How we learned to stop strategising and love the bomb
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, synonymous as a deliverer of nuclear ordinance, now finds a home in Australia
Among the fast-tracking of massive and somewhat ambiguous and rushed decisions under AUKUS, the federal government has granted permission to allow Washington the right to permanently station half a dozen ‘nuclear capable’ long range B-52 bombers at Tindal Airbase in the Northern Territory. Another unprecedented security arrangement is set in stone, dragging Australia further into the ambiguity of a great power conflict, and highlighting the need for an urgent national discussion.
Australia will now join places like Guam, Diego Garcia and Hawaii to help to hold up the heavy metals, react to the DEFCON levels, and take further part in the never-ending codes and communications that make up the US ‘nuclear trident’ in the Indo-Pacific. As its newest member and under a new government, Australia may not have had the time to understand the totality of being beholden to such an arrangement, and as a result, rushes into another significant and unprecedented military arrangement, concealed from public view within in the hard-to-define shadow of AUKUS.
The scene is one of the most iconic in modern cinema. Former rodeo star Slim Pickens, playing his most iconic role as Major Kong, riding a nuclear bomb down to the surface in what would be the trigger to a world ending nuclear war. The attack-plan (R) that had Major Kong’s aircrew scrambling their B-52 Bomber to drop nukes somewhere in Russia had come from unhinged United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper. The General had locked down his base, convinced the Russians were poisoning the water supply with fluoride, and ordered an unapproved major nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. By the time the situation was stabilised, and the attack called off, Major Kong’s plane had not received the communication and would not turn back from its objective — Kong and his bomb would fall away to trigger World War III.
Kubrick’s thought-provoking masterpiece would highlight flaws in US strategic air command, leading to changes to protocols to avoid a real live Jack D. Ripper scenario, and would go on to spawn a generation of awareness in the arts, film and television, and more importantly the journalism that would inform the masses of the need to be conscious of the nuclear threat to our human existence. These observations seem to be lacking today that speak out against the doomsday clock straining to midnight over uncontrollable conflicts in Ukraine, and warnings that talk against direct provocations between Washington and Beijing, so too are voices delivering the adequate scrutiny in Canberra when considering the housing of ‘nuclear capable’ aircraft ‘nuclear-free’ country.
The B-52 Stratofortress plays a key role in the complex dance that flies over our heads in the form of strategic bombers. On the three prongs of the nuclear trident, the B-52 sits proudly with the other angels of death as the ‘strategic aircraft’, right beside land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Until now, Australia has never been so directly involved in holding up the physical infrastructure that carries the nuclear crucible.
Some sought to quieten the noise, mentioning that the B52 is a ‘multirole’ aircraft that has more than a ‘nuclear mission’, that it can do things like ‘naval mining’ and anti-ship strikes, and our Prime Minister seemed to play down the significance of the arrangement altogether. But the B52 was invented and improved upon to deliver large nuclear payloads and its presence should be cause for alarm, adding to already controversial American military assets in Pine Gap, Exmouth and Darwin. The image and idea of this platform being housed in Australia should be enough to open a robust and valid security debate, purely by the fact that these aircraft can be a potential component, and a potential target in a conflict with China.
In all the “shoulda woulda coulda” and sliding door moments of international diplomacy, the previous government’s mangling of the French submarine deal and the current government’s reactive move to hurriedly double-down into something as mind-bendingly significant as AUKUS has come to haunt Australia’s strategic projection before it has been properly defined. The arrangement is separated in as many nautical miles as it is in common interest, and at this moment still seems to be a few things written on a coaster by Boris Johnson, with no line of sight to the submarines that were supposed to be the reason for the arrangement — only the vague feeling that we may be overreaching in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment.
Perhaps Peter Dutton’s uncontainable bipartisan glee at the B52s, on the back of his record in government unnecessarily stirring tensions with the biggest power in our region, shouldn’t so completely complement Richard Marles’ doubling down on the need for “interoperability” and “interchangeability” at the cost of strategic independence. Australian decision makers now fawn over the distracted empty words muttered from a superpower more interested in scrambling to maintain its crumbling hegemony in the vast corners of the globe, than able to tailor a reasonable, robust and pragmatic defence strategy made to Australia’s best interests. That’s our job.
The corporate press carries on like the unwritten chapters of AUKUS are written in the stars, and these decisions lack adequate scrutiny as a result of this subjective framing. The ABCs ‘China experts’ now demonstrate an unnervingly eager hawkishness towards the badly unpacked inevitability of a large scale war with our largest trading partner, and an eagerness to parrot talking points from US-inspired strategic think tanks, compounded by a lack of analytical rigour. It was not so long ago that Australian talking heads, analysts and journalists were reasonably objectively unpacking the notion if we wouldn’t have to “choose between the US and China”. Now the posture has changed and so has the narrative, and more importantly, so is what the Australian people are being asked to entertain.
In Australia, a country where we can have robust and nuanced discussions about the sporting codes and Married at First Sight, where the political journalism class natter on about every square inch of the small turning circles in Canberra, it is alarming that the Australian populace has next to zero knowledge or input into what should be a vital national debate around Australia’s strategic future and its approach to foreign affairs. This is ultimately detrimental to good security outcomes that benefit national interest. Experts are starting to note that an important debate is lacking around issues of defence in this country, openly calling for a more open and inclusive debate on security, and for the government to be more transparent around details on arrangements like AUKUS.
The B-52s that will arrive here are relics from the Cold War, almost antiquated when compared with current generation bombing platforms — yet they are more than their physical presence in the hangar. The investments in bunkers and infrastructure, the presence of these bombers, will be just the beginning of a wider expectation from the United States upon us to entertain previously unthinkable notions in support of a conflict with China. As a middle power with its own unique interests, that would not benefit from a war between our largest trading partner and our largest military partner, it is incumbent on the government in Australia to encourage the US and China to seek peaceful coexistence, and to scrutinise any role we may have in its obstruction.
This decision to house six B-52 aircraft at Tindal runs dangerously against that logic.
I saw a B52 at the Alice Springs airport about ten years ago. The thing not only looked evil but it actually sent a shiver of fear up my spine, something I'd never experienced before. We don't need these things in Australia, just as we don't need nuclear submarines here either. China is not going to invade Australia. The sole purpose of both the B52s and the submarines is kowtowing to Uncle Sam.