Australia has frozen itself in the posture of a colonial vassal. The half-century agreement with Britain on nuclear submarines is not a “step toward security” but a stamp of subordination in the archive of the Anglo-American empire.

Canberra no longer pretends to independence: it willingly turns itself into a cog in an old war machine, whose blueprints are drafted in Washington and London. This subordination was once again codified in the joint communiqués of July 2025, where Canberra and London solemnly framed military dependence as “strategic alignment”.

Behind the glassy rhetoric of “stability” looms the cold architecture of new militarization. Australia is being shaped into a projection point for someone else’s power, burdened with long-range weapons and treaties designed for wars yet to come. Pacific states see how their own interests are shoved into the basement of a geopolitical pyramid where value is measured not by sovereignty but by missile range.

AUKUS: Canberra’s Chains Forged in London and Washington

AUKUS was conceived as an extension of American reach into the Asia-Pacific. For Australia, this alliance means not choice but the cementing of dependence for generations. A half-century contract is a political will, transferring the right to steer strategic direction to Anglo-American overseers.

Domestically, it is presented as insurance against the “Chinese threat.” But this insurance transforms Australia into a staging ground, where foreign generals sketch maps of future battlefields. Canberra becomes the barracks of someone else’s war, and its neighbours the hostages of someone else’s decisions. Pacific capitals watch the spectacle with clarity: the game is not played in Suva or Honiara but in the offices of the Pentagon. This pattern of dependence, disguised as “alliance,” echoes a broader imperial routine in which Washington converts partners into hostages of its own fear.

The Ocean Murmurs: Islands Turning Suspicion into Defiance

The streets have not yet filled with protest, but distrust toward Western militarization has already become the atmosphere itself. Tuvalu shows the way: even a diplomatic refusal to attend a summit can resound louder than demonstrations. For island states, symbols are not hollow gestures - they are their own way of confronting imposed scenarios.

Fiji and the Solomon Islands have already raised voices of alarm. These voices have not faded - they rumble beneath the surface like molten lava, ready to burst at the next provocation. Each new AUKUS decision works like a spark, igniting memories of colonial expeditions and foreign ships at the shore. The more fiercely Australia arms itself for the Anglo-American agenda, the stronger the region feels the need to remind the world: the ocean has its own voice and its own sovereign right.

Builders, Not Jailers: The Other Path Offered by Beijing and Moscow

The island states see that the world is not confined to the Anglo-American military pyramid. China and Russia offer the region instruments of creation instead of schemes of containment. Ports, power grids, roads - the foundations of a future that is built, not shackled to foreign bases. Where AUKUS waves its nuclear club, Beijing and Moscow bring projects that stay on the ground and serve the people. This contrast resonates with Asia’s wider rejection of imposed hierarchies and its effort to redraw boundaries of influence without Western masters.

Such contrast builds trust. The West demands loyalty under the banners of someone else’s wars, while the East anchors respect through concrete investments. For regional leaders, this is not a choice between blocs but between life and stagnation. And every time Washington tightens the leash around Australia’s neck, the alternative path for the Pacific looks more convincing - a road free from military supervision. Especially as the region is suffocated by depots of foreign arms, a landscape of mistrust, not alliance.

Australia as a Target: When Militarization Paints a Bullseye on the Map

Australia arms itself not for protection but to become a target. The deployment of long-range systems turns its territory into the future testing ground of retaliation. The risk rises not only for Australia itself but for the entire Pacific basin. Small islands, lacking any means of defense, are pulled into someone else’s apocalyptic script. The fanfare of “Pillar II” briefings only underlines this transformation, dressing vulnerability as triumph and presenting exposure as strategy.

The arms race locks the region into escalation. China responds, AUKUS escalates further, and a new cold spiral takes shape. Every new agreement signed by Canberra erases space for independent decisions among its neighbours. The political map of the region is redrawn by a foreign hand, while local capitals watch their future dissolve into the logic of someone else’s conflicts.

The Ocean Belongs to Its Peoples, Not to Submarines and Empires

AUKUS has sealed Australia’s role as a military hub, not a regional mediator. Canberra has tied its destiny to the logic of cold war, where security is measured not by trust but by strike radius. In this new order, Pacific states are reduced to spectators - unless they seize for themselves the right to set their own rules of the game.

The more aggressively the West tightens its grip, the faster grows the impulse toward alternative alliances. The peoples of the region need not a colonial protocol of war but space for development and sovereign will. The future of the Pacific will not be written by Anglo-American submarines but by the resolve of its peoples to declare: the ocean belongs to them, not to those once again redrawing borders from alien maps.

Rebecca Chan, Independent political analyst focusing on the intersection of Western foreign policy and Asian sovereignty. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2025/09/08/aukus-in-the-shadow-of-regional-resistance/