Latest / The Morning Edition / From 9/11 to Donald Trump: Why Australia can’t afford to abandon the US

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From 9/11 to Donald Trump: Why Australia can’t afford to abandon the US · The Morning Edition

• 0:01
  S1: 25 years ago tomorrow, the United States suffered a terrorist
• 0:06
  S1: attack that it thought would change the world forever.
• 0:10
  S2: Apparently, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center
• 0:14
  S2: in New York. 8:52 a.m..
• 0:16
  S3: I've never seen anything. It looks like a movie. I
• 0:18
  S3: saw a large plane, like a jet go immediately headed
• 0:22
  S3: directly into the World Trade Center.
• 0:35
  S4: Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life
• 0:41
  S4: are very. Freedom came under attack in a series of
• 0:45
  S4: deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes
• 0:51
  S4: or in their offices.
• 0:53
  S1: I'm Samantha Sellinger Morris, and you're listening to Morning Edition
• 0:57
  S1: from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, international
• 1:01
  S1: and political editor Peter Hartcher on the lessons that the
• 1:05
  S1: United States learned or failed to learn from that day
• 1:08
  S1: and how it impacts the rest of us. Peter, it's
• 1:15
  S1: hard to believe that we are talking about the 25th
• 1:17
  S1: anniversary of this catastrophe. And you were actually working in
• 1:22
  S1: Washington on that day and in the aftermath. So I
• 1:26
  S1: just wanted to start by asking you what your memories
• 1:28
  S1: are of that day, perhaps also how it impacted Americans.
• 1:33
  S1: You know, whether it's a personal devastation or maybe how
• 1:37
  S1: they were thinking about Americans and their place in the world.
• 1:40
  S5: Mhm. Well, yeah, I was with my wife and three
• 1:45
  S5: kids living just outside Washington, D.C. I was correspondent there
• 1:48
  S5: for The Australian Financial Review at the time. Um, the well,
• 1:54
  S5: there's plenty of memories, but, um, the first was the
• 1:57
  S5: shock at getting the news. The second was the kids
• 2:00
  S5: had already left for school that morning on the school buses.
• 2:03
  S5: Was checking they were going to be okay in. The
• 2:05
  S5: schools were telling us to relax and the kids were
• 2:08
  S5: going to be sent home. One of them we had
• 2:10
  S5: to pick up, and while I got on the phone
• 2:12
  S5: to try and get information, my wife went down to
• 2:15
  S5: the local supermarket to stock up on emergency supplies and
• 2:19
  S5: found that all the bottled water had already been cleared out.
• 2:22
  S5: All the toilet rolls were already gone, but the the
• 2:27
  S5: what's lost is the uncertainty that we faced after we
• 2:34
  S5: learned that two planes had struck the World Trade Center
• 2:39
  S5: and therefore it was no longer just an accident. And.
• 2:42
  S5: And the end of the day, what the uncertainty was
• 2:44
  S5: simply that we didn't know whether this was a one
• 2:47
  S5: off attack or the beginning of a war launched by
• 2:51
  S5: a foreign adversary that was going to escalate in the
• 2:54
  S5: days following. We there were hours there where we just
• 2:57
  S5: knew absolutely nothing really about what was going on. And
• 3:01
  S5: that was that was that was, um, that that moment
• 3:06
  S5: of uncertainty, that pregnant moment was perhaps the most terrifying
• 3:10
  S5: of all. And we, together with our American neighbors, we
• 3:15
  S5: all felt, uh, the fear, the anguish, the grief, the shock. And, uh,
• 3:22
  S5: we participated with our neighbors in candlelight vigils that went
• 3:26
  S5: on for days and days. We were totally caught up
• 3:31
  S5: in the emotion of the moment while trying to retain some, um,
• 3:35
  S5: some journalistic objectivity at the same time about the events.
• 3:39
  S5: If anything, though, there was an overestimation at that time
• 3:43
  S5: of the significance of those events that were going to
• 3:47
  S5: change everything. We can see pretty clearly now that it
• 3:50
  S5: didn't change everything at all. It changed. It changed a
• 3:54
  S5: great deal. And one of the, uh, assets that emerge
• 4:00
  S5: from that time was an application of international attention to
• 4:04
  S5: the problem of terrorism. And that was successful. Yes. We
• 4:08
  S5: don't get around. There's still obviously a terrorism threat and
• 4:11
  S5: a problem, but we don't get around in terror in
• 4:15
  S5: Australia or in the US in a way that we
• 4:17
  S5: we might have if that problem had gone unattended to.
• 4:21
  S5: We saw how ISIS, Daesh was dealt with, for example. Um,
• 4:27
  S5: so so that was a that was a good thing.
• 4:28
  S5: That was an asset to emerge, another asset to emerge
• 4:33
  S5: that proved perishable but could have been, uh, more long
• 4:39
  S5: lived was the international solidarity that coalesced around the US
• 4:45
  S5: in that moment. You probably remember Le Monde, the French
• 4:48
  S5: newspaper front page. We are all Americans. And it did
• 4:53
  S5: feel like that around the world. The the extraordinary sympathy
• 4:58
  S5: that went out to the US and the support that
• 5:02
  S5: was given, not only from governments. That was certainly true,
• 5:05
  S5: but also popular opinion. Um, you know, there were pockets
• 5:09
  S5: of schadenfreude, the anti-American fanatics and all the rest of it,
• 5:13
  S5: but overwhelmingly there was just a tremendous upwelling of support
• 5:17
  S5: and sympathy for the US. And countries were prepared to
• 5:20
  S5: do anything to help the US at that moment.
• 5:22
  S1: Well, I guess that brings in Australia, perhaps. And I'm
• 5:25
  S1: just curious as to how Americans, whether it's the government
• 5:27
  S1: or civilians, if they knew about it, responded at the time. Like,
• 5:30
  S1: was it a surprise that our then Prime Minister, John Howard,
• 5:34
  S1: very quickly, I believe it was either on September 11th
• 5:36
  S1: or perhaps the day after, invoked the Anzac Treaty. The
• 5:40
  S1: the alliance that we have with New Zealand and the
• 5:43
  S1: United States. Um, I my understanding is, well, that's I mean,
• 5:47
  S1: we're going to talk about that because it's now been
• 5:48
  S1: 75 years since just a few days, over 75 years
• 5:51
  S1: since that was signed. And I thought the understanding was
• 5:55
  S1: that it would be America that was going to come
• 5:57
  S1: to our defense. You know, that was the purpose, I think,
• 6:00
  S1: of that treaty that, you know, would there be a
• 6:02
  S1: communist cascading threat that would sort of go through the Pacific?
• 6:06
  S1: Americans would come to our defense and and this is
• 6:08
  S1: the only time it's been invoked was because of the
• 6:11
  S1: September 11th attacks. And it was us helping Americans. I mean,
• 6:15
  S1: was that a surprise to the Americans at the time?
• 6:18
  S5: The nine over 11 attacks were a shock to everybody
• 6:20
  S5: because they revealed a vulnerability that the US had that
• 6:24
  S5: nobody had appreciated until that point, that that was probably
• 6:29
  S5: the principal shock. And it was a surprise, the ANZUS treaty,
• 6:34
  S5: when it was written in the 50s, the US very
• 6:38
  S5: explicitly refused to write in an absolute commitment a la
• 6:42
  S5: NATO's article five of an automaticity, if you're attacked, will
• 6:47
  S5: automatically defend you. The Australians wanted that because the Australians
• 6:50
  S5: were feeling vulnerable because of exactly what you said. The
• 6:54
  S5: concern in Australia was that the Communist movement through South
• 6:59
  S5: east Asia would hit Indonesia and make us particularly vulnerable.
• 7:04
  S5: It was never imagined that the US would be the
• 7:07
  S5: vulnerable partner, and we would need to help them. So
• 7:10
  S5: to this day, the treaty does not oblige either the
• 7:13
  S5: US or Australia or the third signatory, New Zealand. Let's
• 7:16
  S5: not forget to help each other. All it obliges us
• 7:19
  S5: to do is to consult in the event of an
• 7:21
  S5: attack on each other. So it was never conceived as
• 7:27
  S5: you as you suggest that the US would be the
• 7:30
  S5: one looking for help. And yet it was invoked. John
• 7:33
  S5: Howard did invoke it that day. Other countries followed suit,
• 7:37
  S5: although the US ambassador to Canberra at the time, Tom Schieffer,
• 7:42
  S5: told me later that he was the one who whispered
• 7:44
  S5: in Howard's ear that it might be a good idea. Um,
• 7:48
  S5: but Howard, full credit, he did act on it and
• 7:51
  S5: and the US appreciated it.
• 7:53
  S1: Were they surprised that we were prepared to do that.
• 7:55
  S1: And so immediately. Yes, because John Howard, of course, he
• 7:58
  S1: famously was on American soil. He just happened to be there.
• 8:02
  S5: Was one of the events I was covering in the
• 8:04
  S5: US at the time in Washington at the time. Right.
• 8:06
  S5: Was his visit.
• 8:06
  S1: Right. Okay.
• 8:08
  S5: Well, yes, the US was surprised and gratified. And yeah,
• 8:11
  S5: a white House official who was there at the time,
• 8:13
  S5: Mike green, now lives in Sydney at the US Studies Centre,
• 8:17
  S5: wrote to that effect that, you know, they were surprised
• 8:21
  S5: and gratified when when Howard did invoke the ANZUS treaty
• 8:24
  S5: and it was had huge support that move throughout Australia.
• 8:28
  S1: Okay. So countries around the world, they they barrack to
• 8:31
  S1: support America. But before we started recording, you said that
• 8:35
  S1: you think that September 11th attacks that they actually exposed
• 8:39
  S1: like what's perhaps the fatal flaw with American strategic thinking?
• 8:43
  S1: So tell tell us what you meant by that.
• 8:45
  S5: Well, in the case of nine over 11, I would
• 8:47
  S5: say it's twofold. First is the question of terrorism itself.
• 8:51
  S5: Why do terrorists use Terrorism. It's a doctrine that is
• 8:57
  S5: used by the weak against the strong. It's asymmetric rather than,
• 9:01
  S5: you know, I don't have the strength to confront you directly.
• 9:04
  S5: So I'm going to find an indirect way to take
• 9:07
  S5: advantage of you. And terrorism works by hoping to provoke
• 9:11
  S5: an overreaction. The weak hope to provoke the strong into
• 9:17
  S5: overreacting and turning, therefore, their own strength against themselves.
• 9:21
  S1: So it becomes an act of self-harm.
• 9:22
  S5: Exactly. It provokes the stronger partner, in this case the US,
• 9:27
  S5: into an overreaction. And that's precisely what happened. The US
• 9:32
  S5: fell for the track, the trap caught up in, you know, anger,
• 9:40
  S5: a lust for vengeance among much of the public. Shock. Um,
• 9:45
  S5: and a need to project strength to the domestic and
• 9:48
  S5: international audience. The US really overdid it and launched, you
• 9:54
  S5: know what then became 25 years of failed war at
• 9:58
  S5: enormous cost. Thousands of American soldiers injured and killed over
• 10:04
  S5: 1 trillion USD spent on what were ultimately two failed wars,
• 10:09
  S5: Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan at least was justifiable. Iraq was
• 10:15
  S5: a fictional threat, um, a terrible choice. But in both cases,
• 10:21
  S5: bad strategy was applied. And this is part two. So
• 10:23
  S5: part one, in my view of the weakness that this
• 10:27
  S5: revealed was an American gullibility to fall for the terrorist trick. Really,
• 10:33
  S5: it's just it's just a trick. Yeah. Uh, to, to
• 10:36
  S5: generate shock to, to provoke an overreaction. And the second
• 10:39
  S5: is a misapprehension of the value and the premium on
• 10:43
  S5: strategy over firepower. We saw it in Vietnam. The US
• 10:50
  S5: didn't learn the lesson there. We saw it in Afghanistan,
• 10:53
  S5: we saw it in Iraq, and now today we see
• 10:55
  S5: it in Iran. Massive firepower itself does not produce success. Strategy.
• 11:04
  S5: The successful application, the intelligent application of firepower is called strategy.
• 11:10
  S5: And that's what's missing in every one of those examples.
• 11:14
  S5: You know, it's a John Wayne mentality projected onto national strategy.
• 11:19
  S5: As long as you've got a big gun and you
• 11:21
  S5: shoot lots of bullets, you're going to win. Well, again
• 11:23
  S5: and again we see that that's failed. And in the
• 11:27
  S5: case of the well, in every time the strategy fails,
• 11:31
  S5: it damages us confidence in the future use of power.
• 11:37
  S5: We saw that in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we see J.D.
• 11:40
  S5: Vance takes the vice presidency of the US and says,
• 11:42
  S5: you know, war's terrible. I was abused. We were tricked.
• 11:46
  S5: It was a lie. It was a shocking travesty. We'll
• 11:48
  S5: never do it again. And Trump promising elected on the
• 11:51
  S5: basis of not starting wars, but then falling for the
• 11:54
  S5: same trap ultimately of, you know, a reckless application of
• 11:59
  S5: military force without due concern for strategy.
• 12:02
  S1: Well, you've, of course, just taken me to my next question,
• 12:05
  S1: which was, of course, about Iran. So are we to
• 12:08
  S1: take from this? And it's it's it's hard, I guess,
• 12:12
  S1: perhaps to to think about this at this anniversary, but
• 12:15
  S1: that the America hasn't learned this lesson that perhaps it
• 12:19
  S1: should have learned from from the horrific consequences of September
• 12:22
  S1: 11th attacks and the wars that then came afterwards. You
• 12:25
  S1: know that it should not enter another war like this,
• 12:29
  S1: you know, without the strategy and you know where it's
• 12:31
  S1: going to be very potentially be goaded into, you know,
• 12:35
  S1: really unfortunate consequences by a smaller, uh, by a smaller
• 12:41
  S1: country or smaller nation, which of course is exactly what's
• 12:44
  S1: happening again.
• 12:45
  S5: So yes. And, uh, I mean, at least Trump had promised, uh,
• 12:50
  S5: to learn the lesson. No more. No more wars. Yes.
• 12:53
  S5: But then obviously change his mind. It is extraordinary that
• 13:02
  S5: the weapons of mass destruction debacle in the Iraq War
• 13:05
  S5: was repeated in this war. It was a it was
• 13:08
  S5: a false threat which both his. Trump's own director of
• 13:11
  S5: National intelligence at the time and the IAEA had said
• 13:16
  S5: was no present threat from Iranian nuclear weapons. So the threat, again,
• 13:21
  S5: was confected. Yes. But even more astonishing, to my mind,
• 13:26
  S5: at least, is that Trump brushed aside the advice of
• 13:29
  S5: his military advisers going into a war. An inexperienced president,
• 13:34
  S5: inexperienced in warfare and strategy should should ignore the attempts
• 13:38
  S5: of the chairman of his Joint chiefs to persuade him
• 13:41
  S5: to prepare for the possibility that the Iranians might close
• 13:44
  S5: the Strait of Hormuz. Just stunning that he would brush
• 13:47
  S5: that aside and ignore that advice. Refused to take it.
• 13:52
  S1: After the break.
• 13:54
  S5: It would be foolish to abandon the only alliance we
• 13:58
  S5: have with a great power, no matter how feckless and
• 14:04
  S5: unimpressive the current president might be.
• 14:14
  S1: Okay, so I'm going to have to ask you what
• 14:15
  S1: is perhaps an uncomfortable question, which is then why are
• 14:18
  S1: we handcuffing ourselves to this nation? Surely the arguments against
• 14:23
  S1: doing so are numerous, right? I mean, this is a
• 14:26
  S1: nation that appears hell bent on not just continuing to
• 14:30
  S1: pursue wars of choice that, you know, without strategy that
• 14:33
  S1: is likely going to succeed. But under Donald Trump, the
• 14:36
  S1: United States is threatening the sovereignty of other democratic nations,
• 14:40
  S1: even allies. I mean, one of the latest, of course,
• 14:43
  S1: is Canada. Now, obviously, Canada is largely dependent on America
• 14:48
  S1: for its economy. But I mean, Canada is vitally important, right,
• 14:52
  S1: to the United States to help defend the northern border
• 14:55
  S1: up there in the Arctic against rivals like China and Russia,
• 14:58
  S1: which becomes even more of an issue as we get
• 15:01
  S1: glaciers melting and those water lanes become even bigger. And therefore, uh,
• 15:06
  S1: you know, increasing the chances possibly of, of rivals coming,
• 15:09
  S1: coming there. So why are we doing this, Peter? I mean,
• 15:13
  S1: surely many people would be listening, going, this is not
• 15:16
  S1: good for us anymore. You know, we were exceptional. We,
• 15:18
  S1: you know, invoked the ancestor treaty for America. We've always been,
• 15:22
  S1: you know, stalwart.
• 15:24
  S5: Mhm. And you do hear exactly that sentiment often in
• 15:28
  S5: Australia at the moment when Trump commits some other outrage,
• 15:31
  S5: like some of the ones you've just mentioned, threatening allies
• 15:35
  S5: while coddling traditional enemies like Russia, North Korea, China. It's
• 15:41
  S5: a reasonably common response in Australia for people to say, well,
• 15:45
  S5: what the hell are we doing with the with this guy?
• 15:47
  S5: We should just walk away from the alliance. I'd make
• 15:51
  S5: a couple of points. First is that the nature of
• 15:53
  S5: the alliance has changed during this administration. Until now, Australia
• 16:00
  S5: was unique in being the only country in the world
• 16:04
  S5: that fought alongside the US in every war since, and
• 16:07
  S5: including World War One. Um, the Brits didn't. The Canadians didn't.
• 16:12
  S5: Australia was the only one. We were the uniquely reliable ally.
• 16:17
  S5: That's finished. Trump is now in Iran without any Australian support.
• 16:22
  S5: Now that's largely his doing. He didn't notify Australia or
• 16:26
  S5: any other ally other than Israel that he was even
• 16:29
  S5: thinking about it. So we didn't really have the option.
• 16:31
  S5: But he later expressed frustration that allies, including Australia, didn't
• 16:36
  S5: join him in his war against Iran, and Australia has
• 16:39
  S5: never wavered in its determination to stay out of this
• 16:43
  S5: ill conceived and failing war.
• 16:46
  S1: Although we had plentiful company in that right? Yes. Obviously
• 16:49
  S1: countless countries as well.
• 16:51
  S5: Nobody has been foolish enough to join that war. Apart,
• 16:54
  S5: of course, from Israel, which.
• 16:56
  S1: Is a separate.
• 16:57
  S5: Issue, helped to lead them there. Yeah. Um, so that's
• 17:00
  S5: the first thing that, uh, precedent has now been broken.
• 17:05
  S5: Australia has stayed out of a US war. Second point
• 17:09
  S5: is we only have one alliance with a larger military power. Um,
• 17:17
  S5: do we want to discard that? Well, you could have
• 17:21
  S5: that luxury. Perhaps we could maybe indulge our moral sort
• 17:25
  S5: of revulsion at the way Trump conducts himself. If we
• 17:28
  S5: faced no serious threat. But Australia does. We face a
• 17:33
  S5: vast navy operated by the People's Republic of China, the
• 17:38
  S5: People's Liberation Army, Navy, Army and Air Force, which is
• 17:43
  S5: determined to establish hegemony in the region and to. And
• 17:47
  S5: to break Australian sovereignty. Now, that might sound like a
• 17:50
  S5: big claim, but just recall, it was only five years
• 17:54
  S5: ago when China was imposing $20 billion worth of trade
• 17:57
  S5: sanctions on Australia, that the Chinese embassy in Canberra issued
• 18:01
  S5: a list of 14 grievances against Australia. Anybody wondering what
• 18:06
  S5: China's intentions for Australia might be need only remind themselves
• 18:11
  S5: to look through that list of 14, which would have
• 18:14
  S5: required Australia to change foreign investment policy, to censor its
• 18:19
  S5: members of Parliament and media from criticism of China and
• 18:21
  S5: a whole bunch of other things in between. So it's
• 18:25
  S5: a blueprint for how China would like to break Australian
• 18:31
  S5: sovereignty and force Australia to rewrite its laws and protocols
• 18:37
  S5: in response to China's interests, rather than ours. And of course,
• 18:41
  S5: since then, there have been at least five known incidents
• 18:45
  S5: where the Chinese military has conducted dangerous and unprofessional intercepts
• 18:50
  S5: of the Australian military while in international waters and airspace,
• 18:55
  S5: including conducting um enforcement missions, UN sanctions against North Korea,
• 19:02
  S5: where there then basically intimidated and by the Chinese military. Um,
• 19:08
  S5: and then of course, there was the naval task group
• 19:10
  S5: that circumnavigated Australia just to deliver a subtle point. Uh,
• 19:14
  S5: another intimidation tactic. So, um, this is an expansionist and
• 19:19
  S5: ambitious China that Australia faces in the face of that, uh, risk.
• 19:27
  S5: Do we have the luxury of abandoning an alliance? Um,
• 19:33
  S5: and the answer, in my view, is it would be
• 19:35
  S5: foolish to abandon the only alliance we have with a
• 19:40
  S5: great power, no matter how feckless and Unimpressive. The current
• 19:46
  S5: president might be interesting.
• 19:49
  S1: Well, I did want to ask you about, I guess,
• 19:53
  S1: whether Australians I don't know whether they're supporting this because,
• 19:57
  S1: you know, we mentioned the Anzac Treaty in September. First
• 19:59
  S1: was the 75th anniversary. The offices of our Prime minister,
• 20:03
  S1: Anthony Albanese, and Foreign Affairs Minister Richard Marles. They released
• 20:06
  S1: a media statement, you know, in which, among other things,
• 20:09
  S1: it said, for more than seven decades, the alliance has
• 20:11
  S1: underpinned peace, stability and prosperity in our region and continues
• 20:15
  S1: to contribute to the region's strategic balance. Today, the United
• 20:19
  S1: States remains our closest ally and principal strategic partner. So. So, yeah,
• 20:26
  S1: what do you make of that, Peter? It's hard not
• 20:28
  S1: to read that and go really though. I mean, is
• 20:31
  S1: this alliance, I mean, is the United States contributing to
• 20:34
  S1: to peace in our region? And will they come to
• 20:37
  S1: our defense, Peter? I mean, I know that we're important
• 20:39
  S1: for them Geography's destiny and all of that. And they
• 20:42
  S1: need us for, you know, uh, for projecting their influence
• 20:46
  S1: in the Pacific. Are they going to protect us, Peter?
• 20:49
  S5: Well, it doesn't feel like the description you've just read
• 20:53
  S5: from the Prime Minister. When you consider the way that
• 20:56
  S5: Trump has imposed trade sanctions on Australia completely unjustified and unprovoked,
• 21:02
  S5: with one of the only countries in the world that
• 21:03
  S5: actually runs a trade deficit with the US. Everyone else
• 21:07
  S5: has a surplus. Mhm. And the unremitting trade hostility where
• 21:13
  S5: we have the white House making threats against Australia, if
• 21:16
  S5: the government goes ahead with efforts to simply to protect
• 21:20
  S5: its citizens, especially children, from the harmful effects of social media.
• 21:25
  S5: It doesn't feel like a very warm and friendly alliance
• 21:28
  S5: at all.
• 21:28
  S1: Not to mention that Donald Trump we know from the
• 21:32
  S1: new book Regime Change by the New York Times reporters
• 21:35
  S1: Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman. You know, he he was
• 21:39
  S1: essentially saying that, you know, why would we why would
• 21:42
  S1: we protect Taiwan? I think he used a teaspoon to
• 21:44
  S1: refer to this, like, look at this, you know, this
• 21:46
  S1: tiny nation, in other words. So that does foreshadow a
• 21:50
  S1: possible situation where, you know, China goes for Taiwan. We
• 21:55
  S1: are embroiled. America is nowhere to be seen. It's not
• 21:59
  S1: impossible to imagine.
• 22:00
  S5: It's not impossible to imagine. And and again, the ANZUS
• 22:04
  S5: treaty never had any automatic aspect. There was never a
• 22:09
  S5: guaranteed response from the US to Australia or Australia to
• 22:12
  S5: the US. It always depends on the political circumstances of
• 22:15
  S5: the time. Yeah. Uh, so there's that. Uh, but to date,
• 22:22
  S5: collective deterrence has worked because the People's Republic of China,
• 22:26
  S5: although it uses continuous asymmetric or hybrid warfare pressure against
• 22:31
  S5: a whole raft of countries, notably most recently, uh, Philippines, Vietnam, Japan,
• 22:38
  S5: Taiwan and others hasn't invaded. So you can say deterrence
• 22:44
  S5: has worked, and really the US is the only reason
• 22:49
  S5: that China would stay its hand, would even consider staying
• 22:52
  S5: its hand in asserting full dominance over Taiwan.
• 22:55
  S1: Right.
• 22:55
  S5: Okay. So it remains a complicating factor and a question mark.
• 22:58
  S5: Even with Donald Trump there, much less a more conventionally
• 23:02
  S5: minded US president. Uh, the other thing is, beyond that,
• 23:08
  S5: there are the the deeper structures that are inherent in
• 23:12
  S5: the alliance. The Five Eyes intelligence sharing system works in
• 23:17
  S5: our favor. It works in the US's favor as well.
• 23:20
  S5: But that's a daily reality that helps protect Australia getting
• 23:25
  S5: Intel from all those countries. From next year, the US
• 23:30
  S5: submarine fleet will start operating from not based but operating
• 23:35
  S5: through Fleet Base West off the West Australian on the
• 23:39
  S5: West Australian coast, which will bring British and US navies
• 23:44
  S5: submarines circulating routinely through the region, which only increases first,
• 23:50
  S5: the value of Australia to the US in in projecting
• 23:55
  S5: force around the world, but also implicitly improves the level
• 23:59
  S5: of security for Australia from Chinese ambitions. So there are
• 24:03
  S5: these really entrenched practices, commitments, not to mention sales of arms,
• 24:10
  S5: technology and other values, which Australia gets for a country
• 24:14
  S5: our size that it wouldn't normally be entitled to, including
• 24:18
  S5: most recently, frontier AI models, where, as our intelligence chiefs
• 24:24
  S5: have told us, or former intelligence chiefs have said on
• 24:27
  S5: the record, um, Australia needs to get the intelligence agencies
• 24:32
  S5: need to get access, you know, primary access to the
• 24:38
  S5: very earliest releases of cutting edge US Models to be
• 24:43
  S5: able to defend against Chinese AI and intelligence and cyber attack.
• 24:49
  S5: Because that's really there's a lot of there's a lot
• 24:50
  S5: of assets there for Australia that we we get as
• 24:53
  S5: a result of this alliance.
• 24:54
  S1: Because that's really the next battlefront, I guess, or one
• 24:56
  S1: of the next main battlefronts is going to be AI
• 24:58
  S1: against AI and notably China against the US. Really? Um, yes,
• 25:04
  S1: warfare on that front, essentially.
• 25:05
  S5: That will be epic and probably the subject for some
• 25:08
  S5: future podcasts.
• 25:09
  S1: Samantha, I dare say. Well thanks, Peter. It's, it's a,
• 25:13
  S1: it's a, it's quite a, it's quite an anniversary. So
• 25:15
  S1: thank you so much for walking us through it.
• 25:17
  S5: Always a pleasure.
• 25:25
  S1: In other news, today, a quarter of a million homes
• 25:28
  S1: across Australia worth $274 billion could be lost to sea
• 25:33
  S1: level rise by the year 2100, according to new data
• 25:37
  S1: from the Climate Council. An American woman has been convicted
• 25:41
  S1: of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. After letting
• 25:45
  S1: her five year old walk 800m alone in a gated community,
• 25:49
  S1: sparking debate around the world about the line between parenting
• 25:52
  S1: rights and criminal neglect, and cricket. Australia's decision to put
• 25:57
  S1: the Melbourne Renegades up for sale and open the way
• 26:00
  S1: for wider private investment in Big Bash League clubs has
• 26:04
  S1: been hammered by Cricket New South Wales. You can read
• 26:08
  S1: more at the age.com.au or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced
• 26:16
  S1: by Kai Wong. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
• 26:19
  S1: our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick.
• 26:24
  S1: If you like our show, follow The Morning Edition and
• 26:26
  S1: leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks
• 26:30
  S1: for listening.