Right Pulse

I’ve been following the new Falkland Islands crisis, mostly because of the implications it has for Australia and no one else in the media has picked up on the issue. BHP’s exploration and drilling rights near the Falklands are being coveted by the Argentine President – who typically is whipping up hysteria over the issue to distract attention away from her appalling approval rating. Argentine claims to the Falklands are pretty weak. They still regard the Falklands as a British colony, even though residents of the Falklands are British citizens and have been living on the Islands for nearly 180 years. What happened in the late 1700s – who killed who – is hardly relevant today.

Despite this, Argentina has managed to get the backing of the Latin American community to do…well what I am not really certain what. Let the UN sort it out and predictably tell the UK to bugger off? Something like that I gather, oh and lend support to Argentina’s defacto blockade of the Falkland Islands through a system of shipping permits between the two territories. Certainly there is next to nothing that Argentine military can do, other than harass. Their Air Force is still flying around in A4 Skyhawks and Mirage III jets, basically the same fighters Australia was flying in the 1970s; and the Argentine Navy is not much to write home about. No AAW capability, though they do have a couple of submarines – likely in dry dock. A squadran of RAF Eurofightersand pilots - preferably Block 5 and backed by Tornados for maritime strike- should be able to deal with the Argentine threat fairly easily.

Even more absurd than Argentina’s claim to the Islands is the response by – you guessed it – Hugo Chavez to the situation. As a sign of Latin American solidarity he had these choice words to say:

“Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I’m talking to you,” said Mr Chavez.

Charming. Hugo also made vague promises of giving Argentina military support – a long held pet issue of his – along with putting together some type of pan-Latin American air and naval armada that apparently will be thrown at the UK if the UN does not sort the issue out. That would make for interesting TV. Hugo does have some SU-30s and a couple of submarines that could cause grief. Their readiness and availability is another matter. I can’t imagine they are ready for war tomorrow, and how they would get down to the Falklands is also a question Hugo probably hasn’t thought through. Trivial details for the great people’s leader no doubt. I don’t see Chile throwing its F-16 Block 50s into the sway – secretly they really hate Argentina.  While Brazil could cause some grief, I don’t see anyone risking it. Well… anyone rational, just to please plastic face Argentina President Cristina Fernandez, as a 6th generation Falkland Islander called her in the Daily Mail.

I think it would be prudent for Australia to send 1 FFG and 2 FFHsaroundthe Falkland Islands  for training purposes and to link up with the Type 42 destroyer in the area. Also, making a good will visit to Chile to send the message that any irrational poorly thought through Latin American gusto would not be such a good idea. I think Chile is beyond that though. Argentina less so. While when it comes to stupidity Hugo is beyond redemption.

Hugo Looking For RN Ships

Not quite as absurd, but miserably predictable, the USA has essentially refused to acknowledge the UK’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. So if the Argies manage to stirrup military trouble, what is meant to happen to Australia’s commercial interest on and near the islands along withtheBritish citizens that live on them. What ever happened to you are either with us or against us? Words uttered by GwB after 9/11. Seems that when it comes to supporting allies when it is not convinent, the US is pretty good at fence sitting. As noted by Tony Young of UK Telegraph fame:

Tony Blair sacrificed his political career and jeopardised Britain’s international standing by making common cause with America in the War on Terror. No matter how often he claims it was because he believed it was “the right thing to do”, we all know what was really going on in his head. He simply didn’t want to break ranks with the United States….

So it is truly shocking that Barack Obama has decided to disregard our shared history and insist that we have to fight this battle on our own. Does Britain’s friendship really mean so little to him? Do the sacrifices Britain has madeindefence of the Atlantic alliance count for nought? Who does he think will replace us as America’s steadfast ally when she finds herself embroiled in a territorial dispute of her own — possibly with the very same motley crew of Latin American rabble rousers? Spain? Italy? France? Good luck with that, Mr President.

Ah, so naive. I mean both Tony Blair and Barack Obama. Possibly Obama, being part of the USA is always wrong crowd, sees that the USA has a weaker future so there is no point $#@! off the neighbours. From economic historian Niall Ferguson writing about US Federal fiscal matters:

Already, the federal government’s interest payments are forecast by the CBO to rise from 8 percent of revenues in 2009 to 17 percent by 2019, even if rates stay low and growth resumes. If rates rise even slightly and the economy flatlines, we’ll get to 20 percent much sooner. And history suggests that once you are spending as much as a fifth of your revenues on debt service, you have a problem. It’s all too easy to find yourself in a vicious circle of diminishing credibility. The investors don’t believe you can afford your debts, so they charge higher interest, which makes your position even worse….

As interest payments eat into the budget, something has to give—and that something is nearly always defense expenditure. According to the CBO, a significant decline in the relative share of national security in the federal budget is already baked into the cake. On the Pentagon’s present plan, defense spending is set to fall from above 4 percent now to 3.2 percent of GDP in 2015 and to 2.6 percent of GDP by 2028….

This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force….

The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don’t forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years, interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget, making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat.

Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform, it could apply to America next.

Gee, can’t wait. So what does the Falklands say about Australia’s reliance on the US military? Noticeably, their nuclear deterrent and the Pacific Fleet. Those days are numbered, so we may as well get our act together and increase military spending or otherwise we may find ourselves like the Royal Navy, not enough ships, limited force projection capability and helpless. And more than a decade of a mediocre Labour government philosopy of  ‘help the poor by destroying the middle class and wealth creators’ has not helped. The Falklands has a good deal to teach Australia.

UPDATE I

If Bill Clinton’s response to the East Timor crisis in 1999 is anything to go by, then his wife as Secretary of State couldn’t care less about ‘allies’ either. She is about to meet plastic face herself, Cristina Ferndandez de Kirchner, in a big snub to the UK. Presumably they will day dream together all things socialist.

Now the USA on the face of it may have some cause for feeling pretty angry at the UK at the moment, because of the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi and the release of CIA interrogation details by a UK Court on Binyam Mohammed.  However the fact of the matter is that Brown and Obama are both kindred spirits. They both love government debt and giving terrorists the benefit of the doubt. Releasing Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was disgraceful, but so has been Obama’s attempts at freeing Guantanamo Bay POWs, and his intent to give them access to the civilian legal system in NYC.  Feel the empathy Obama has for NYC residents? So the USA has no grounds for being angry at the irrational ‘protect the criminal’ mentality of the British Labour Party, because it is a mentality that Obama seemingly embraces as well.

Oh, and there is the small note of counting up the number of Argentine troops that have fought with the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. 1,2,3…..0.

Kevin Rudd should pull in the US ambassador with a ‘please explain’ as to why the US won’t acknowledge the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and by extension the BHP oil exploration and drilling rights that follow?