Why is Albo spending hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear-powered submarines? Because in the next couple of years, the Chinese domestic market for disposable adult nappies will be worth even more than we’re spending on attack subs.
A lot more.
“Back it up a bit there, JB.”
Why are we gonna drop three hundred and sixty-eight bazillion dollarydoos defending ourselves from a nation of geriatric bedshitters?
We’re not.
We’re gonna spend a lot more than that.
If you hate the cost of the nuclear subs deal, you’re gonna lose your shit when the bill for the Defence Strategic Review gets to the table.
You might want to pre-order some adult diapers. You know, while stocks last.
It was weird that Albo and Marles just straight up revealed the true, fifty-year cost of AUKUS because telling the truth is usually a career-ending move for those who live and die by the whims of we, the fickle mush-heads who vote for them. I got you some spicy hot takes on that later.
For now, Imma tells you a truth that they don’t really want to, cos it’s a bit scary, and it’s not about the cost of submarines. They probably got that right, give or take a few gigabucks. And to put it in context, that gigantanormous fifty-year payday for the merchants of death is still less than we spend in twelve months on health, education and welfare.
Fun time with sums? If you project the cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme out over the lifespan of the AUKUS subs, you get a tidy little sum of more than two trillion dollars. Sounds like a lot, because it is, but Australian GDP over that period will top out at over 550 TRILLION dollars. So we can probably afford the NDIS, too.
The truth of it is Canberra’s doing this with Washington and London’s help because everyone is terrified of what happens when Beijing’s adult diaper spend blows past its baby nappy budget.
The Chinese adult diaper market is assploding (I’m so sorry) at the same time as demand for newborn Snugglers is shrinking right across the Middle Kingdom. For a whole bunch of reasons, China’s population is ageing and dying off faster than it can be replaced.
That’s what demographic collapse looks like, and over the next hundred years it will absolutely, positively bet-your-ass-and-the-rent-money reduce that country from a rising behemoth to a shrunken husk.
Okay, sure, a shrunken husk with a population of five hundred million. But that’s still kinda husky compared with the 1.4 billion they’re rocking right now.
The delta between those two numbers is the place where dreams go to die.
If you hang around the sadder sort of national security dive bar, you’ll hear a lot of drunks and bullshitters banging on about the Thucydides Trap - the almost inevitable brawl that breaks out when a rising power meets a declining power in the car park with too many beers under everyone’s belt.
Athens vs Sparta.
The Hapsburgs and the Ottomans.
And coming to a first island chain near you, China versus the USA.
Except in one critical sense, China’s not a rising power anymore. Demographically it’s already peaked, and everything from this point on goes tumbling downhill super fucking fast. It’s like the Ernest Hemingway line about going broke. How did you lose your fortune? Slowly at first, then all at once.
The population begins to fall, the fall begins to accelerate, the economy, which had been growing at explosive rates for decades, starts to falter, and all the dreams of renewal die. That’s the real trap. A declining power that sees its main chance to ascend suddenly closing off. That was the thinking behind Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour - a desperate shot at the gold ring before it was snatched away forever.
Tokyo’s militarist junta knew they had a couple of years when they might—just might—be able to change the reality on the ground in South East Asia. China will be stuck in its multi-generational death spiral for a hundred years, and we’ll be trapped in it with them.
Is AUKUS likely to add to Beijing’s perception that time is running out?
Is anyone likely to back down in this game of geostrategic chicken?
Nuh-uh.
Of course, the US and UK are no more guaranteed a cruisy 21st century than the People’s Republic.
America could easily erupt into an atomised civil war if that fits in with the Fox News programming schedule. And if, or more likely when, Scotland separates from the rest of Great Britain, the British economy, already cratering, will have to invent whole new forms of cratering to accommodate all the extra cratering it will do after the Craterpalooza of Brexit. Those poor bastards are less able to pay for these submarines than we are.
After all, we’ve got options. Those fat, juicy Stage Three tax cuts are looking increasingly submarine shaped to JB. And remember how I said it was weird that Albo and Marles just straight-up revealed the true cost of AUKUS. It’s not so fucking weird if you’re looking to torpedo (again, sorry) a stupidly wasteful handout to a bunch of negatively geared millionaires and Liberal Party donors.
And, of course, China’s not without agency.
Xi Jinping could wake up tomorrow and be like, “Fuck this Taiwan shit. I’m gonna get some bubble tea instead.”
Or twenty-five million Taiwanese could wake up and go, “You know what, totalitarian repression’s not all bad. I want some of that.”
Not likely, sure, but it could happen.
More likely, however, we’re all gonna get ground into loose meat by the great stone wheels of history.
So I think I might get some bubble tea, too. And maybe buy some shares in Snugglers.
Well said, well said. The future is ripe with ugly scenarios. It's classic Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. China believes it needs regional hegemony in Asia (just as the US has regional hegemnoy in the Americas) simply to survive. Add in China's deeply felt sense of "a century of national humiliation", nurtured by the CCP to help consolidate its grip on power, and you have a recipe for conflict. There's an arms race going on, and China is running at full speed. If China believes it can achieve its aim fo regional hegemony through military means it will. Thus, to quote the great Mr Hetfield, "to secure pece is to prepare for war". I wish it were otherwise, but as the disarmament movement proved in the 1930s, the obscenity of massive miltary spending in times of economic hardship (and yes, it is obscene) may be better than the alternatives.
As perceptive as any other analysis I have read JB, and a damn sight better than most. Thanks again. Passing it on to high ranked US naval personnel relative to give him the answers. :)
Gotta fanboy out bit here, but I love it when you explain geopolitical security shit in super approachable and entertaining ways -I can eat me that all day.
Also, this paragraph "America could easily erupt into an atomised civil war if that fits in with the Fox News programming schedule. ..." redeemed your existence after "assploding".
Now off to buy shares in Chinese made adult diapers...I want that Harley before the world ends!
The build up is well underway in the top end and has been for a decade. What's your take on Keating's comments. ? I reckon we'd be dumb to ignore such a military build up as China has done. Where's Havoc now days? He'll know what to do !
Galarrwuy Yunupingu is in Gove hospital. It's not looking great but he's tough and has bounced back before. We're in the process of saying goodbye to a great mate. Nhama Yalala Wawa ga gurtha
It is already happening, with the pensioners revolting over cuts in health care at the provincial level. That is one segment in China you don't want to piss off.
There was another article I saw on YouTube where younger Chinese people invest in farms for it to be pillaged locust like by groups of elderly people who gleefully tell the the owners to STFU because no one will do anything to them.
And we know that nuclear subs are the most absolute death-dealingly ripper kits of kit because they are so death-dealingly they had to be left out of the Axix trilogy.
Otherwise it would just have have been the Axis short story, maybe novella...
And on this timeline where does the overshooting 1.5oC global average sit? The century is going to get interesting.
Define "interesting?"
"oh my god, we are all going to die"
Well said, well said. The future is ripe with ugly scenarios. It's classic Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. China believes it needs regional hegemony in Asia (just as the US has regional hegemnoy in the Americas) simply to survive. Add in China's deeply felt sense of "a century of national humiliation", nurtured by the CCP to help consolidate its grip on power, and you have a recipe for conflict. There's an arms race going on, and China is running at full speed. If China believes it can achieve its aim fo regional hegemony through military means it will. Thus, to quote the great Mr Hetfield, "to secure pece is to prepare for war". I wish it were otherwise, but as the disarmament movement proved in the 1930s, the obscenity of massive miltary spending in times of economic hardship (and yes, it is obscene) may be better than the alternatives.
As perceptive as any other analysis I have read JB, and a damn sight better than most. Thanks again. Passing it on to high ranked US naval personnel relative to give him the answers. :)
This aggression will not stand…
My favourite pop quiz ATM. Only for Tawanese residents. WOULD YOU RATHER YOUR ISLAND NATION BECOME:
(a) Hong Kong
(b) Ukraine
(c) Australia will have nuke submarines one day
Gotta fanboy out bit here, but I love it when you explain geopolitical security shit in super approachable and entertaining ways -I can eat me that all day.
Also, this paragraph "America could easily erupt into an atomised civil war if that fits in with the Fox News programming schedule. ..." redeemed your existence after "assploding".
Now off to buy shares in Chinese made adult diapers...I want that Harley before the world ends!
The build up is well underway in the top end and has been for a decade. What's your take on Keating's comments. ? I reckon we'd be dumb to ignore such a military build up as China has done. Where's Havoc now days? He'll know what to do !
Why not suspend sales of iron ore and spend the subs money instead on the shortfall?
Galarrwuy Yunupingu is in Gove hospital. It's not looking great but he's tough and has bounced back before. We're in the process of saying goodbye to a great mate. Nhama Yalala Wawa ga gurtha
Very interesting take on things JB. Had not thought about it from that perspective.... Think I'm a gonna get me some shares in Depends too.
It is already happening, with the pensioners revolting over cuts in health care at the provincial level. That is one segment in China you don't want to piss off.
There was another article I saw on YouTube where younger Chinese people invest in farms for it to be pillaged locust like by groups of elderly people who gleefully tell the the owners to STFU because no one will do anything to them.
And we know that nuclear subs are the most absolute death-dealingly ripper kits of kit because they are so death-dealingly they had to be left out of the Axix trilogy.
Otherwise it would just have have been the Axis short story, maybe novella...
Not keen on sabre rattling, not keen on Aukus, not keen on nuke subs, but the saddest part of this whole business for me was Keating's outburst.