Former
Premier of New South Wales and former foreign minister, Bob Carr, has
noted the obvious about Australia’s situation in the world,
“Australia is gullible about the relationship with the United
States, former foreign minister Bob Carr says after Joe Biden pulled out of a
major trip down under.
The US president pulled out of the Quad leaders' meeting -
which was due to be held in Sydney next week - to handle negotiations with
Congress over the debt ceiling, which needs to be resolved by the end of the
month to avoid a catastrophic default.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese subsequently cancelled the
meeting, which also included the Japanese and Indian leaders, on Wednesday
after receiving a call from Mr Biden.
Bob Carr said Australians shouldn't believe the Quad "is
as significant a forum as some suggest".
"We Australians have been enormously gullible and
optimistic about our American partner," the former foreign minister and
NSW premier told Sky News.
"We've got to start to factor into our view of the
future in this world the prospect that America could be more unpredictable and
unreliable.”[i]
Australia
needs to start acting in our region like we are largely on our own, because
that is the reality, even if it does not appear that way yet to many. I have
friends who are big believers in the alliance with the U.S. and believe that
America is still the military power that it once was, or near enough to not matter.
But this is not the case. It is no longer an American power, as it is dominated
by an increasingly multicultural foreign elite. It is no longer leaps and
bounds ahead of its competitors, have pushed much of its advanced technology
manufacturing overseas. And it no longer has the ability to unilaterally
project where it wills in the world, more powers are rising up to stop this.
Australia
has always thought of itself as a serious player in the world, by virtue of our relationship to the serious players, the U.K. and the U.S.. But this
self-assessment has always been off base, and it is becoming riskier and riskier
for us to tie ourselves to the United States’ foreign policy goals. It is good
to see that there are political elites in this country who are willing to
address this publicly. Because if Australia bases its foreign policy and
domestic policy on the proviso that we need to do everything we can to keep
America on side, we run the serious risk of placing our nation is danger of
putting offside many of our neighbours, who are starting to align with the new
rising power.
“We've got to start to factor into our view of the future in
this world the prospect that America could be more unpredictable and
unreliable.”
Therefore,
we should be making sure that we can drill, refine and supply our own oil. We
should be making sure our energy sector is as reliable and sustainable as
possible and this means using the vast array of resources we have here. We
should be making sure that less and less do we need to buy our supplies and technology
from overseas. We should be preparing ourselves for the day that the United
States empire decides to withdraw its forces from Australia, just as the Roman
Empire withdrew its forces from the province of Britannia.
The day is
coming. Better that we prepare with foresight, rather than we wait to fix things
after it happens.
[i] Dominic
Giannini and Andrew Brown, 2023, Australia 'gullible' over US commitment: Bob
Carr, https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8200007/australia-gullible-over-us-commitment-bob-carr/
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