughnuts, Bryan.

DAWE: We’re not buying doughnuts.

CLARKE: No, but it gives you a sense of scale. Warehouses of them. Fresh daily.

DAWE: For three used submarines.

CLARKE: One careful owner. Full service history.

DAWE: When do they arrive?

CLARKE: The first in 2032. And in the meantime, the jobs. That’s what nobody mentions.

DAWE: What jobs?

CLARKE: We have two hundred Australian tradespeople at Pearl Harbor. Skilled people. Working on the submarines.

DAWE: Our submarines.

CLARKE: The American ones.

DAWE: We’ve sent Australian workers to fix the US Navy’s submarines.

CLARKE: To increase their sea days. They’re behind, the poor beggars. Can’t build them fast enough. So we’re helping out.

DAWE: While we wait for ours.

CLARKE: While we wait. It’s the alliance, Bryan. You give a little.

DAWE: We’re paying an enormous sum and supplying labour to build the boats the seller hasn’t finished.

CLARKE: When you put it like that it sounds transactional. This is a friendship. You don’t keep score.

DAWE: Minister, are we any safer?

CLARKE: They’re perfectly safe, Bryan.

DAWE: Safe from what?

CLARKE: From the threat.

DAWE: Which threat?

CLARKE: The one we don’t name. You don’t name it. That’s the whole point of it.

DAWE: But you’ve costed it. You’ve sent two hundred tradesmen to Hawaii over it.

CLARKE: We’ve had to be prudent.

DAWE: About a country you won’t name.

CLARKE: Our largest trading partner, Bryan. You don’t insult a customer.

DAWE: So we’re defending ourselves against the people we sell the iron ore to.

CLARKE: We sell them the iron ore. They sell us the anxiety. It’s a very balanced relationship.

DAWE: And the submarines arrive when?

CLARKE: The first in 2032. The Australian-built ones in the 2040s.

DAWE: Until then?

CLARKE: You’ll always know where they are.

DAWE: Thank you for your time.

A note to readers: this, invented interview is a tribute to the comic genius of John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, their remarkable craft and timing and an act of homage to a tradition of satire that is razor-sharp and yet utterly minimalist. Pared to the essentials. Two chairs, a desk, rather than any set and the truth said plainly enough to be unbearable. There is no greater compliment.

A very close cousin to this text also currently appears in The AIMN under, “Underwater Matters: AUKUS and the Art of the Used Submarine.”

The War Nobody’s Paid to See Coming

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Right now, the USS Abraham Lincoln and nine escort warships are sitting in the Persian Gulf like a loaded gun aimed at Iran’s heart. Not one Australian media outlet can independently verify what this means for Australians when the shooting starts. Are we up shit creek with America again?

The Moral Hazard of Being US Deputy-Sheriff

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Australian officials watched as US missiles struck Venezuelan fishermen. Eleven died. It was legal, Washington insists. But Australia is not just an observer—we have ADF personnel embedded in US commands, we host Pine Gap targeting facilities, and we help aim weapons we never authorised and cannot refuse. AUKUS binds us more tightly than any alliance since 1945. The question is whether we’ve traded sovereignty for security theatre. And whether a second strike on drowning men will finally be the line we refuse to cross.

Composite editorial image showing Australian leaders on a glossy stage beside a model submarine and US flag, with faded historical scenes of Gallipoli, Vietnam and Iraq in the background.

The Tyranny of Delusion: How Australia Keeps Fighting Yesterday’s Wars

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AUKUS is the culmination of our imperial hangover. It combines obsolete technology in an age of drones with geography that defeats its purpose, industrial bottlenecks that guarantee delay, and a strategic rationale contradicted by its authors. Political cowardice is dressed as resolve. We are spending a generation’s wealth on submarines we probably will not get, cannot crew, cannot fuel, to fight wars Washington has already priced out of its plans.

“Albanese’s side offers rare-earth ore across a Washington negotiation table while a neglected submarine model sits out of focus — symbolising minerals over missiles.”

The Real Deal: Why Critical Minerals Matter More Than Submarines

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Nobody in Canberra gets the Trump 2.0 administration. When Albanese meets Trump on 20 October, Canberra will bang on about submarines. The real conversation should be critical minerals—where Australia actually has leverage and America has desperate need. China controls the supply chains that power everything from semiconductors to missiles. Australia can break that stranglehold. If we’re smart enough to see it.