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AUSMIN 2024 wrapped up on August 6 with the Australian side sounding more grovelling than usual.

With elections scheduled soon for both countries, bureaucrats announced several days prior that the annual meeting of Australian and United States defence and foreign affairs officials was not going to go into new territory. However, the US did want to see evidence of “progress”.

They got what they wanted.

Defence minister could not have been more obsequious.

“‘We now have a pathway forwards for Australia to acquire a nuclear submarine capability from the US and UK, and we are making progress in terms of Pillar 2 of AUKUS,” he told his counterparts.

Phew.

Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong was effusive in her thanks to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken — “Tony” — for his “extraordinary efforts”, including his “ceasefire efforts” in the Middle East. The “security guarantee” provided by the US has “enabled a long period of stability”, Wong said.

“AUSMIN provides another opportunity to rise to the challenges — for the region we live in and we trade in,” she said. “We are stronger together … we appreciate the personal friendships … and the priorities you have given to this alliance.”

According to Blinken, the US and Australia are “essential partners” in an “innovation alliance”.

And so it went on: media takeaways were reduced to a love-in. To get a gist of what happened at AUSMIN, it’s instructive to read through what the bureaucrats said should happen, and then read the minister’s spin.

AUSMIN revolves around the US’ “Force Posture Initiatives”. These are its marine rotations to Darwin, enhanced air cooperation, enhanced land cooperation and enhanced marine cooperation. They stem from the US’ “Pivot to Asia”, first launched under President Barack Obama.

Their intentionally ambiguous words describe this as involving “enhanced interoperability” and increased “engagement” with the Indo-Pacific, allowing both the US and Australia to be “better positioned” to respond to “crises”; as well as to generate economic activities in northern Australia.

This is code for the US strengthening its military and positioning in South East Asia, with Australia’s help.

Australia is obliging by upgrading key bases, including Royal Australian Air Force bases Darwin and Tindal, as well as looking at upgrading Curtin, Learmonth and Scherger.

Australia is also planning infrastructure upgrades at Cocos (Keeling) Islands and has agreed in principle to the US positioning initial US Army equipment and materiel at Albury-Wodonga (Bandiana) where the US will help Australia “assess additional requirements” for “longer-term use”.

The US is also working to “refine requirements for the establishment of an enduring Logistics Support Area in Queensland — designed to enhance interoperability and accelerate the ability to respond to regional crises”. 

According to the bureaucrats, the US wanted to see tangible evidence of all that at AUSMIN.

Charles Edel, ’ senior advisor and Australia chair, said on August 1: “I think AUKUS needs to continue to show progress, both so that we can see that we’re making progress towards the strategic objectives but also incremental gains on the ground.”

He said the US needed to see progress “towards maintenance of an SSN in Australia with a submarine tender”.

Tick.

But the next biggest goal, Edel said, was to “make steady progress on Pillar 1, at least, towards actually pulling it off, in particular the build-out of SRF-West — that is, Submarine Rotational Forces-West — out of the west coast of Australia. That has to come online.”

He said the US needs to see the “build-out of the infrastructure both on base but also out into the community to support was going to be a very different presence by both the US military but also to civilians who help support and maintain the submarines that are there.

“That submarine rotational presence should be coming online by 2027. They [Australia] need to show progress towards the build out of that infrastructure.”

That’s in three years, but there is an election due in Australia before May next year.

And that is potentially troubling for the US-Australia military alliance.

Rory Metcalf, National Security College president at the Australian National University, warned that while there is bipartisan support for the alliance — “no question of that” — the next Australian parliament could be a minority “where independent parliamentarians and perhaps the Greens Party might seek to have some influence”.

Their concerns about Australia’s ability to deliver AUKUS and the US Force Posture objectives are clear — which possibly explains Wong and Marles’ grovelling.

They should have been honest with their US counterparts: there is huge domestic opposition to AUKUS, the framework for a new war on China, not just because Australians were not consulted when the agreements were made (under the Coalition, and embraced by Labor) but because most people want those scarce dollars used to avert a climate emergency, not to start a war in the Indo-Pacific based not on security fears but trade rivalries.

China is now the world’s biggest manufacturing hub, the AUSMIN leaders were told. They all know the West helped make this a reality — by outsourcing their manufacturing to a low-wage country to ensure greater profits at home.

Metcalf at least is aware that many Australians, particularly younger ones, are against a new war, and urged AUSMIN leaders to talk up the technology and energy transition, as well as building “resilience” in the Indo-Pacific.

Wong did that in her , but will that be enough to assuage the well-founded fear that the US-Australia “partnership” is based around the US’ military designs in the Indo-Pacific?