Acronyms matter
The world has unfortunately been inflicted this week (no, not the week that was, this is a special blog post) by a speaking tour by probably the very worst prime minister Australia has ever had, Scott Morrison. Australia’s first post-truth PM, he was the person that broke the agreement Australia had with France to build submarines and to enter into a new deal, Australia, Great Britain and the US have done for some nuclear submarines for Australia. There is no end to the questions this deal brings up, including why on earth Australia needs submarines and why on earth Australia has chosen to accept that it will be an arm of the US (and maybe the UK(!)) in the event of a major war involving You Know Which Major Pacific country. To be fair to Australia, if there is a fight on anywhere in the world, we will show up, so this just continues that tradition. But by aligning like this from the start it reduces strategic flexibility, whereby Australia can consider all options and all angles, and then show up on the side of the US and the UK.
Australia first agreed to spend a huge percentage of its treasure on diesel powered submarines from France. Then, cosplaying PM Scott Morrison decided that he needed to prove to Boris Johnson(!) that he could be just as much of a two-timing word-going-back-on creep, so he reneged on the French deal and signed up for what was to be called AUKUS, for Australia, the UK and the US. Morrison stands by that deal still, which already makes you wonder.
All that is fine, and you may take the view that this is a Good Thing for Australia – unless, like the former Australian PM, Paul Keating, you have a brain. Keating proved that he had lost little of his bear-pit question time skills when facing the Australian Press Club, describing the deal in most unparliamentary tones. Or, what, in the Australian parliament, we call most parliamentary tones. Students of colourful political discourse are encouraged to learn more about the undefeated champion of the world in this category by following the links. It is fair to say that his attack on what passes for the press corps in Australia did not further endear him to the press corps.
More importantly, are there fewer more ugly acronyms than AUKUS? Leaving everything else aside, it is a shamelessly Anglophone grouping. In this difficult and fast changing world, can we afford to exclude the French? No, we cannot, but, if we invite the French back into the deal, we would be looking at FAUKUS – perhaps not the message we want to send.
The solution is staring us in the face. Why limit ourselves to four countries, when our European allies have shown their willingness to engage over Ukraine. All of the EU should be included in this initiative. Understand that in Australian English, youse is the plural of you. So, thinking from the get-go about how we brand this, and the sort of message we want to send, we should invite all of the EU into the deal too, and make our point, from the off, by calling it FAUKEUUS. Say it out loud. That makes the point in no uncertain terms.