Michael, many nation states in Europe are in NATO. They are not blind. AUKUS could precipitate the breakup of NATO and the formation instead of a united European military alliance.
The BBC article – its propaganda is so thick you could cut it with a knife, eg:
– “The fact is that the Australians calculated they had underestimated the Chinese threat and so needed to boost their level of deterrence.”
Surely this is nonsense? By far the greatest part of Australia’s trade is with China, so what is there for Australia to “deter”? It seems more likely that the “Anglo-Saxons”, as Renaud Girard put it, have coerced the Australian government, and history bears this out; a democratically elected Australian Prime Minister was replaced by order of the English Monarch in recent history, and Australia is infested with US military bases, yet there are no potential US targets within a thousand miles.
In light of the above, the following BBC statement is also nonsense. Referring to Australia, the BBC author wrote:
– It is almost the definition of a nation: a group of people who have come together to defend their own interests. Their own, not others’.
Compare trade with conflict; which is more in the interests of the people? Yet here is the Australian government defending the interests of the US-UK alliance, literally on the other side of the world.
Governments do not serve their people. Not here, not in China, the US, Australia, nor nearly any other place you can think of. Democracy is corruptible, power corrupts, and the evidence bears it out – power has corrupted democracy.