The Trump Administration and the scramble for the Pacific sea-bed

Written by: (Contributed) on 17 August 2026

 

(For more than a decade, people have struggled to stop deep-sea mining in the Marian Trench)

Diplomatic tensions between key Pacific islands and the Trump administration over the role of US mining companies seeking to exploit mineral rich deposits look set to escalate. The position taken by the Trump administration has cast further light upon the dysfunctional nature of their foreign policy.

It has, moreover, far-reaching implications for US hegemony across the wider Indo-Pacific region, already the focus of diplomatic concerns about China and the future prospects of Taiwan. On 15 February 2025 China and Cook Islands signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in which they agreed to collaborate to research and potentially extract the latter’s seabed critical minerals. 

In early August, a major diplomatic statement issued by the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas Islands Governor, David Apatang, noted the Trump administration had made plans to allow mining companies access to deep-sea mining exploration, despite strong opposition from local people. (1) Concerns have also arisen about similar planning in the close proximity of Samoa.

The Marianas Islands and Samoa both rely upon the US for their defence and security provision. The Pentagon also regard the two countries as 'strategic assets', forming part of island chains used to restrict access and egress by China, into the wider Oceania area of the Pacific.

The Marianas Islands are regarded as particularly sensitive for two reasons: the southern island of Guam hosts military intelligence facilities which swing on an arc from Pine Gap to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and their Pacific counterparts. (2) The Pacific is also used by the US to host other sensitive military and intelligence facilities. (3) The Pentagon has also installed radar and missile systems on remote parts of island chains. (4)

The Western Pacific has also become a potential flashpoint for real-war scenarios between the US and China. A US Congressional Commission, for example, issued an official statement nearly a decade ago that 'the US is no longer clearly superior … and that it would struggle to win wars against China or Russia'. (5) The balance of forces has continued to swing still further during the past decade. And it continues to do so.

In fact, the commission recommended that the US should respond by 'further relying on traditional allies, including Japan and Australia'. (6) Recent high-level diplomacy between Canberra and Tokyo, therefore, is best assessed in that light. The controversy surrounding the 'melons' affair has been a convenient way of concealing other, more pressing, agendas.

Secondly, environmental concerns, including marine life and oceanic migrations, remain important for local Pacific islanders. Many local residents live subsistence lifestyles and any move to interfere with the environment potentially has far-reaching implications for whole communities.

What remains an important matter for consideration is that the Trump administration has been noted for not having undertaken any consultation about its Pacific foreign policy initiative. Swashbuckling bravado, instead of standard diplomacy, was the order of the day.

A diplomatic statement issued by the governments of the Marianas Islands, Guam and Samoa, has stated that they want a 'temporary ban on deep-sea mining in their territorial waters'. (7) All three, however, acknowledge that they 'have little say'. (8)

The moves would appear, therefore, highly likely to prove counter-productive for the White House. The powerful Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), for example, has been diplomatically silent over the matter. No doubt, however, its members have watched over the moves.  

The Trump administration, nevertheless, appears ready to begin auctions of underwater terrain as early as November. Neo-colonial agendas for polymetallic nodules have taken priority over traditional foreign policy positions. (9)

A particularly worrying sign of the nature of the strained diplomacy between the US and the Pacific islands concerned has been their total failure of to consider the importance and significance of their exclusive economic zones. (10) The large zones carry considerable diplomatic significance inside region forums, including the PIF.  

The moves by the Trump administration will also have considerable bearing upon Taiwan. For nearly a decade Taipei has pursued a 'New Southbound Policy', with attempts to foster closer links with regional countries for its own defence and security provision. While it has faced a reduced number of official diplomatic links due to the One China policy, its role within regional forums and think-tanks should not be overlooked. (11) Taiwan maintains a regional presence.

Successive governments in Taipei, nevertheless, rely upon US support, and the moves by the Trump administration toward the Marianas Islands and Samoa can hardly be seen to enhance that position or inspire a sense of confidence that the White House remains supportive of smaller countries increasingly placed in front-line positions with emerging China. Rather, the Trump administration appears oblivious to counter-productive policies.

In fact, when assessed in light of recent developments in trouble-spots elsewhere, commentary includes opinions that 'while no doubt informed by credible assessment of available intelligence … the US … now risks handing a further propaganda tool', to adversaries. (12) The intelligence assessments obviously exist, there is little evidence, however, the Trump administration even reads them, let alone studies them in the context of maintaining workable foreign policy initiatives. Dysfunctional remains an apt explanation.

Meanwhile, Canberra has remained diplomatically tied to Washington and the Pentagon with the so-called 'alliance'. 

It is a diplomatic relationship fraught with very real dangers with the threat of real-war scenarios looming on the horizon:

                                          We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Deep-sea mining ban push, Australian, 7 August 2026.
2.     Map of the World, Peters Projection, Actual Size; and, US intensifies military presence in the Indo-Pacific, The Global Times, 24 July 2018.
Jennifer L. Anson, 14 February 2020.
4.     See: US Indo-Pacific Command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021; and, US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021.
5.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
6.     Ibid.
7.     Pacific islands alarmed, MSN / AFP., 6 August 2026.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Australian, op.cit., 7 August 2026.     
10.   US v. China, op.cit., 14 February 2020.
11.   See: Beijing keeps a wary eye on new Taipei outpost, Australian, 18 June 2018.
12.   Trump's secret catering cart switch over threats, Australian, 12 August 2026.

US developing kinetic and non-kinetic weapons for space war

Written by: Nick G. on 17 August 2026

 

With China and the US locked in a race to be the first to establish a manned base on the Southern Pole of the Moon, the US is making no secret of its plans to establish its space supremacy by military means.

We have reported on US objectives in the past, but it is worth repeating with every new expression of the US intention to militarise space.

The latest comments came on August 12 2026 at the US Army Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama. 

US Space Command (SPACECOM) head Gen. Stephen Whiting, told attendees that SPACECOM’s top two priorities for fiscal 2029 through to 2033 are “integrated space fires” and capabilities to counter large constellations of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) in order to establish space superiority.

“We’re a combatant command and we fight to win wars. To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence,” he said.

Kinetic refers to the movement of a physical body such as a missile for the purpose of the destruction of an adversary’s material assets; non-kinetic refers to such movement as use of radio waves for jamming an adversary’s communications systems.

Whiting’s deputy, Lt. Gen. Rick Zellmann, on Tuesday told the symposium that the US military now has “policy” approval for three basic types of space fires: ground-to-space fires that “we’ve been doing for years” with “communications jamming systems;” space-to-space attacks known as “orbital warfare;” and, given that the Trump administration plans to build space-based interceptors for the US Golden Dome missile shield, space-to-ground.

Responsibility for ground to space fires is shared with the Army, the Air Force and Marines, but orbital warfare and space to ground fires are the preserve of SPACECOM.

It would be wise to assume that both Russia and China are developing similar capabilities. 

The UN Outer Space Treaty prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in space, but there are many weapons that do not fit either definition, so there is no real internationally binding prohibition on the militarisation of space.

Both major imperialist blocs are engaging in space in anew version of the “scramble for Africa” during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It is a measure of how little imperialism has advanced humanity’s aspirations for overcoming commercial greed and warfare that its reach now extends into space.

The U.S. government, the Pentagon and big tech: key components of U.S. imperialism. Part 1

 Written by: Alex M. on 12 August 2026

 

An article in the Guardian’s online edition back in April revealed the blatant corruption of a U.S. official by the name of Emil Michael. 

Michael ‘is the Pentagon’s under-secretary for research and engineering under the Trump administration oversees negotiations with AI companies and has been pushing the defense department to rapidly increase the widespread use of AI’ (Guardian 10 April, 2026).  (1)

Prior to his appointment to the position, Michael owned shares in Elon Musk’s xAI, which is the entity behind Grok, the generative AI chatbot. Interestingly, xAI shares were not available on the open market, but Michael has a social connection with Musk and this may have facilitated Michael in acquiring the shares. Be that as it may, the register of Michael’s assets lists his holdings of xAI shares sitting in the range of US$500,000 to US$1,000,000. 

Here is where it gets decidedly tawdry: Michael made a couple of decisions in his capacity as a Pentagon official about Pentagon contracts that favoured Musk’s xAI. A complete conflict of interest. No surprises then that Michael has managed to get away with this blatant bit of corruption given the nature of the US government under Trump (not that things would be necessarily better under a Democrat president, but the Trump regime is notoriously corrupt).

Aside from the corruption, there is another thing to note and that is the intimate connection between the US government and Silicon Valley. The relationship has become even more intimate in the second Trump administration. Tech billionaires like Musk, Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, Sam Altmann and others have either made donations to Trump’s 2024 election campaign or have made clear their support for the Trump presidency. 

Musk was appointed by Trump to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which despite its name, was not an official government department. DOGE, in its advisory capacity, did manage to bring about the slashing and gutting of U.S. government departments, their budgets and important programs, which did nothing to improve government efficiency. While Musk did not stay long at DOGE, nonetheless it highlights the strengthening of bonds between Silicon Valley tech billionaires and the U.S. government.

Trump’s regime has also smoothed the way for the ongoing hyper-scaling of AI by companies such as Altman’s Open AI and Anthropic led by Dario Amodei. These two corporations are in a self-imposed race to be the first to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), supposedly the equivalent of human intelligence. 

The quest seemingly requires inordinate amounts of what is called ‘compute’, the shorthand term for computer chips and associated hardware such as servers and so on. The company that makes the highly sought-after computer chips (GPUs) is Nvidia another Silicon Valley tech giant. As a consequence of the insatiable appetite for ‘compute’ and associated infrastructure such as data centres which have monstrous price tags, a financial bubble has arisen. 
The Silicon Valley AI boom is predicated on much touted gigantic future profits that will come with the widespread adoption of AI. So far none of the major AI corporations have shown the returns on investment that would indicate that massive profits will arise in the future, yet they clamour for more investment capital. Pundits suggest that the AI bubble will eventually burst, but when this will happen is unclear. 

Under the influence of the ‘tech bros’ of Silicon Valley the Trump regime has made sure that the AI juggernaut rolls on by removing any legislative or administrative obstacles to the further development of AI and its infrastructure (data centres etc). The US government also sees AI as a weapon or instrument to prop up flagging US hegemonic power across the globe. Hence the deals with the oil rich Gulf states between Open AI, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for example.

As Edward Ongweso Jr has detailed in a number of investigative pieces on the intimate relationships between AI firms, the oil rich states of the Arabian peninsula, the Trump administration and the AI financial bubble, there is an underlying strategy. That is, in order to continue U.S. imperialism’s status as the world’s Mafia don, the oil rich states will become one part of what Ongweso calls the Compute Axis. (2) The axis consists of ; ‘1) Silicon Valley and its capital-intensive dream of building God out of sand; 2) Trump and his brigands – concerned with transactional relationships, deregulation, and imperial plunder; 3) the sovereign capital of Gulf .’  (3) 

The oil rich states with their massive sovereign wealth funds have been looking to pivot into a post-oil future and Sam Altman of Open AI is always looking for trillions of dollars to fund his race to create AGI. Altman pitched a $US7 trillion plan to the Gulf monarchies where the energy supply and compute capacity build out would not be a problem, as there is more than enough fossil fuel energy and little to no civilian pushback on massive data centres. For their part, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are keen to embrace the U.S. led AI program. According to Ongweso, the Compute Axis has developed with astonishing speed:

Gulf sovereign wealth funds now bankroll data centers, chip deals, crypto ventures, and real estate branded by the Trump Organization. AI firms gain capital and regulatory havens. Gulf monarchs secure access to otherwise restricted technology. And Trump reaps the political and financial rewards of acting as matchmaker-in-chief.  (4)

The U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and the Iranian response to those attacks, which, among other things, targeted Amazon Web Services data centres in the UAE and Bahrain, have perhaps put the plans of the Compute Axis on hold for the time being. What is certain is that despite the negative influence that the unprovoked and criminal attack on Iran has on the roll-out of the above plan, U.S. imperialism sees AI as an integral part of shoring up its hegemonic status. It is hell bent on heading off the challenge from another AI power, China.

In Part 2, the Pentagon’s intimate ties with big Tech will be examined.

 

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/09/pentagon-ai-xai-emil-michael 

(2) ‘The AI Bubble in 2026 Part 1: On the coming geopolitics of the compute stack, or Our New Imperial Strategy’ available here: https//www.thetechbubble.info/p/the-ai-bubble-in-2026-14 accessed 18 May 2026.

(3) ibid

(4) ibid

AI – the rush to a Royal Commission in SA

Written by: Nick G. on 12 August 2026

 

(Malin-AUKUS with Vice-Admiral Gaucher (@PMalinauskasMP X account)

)

SA Premier Malinauskas has just announced a Royal Commission into artificial Intelligence (AI). The announcement followed his return from a trip to the US where he met with US politicians, Department of War personnel and AI industry leaders.

The visit to the US was as much about the AUKUS arrangements as it was about AI, but there will be no SA Royal Commission into AUKUS, just as there has been no federal parliamentary enquiry.

The Royal Commission will be headed by a three-person panel and report back by July 1, 2027. “It’s all about ensuring South Australians maximise the benefits and minimise the unwanted risks,” said the Premier.

He said a rising backlash against data centres in the US required clear AI policy settings in South Australia. In the US there have been big demonstrations against the 4,000 plus data centres especially in Nashville Tennessee. People are worried about water and electricity prices going through the roof due to amount used by data centres, plus pollution of the air and noise levels.

Malinauskas in the US

The SA Premier met with US Department of War personnel Admiral Bill Houston, Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program; Vice Admiral Rob Gaucher, the United States’ Director of Submarine Programs, at the Washington Navy Yard; and US Naval Academy, Maryland, Superintendent Lieutenant General Michael Borgschulte. These meetings focussed on what the SA government must do to facilitate the delivery of AUKUS.

He also met AI industry leaders including leaders of STACK Infrastructure, based in Virginia and owner of 7 Australian data centres; Apple CEO Tim Cook; OpenAI Co-Founder and President Greg Brockman, with whom he signed a Memorandum of Understanding on its operations in SA; and Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown. 

He met various politicians, including US State Department AUKUS Liaison Adam Korzeniewski; Michael DeSombre, Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the US Department of State; and several Congressional representatives.

Finance capital was also present in a team from private equity and asset management giant Carlyle Group, as well as Chief Executive Zach Shore of the Hermeus Group, contracted by the US Air Force to build an updated version of the Concorde, a hypersonic aircraft capable of flying faster than the speed of sound. 

Data Centres in SA

There are already a number of small and medium-sized data centres in SA including one at Woomera Ave, Edinburgh, close to the RAAF Base and its co-located No. 1 Space Surveillance Unit. 

The DigiCo Edinburgh data base was bought out by Queensland data centre operator iseek in 2022 to increase “our exposure within the defence and education sectors”. However, iseek itself was bought out by Australian company HM Capital. “Australian” may be a misleading term as nearly every one of the 20 top shareholders in HMC is a bank or finance nominee company, and nominee companies are often holding mainly US and other overseas investors’ capital.

A moratorium on data centres?

A number of people on Malinauskas’s Facebook page have quite rightly asked whether there should be a moratorium on new data centres while the Royal Commission enquires into AI. This will not happen.

One of the most controversial projects already underway was announced by Malinauskas before his US trip.   On June 23, plans for multiple AI data centres in regional South Australia were announced. Malinauskas pledged to lead the nation in AI infrastructure and development through a ‘Data Centre Strategy’, and estimated $850 billion would be invested in the sector over the next few years.

The Strategy followed an announcement that IREN Limited, an Australian company headquartered in Sydney, would build an 800MW AI data centre in the state’s Mid North at Bundey, a failed town on Ngadjuri land that could not survive its location on Goyder’s Line which divides SA according to rainfall. The centre would be one of the largest in Australia.

Iren owns data centres in Canada and the US, powered by renewable energy, for both cryptocurrency mining and AI cloud services. Cryptocurrencies are the vortex into which speculative capital is sucked. Iren offers bitcoin customers proof-of-service, deterring manipulation of data by establishing large energy and hardware-control requirements.

Servicing the data requirements of speculative capitalists may be profitable, but it comes at a cost to energy consumption and water needed to cool the facility.

Two other centres are proposed for Stirling North (near Pt Augusta), and Tailem Bend on the Murray River. Both are to be AI factories, a specific type of data centre. The latter are designed for computing tasks, including data storage, web hosting, and enterprise applications, whereas the former are designed specifically for developing models in AI and Machine Learning. 

These two AI factories are to be built by Firmus which is already building one AI factory in Tasmania, and has two more planned. The company ran into trouble in July when it inadvertently placed on its website an internal memo stating that it intended to use state-owned agricultural irrigation water for cooling its facility despite no such arrangement having been entered into.

AI factories feed into AI through systems like ChatGPT which breaks language, eg individual words, into components called “tokens” which are then used to “pay” AI providers for their services. Firmus is in the business of generating such tokens. It is a private company seeking to profit from the social need to adopt AI to an increasing range of tasks.

State and feds

The federal government announced in late July that it would introduce a set of Australian Standards for AI governing the operation of data centres. Why Malinauskas has rushed to a Royal Commission in SA when the feds are developing their own policies and procedures is unknown. Someone once said though that government never set up Royal Commissions unless they know the outcome in advance. So perhaps Malinauskas is hoping that the Royal Commission will defuse opposition to the invitation he has given to OpenAI to come and operate in SA. A watertight endorsement of the “financial benefits” and “jobs bonanza” associated with AI would suit him very well. 

It is certainly unlikely to pursue the option of AI for the benefit of others than the corporations and their governments. 

It is equally very doubtful that it would look at how the people could own and use AI for socially beneficial purposes if it was taken out of the hands of private profiteers.

Trump diplomatic forum on “terrorism” a threat to democratic rights

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 August 2026

 

On 16 July the Trump administration hosted a diplomatic forum attended by 66 countries, including Australia. (1) To what extent the official Australian diplomatic presence was linked directly to the US military footprint in Australia, was not specified in forum publications. (2) The so-called 'alliance', nevertheless, remains a major factor.

The so-called Pillars One and Two of the AUKUS agreement, moreover, have included extensive US involvement into Australia, particularly with US software corporations which use advanced cyber systems and AI through Australian-based military facilities. (3) The surveillance of Australian residents and citizens, by the US intelligence services, likewise, is regarded as being both commonplace and widespread. (4) It is not difficult to detect.

Some of those attending the forum, interestingly, also did not necessarily represent specific countries and retained their anonymity; reference was made, for example, to 'Mr Kurd is here from Kurdistan'. (5) Who was he or she, who did they really represent? The boundaries of Kurdistan, for example, enclose areas rich in mineral deposits and rare earths.

The main item of forum business was also questionable: an official diplomatic statement about the Ministerial forum included references directed toward 'far-left political terrorism'; intelligence-gathering was dealt with along lines of 'addressing it before it metastasises', revealing surveillance of persons of interest. (6)

The Trump administration, following their far-right political course, have become obsessed with what has been labelled 'cultural-marxism'; a loosely knit collection of political opposition figures and ideas referred to by the White House as 'woke'. There is little doubt the Trump administration has already targeted political opposition figures and movements and subsequently labelled them as 'terrorist' along lines of political expediency.

The fact the one-day forum coincided with an official high-level diplomatic visit to the US by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, has also raised questions about the shadowy Jonathan Institute named after Benjamin Netanyahu’s older brother, a member of the Israeli Special Forces killed in 1976 during the famous raid at Entebbe, and used by the US and Israel for surveillance purposes on opposition figures and Palestinian activists. It has been noted, for example, the institute was founded by Netanyahu in 1979 specifically to pursue a perceived joint war against terrorism with the US; it retains strong links with the intelligence services and is his personal power-base of support. (7)

Other official media releases, interestingly, also drew attention to three specific areas of interest by the forum: Islamic considerations, narcotics-related matters, left-wing political extremism with specific reference to anarchism and anti-fascism, without any reference to the far right. (8) 

It is as if nothing has changed since the previous Cold War, over half a century ago.

Some of the declassified documents from the previous Cold War make interesting reading; studies of the US Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, for example, reveal a common pattern of targeting the left-wing and democratic procedures, as they were regarded as obstacles confronting 'US interests'. One collection of declassified documents from the period revealed the US intelligence services targeted 'worldwide … those who oppose the US Defence Department'. (9) The target would appear very large indeed.

Whole subject populations were profiled during the period and placed on lists.

The use of the internet in recent times has merely heightened the ability of the US to stray further into the private lives of civilian populations in the name of intelligence-gathering.

Revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) researched 'ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Venizon and other US technological powers', would leave little to the imagination about the real nature of espionage. (10) The back-door into
the internet was left unlocked for those silently seeking access.   

It is now possible for governments to use AI programs for profiling. The uses and abuses of data-centres, therefore, is a very real threat, particularly those with military applications and facilities. (11) Numerous alerts are provided by governments to publicise foreign powers and adversaries using the same intelligence-gathering techniques. The wholesale erosion of civil liberties in countries such as Australia, however, has become a major consideration; civil liberties include safeguards to protect personal information. Questions therefore arise about the motives of those responsible for enabling the intelligence-gathering practices.

Whether foreign powers and adversaries have become convenient 'false flags' to enable the US and allies to mine vast troves of data remains a point in question; 'computer hacking' has increased alongside the establishment and expansion of data centres. (12) Coincidental?

The recent computer hacking of Origin, for example, was not taken seriously by the corporate entity for almost three weeks. The fact that the hackers successfully removed nearly a million customer records including the last four digits of credit card details, the last three digits of bank accounts, names, dates of birth, billing histories and phone numbers, has raised serious issues regarding cyber security. (13) In fact, an official explanation from Origin stated that they 'initially believed the threat was not credible'. (14) A far more plausible explanation for the response by Origin could, however, be the sophisticated nature of the hacking using official techniques of access and entry inside the system.

Studies of the energy use of customers can be used as part of a basis for profiling: during the height of the previous Cold War in Central America, for example, Guatemala fell under scrutiny being regarded by the US as a strategic asset for their domination of the region. The ruling military elite of the tiny country used an Israeli-installed computer system to monitor electricity and telephone usage together with individual movements through police and military checkpoints with access and egress into areas of interest. (15)

A computer matrix had been devised to establish and track contacts between individuals and groups of interest to the military elite, including that of 'safe-houses', clandestine political organisation and communication conduits. (16) The matrix was a tool of repression.

The profiling was subsequently used by the military elite, working alongside Police Intelligence G2, to identify what was regarded as abnormal electricity and telephone usage as a link toward unwanted left-wing opposition political activism. (17)

Other, similar, computer hackings, including Australia's Medibank Private, also carried an almost dismissive approach by those in officialdom; they were noticeably nonchalant. And, perhaps, for good reason. They had no wish to reveal uncomfortable answers?

Intelligence gathered from the Medibank Private hacking, for example, could also be used for profiling, including the assessment of levels of resilience to social change. The private health-care body, moreover, had an extensive client base in the Australian middle-classes and higher socio-economic groups. Demographic changes taking place in Australia have already left their mark upon the traditional centres of social, political and economic power. The decline of the centre-right Australian Liberal Party as a centre of power and patronage, for example, has not been difficult to observe. And with the changes, questions may have arisen about the longer-term political stability of the country as a vital regional hub for 'US interests'. (18) 

With the balance of forces now swinging against both the US and Israel, the recent forum in Washington can, perhaps, be viewed as an indication the US takes the problem very seriously. They represent the most aggressive side of the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and the forces of capital over that of labour as the main factors of production, and, therefore, they want to identify and demonise any opposition.

In conclusion, we live in troubled times with the ascendency of the far-right, openly supported by the Trump administration. It would appear they are busy assessing what they regard as obstacles to their nefarious agendas, which operate under the guise of 'US interests':
                                            We need an independent foreign policy

1.     Data Centres, www.Renegadeactivists.org (July 2026); and, US hosts conference, Time Magazine, 17 July 2026.
2.     See: The Heavy US Military Footprint on Australia, IPAN publication, 2026.
3.     Ibid., pp. 6-7.
4.     See: The CIA's Australian Connection, Denis Freney, (NSW, 1977).
5.     Results, US Department of State (Washington), 20 July 2026.
6.     Ibid.; and, 'Mortal Threat', CNN., 17 July 2026.
7.     See: Covert Action, Edited by Ellen Ray and Wm. H. Schaap, (Victoria, 2003), page 51 and page 164.
8.     US hosts global meet on 'left-wing terror',  AL JAZEERA., 16 July 2026.
9.     US Army Regulation: 381-20, Section 1.5, Mission and Policy, Page 1,     (Declassified: 15 November 1993)  
10.   See: The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
11.   Data Centres, both their physical and software components fall under the Defence         and Security List Part 2, Categories 4 and 5, Data Centres publication, op.cit., July 2026.  
12.   See: Tech titians as potent as nations: MI6 chief, Australian, 17 December 2025.
13.   Origin dismissed hack as 'not credible', Australian, 29 July 2026.
14.   Origin dismissed hack as 'not a credible' threat, Australian, 29 July 2026.
15.   See: The Garrison State, Steve Goldfield, Palestine Focus Publications, San Francisco, CA., 1985.
16.   Ibid.
17.   Ibid.
18.   See: Pine Gap is a place of counterinsurgency, IPAN Publication, July 2025.

 

Oppose the extraterratoriality of NATO personnel in Australia.

Written by: Nick G. on 31 July 2026

 

A proposed new Agreement governing the deployment of NATO personnel to Australia to facilitate the procurement of NATO goods and services is setting a dangerous new precedent for the surrender of Australian sovereignty.

Specifically, it proposes extending near-extraterritorial status to all civilian and military NATO personnel operating in Australia. Extraterritoriality was notoriously imposed on Qing Dynasty China by Western powers whose citizens in China could not be tried for crimes in Chinese courts, and large sections of Shanghai were denied to Chinese police and military.

 

Australia has several agreements governing the status of visiting foreign military personnel. They are the Defence (Visiting Forces) Act (1963), the Australia–United States Status of Forces arrangements (1963), and the Australia–United States Force Posture Agreement (2014) governing the rotational deployment of US Marines, Air Force personnel and other forces in Australia.

 

None of these provide complete exemption from Australian law, although they do provide for jurisdictional allocation where Australia can agree to provide waivers from prosecution under Australian law, and allow the prosecution of those charged by the military authorities of the foreign state concerned. This is particularly the case where conduct constitutes an offence under both Australian law and the sending country's military law, and both countries may potentially have jurisdiction.

 

US-Australia Force Posture Agreement

 

The most significant waiving of Australian immunity to date applies to US military personnel under the Force Posture Agreement which confirms that US personnel remain subject to US military law while also recognising Australian criminal jurisdiction in appropriate cases. 

 

The FPA does not relinquish legal Australian sovereignty to the US for its bases in Australia, but does so in practice. Within Australian bases, certain areas may be designated for the exclusive use or control of US forces for agreed purposes. Operational control of designated areas may rest with the US during agreed activities. This concept did not exist in the same developed form under the Visiting Forces Act. 

 

Article VII of the PFA states:

 

“United States Forces and its contractors shall have unimpeded access to Agreed Facilities and Areas for all matters relating to the pre-positioning and storage of defence equipment and supplies including delivery, management, inspection, use, maintenance and removal of such pre-positioned material. As mutually determined by the Parties, aircraft, vehicles and vessels operated by or for United States Forces shall have access to aerial ports and sea ports of Australia and other locations, for the delivery to, storage and maintenance in, and removal from, the territory of Australia of United States Forces’ pre-positioned material.” 

 

In short, the Agreement enables the United States not only to station its troops in Darwin but to store on Australian soil, US war supplies including spare parts, fuel, weapons, ammunition and bombs and opens Australia’s seaports to their navy and airports and runways for the use of their air-force.

 

The NATO Agreement

 

The full title of the proposed new Treaty is the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Support and Procurement Organisation (NSPO) on Acquisition and Support Cooperation.

 

It has so far largely slipped under the radar. It was opened for public inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, but as of the closing of the time for submissions, there had only been two, one strongly for the Treaty, and one strongly against. By contrast, the non-Parliamentary Public Inquiry into AUKUS, which is still ongoing, has received nearly 500 public submissions to date, almost every one of which is opposed to the AUKUS arrangements.

 

Under Article 5.3 of the NATO Treaty, the NATO Support and Procurement Organisation (NSPO) “shall have legal personality within Australia…”

 

Under Article 6.3, “NSPO shall enjoy immunity from any jurisdiction including criminal, civil and administrative, in Australia.” Under Article 6.5, those immunities include:

 

a. Immunity from personal arrest or detention, and inviolability of papers and documents;

b. Immunity from suit and from other legal process in respect of words spoken or written and all acts performed by them in the exercise of their official functions within NATO;

c. Exemption from the application of laws relating to immigration and the regulation of aliens;

d. Exemption from currency or exchange restrictions.

 

Article 6.12 says that “The premises and archives of NSPO shall be inviolable. Their property and assets shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation or any other form of interference.”

 

Article 7 on Liability, states “Under no circumstances will this Agreement give rise to any Liability for NSPO. All risks inherent in the performance of support or services provided by NSPO shall be borne by Australia.” Article 7.3 states that in the event of any suit or claim against the NSPO, Australia shall pay for legal counsel chosen by NSPO…”

 

This means that no Australian worker or military employee injured, exploited, abused or defamed in the course of employment to implement this Agreement will have any come back against NATO, and in fact will be blocked in the courts by lawyers paid for out of their own taxes.

 

No previous Treaty or Agreement extends such sweeping immunity from Australian law to the military or civilian personnel of another country. No previous Treaty or Agreement grants extraterritoriality to the citizens of another country in Australia.

 

This is a dangerous precedent to set, particularly now that US forces here are not on temporary visits, but have permanent presence in military, air force and naval facilities.

 

The politicians who are complicit in such arrangements claim to be great patriots, but are in fact part of a traitor class of pro-Empire activists, bureaucrats and military leaders who are surrendering Australian sovereignty to the imperialists.

 

The only answer is a genuinely anti-imperialist Australian independence and socialism. 

Zionist war machine never so isolated

Written by: (Contributed) on 28 July 2026

 

(Many Orthodox Jews support Palestine and denounce Zionism. Torah Jews on X)

Revelations that the Netanyahu government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars together with a US$45 million lobbying contract to 'improve its image around the world', has carried the hallmarks of an administration failing to maintain adequate diplomatic initiatives with counterparts elsewhere. (1) The Israeli State already has an elaborate propaganda machine; the strength of the world-wide Palestinian lobby, however, has left the Israeli government in a vulnerable position in recent times, following genocidal policies on Gaza and the expansion of illegal settlements on the West Bank.

Israel is losing the information war.

It is also a sensitive time for the Netanyahu administration, facing a general election at the end of October. Its electoral support has dropped and polls have shown it will be likely to only win about 20 seats in the Knesset, whereas to establish a government it requires at least 61. Internal, back-room political manoeuvring, therefore, would appear the order of the day with the government and opposition both attempting to establish coalitions of smaller, and fragmented political parties. (2) Netanyahu, moreover, faces serious war crimes charges; fears of losing office and an incoming government putting him on a plane for South Africa to face the charges remain a consideration not easily dismissed.

It has been generally accepted that support for the Palestinian lobby has already made clear inroads into the US Democrats and that Republican support for the Zionist State has been eroded with 'a younger generation of influential conservatives is pushing for change … saying Israel's interests don't always align with those of the US'. (3)
A reliable poll conducted in the US in February found more of the sample now sympathised with the Palestinians and had caused a 'shift fuelling concerns among some Israeli voters about long-term support from one of Israel's most vital allies'; their options are limited. (4)

The developments have also included over a hundred US house Democrats voting to suspend US$3 billion in military aid for Israel. (5) While the vote was unsuccessful, it revealed a shift in the balance of forces. Israel remains dependent upon US military aid.

Elsewhere, the Zionist lobby has also floundered; many Israeli diplomatic personnel have been asked to leave by host countries, who want no more of the Israeli war machine. It has been noted that many traditional Western allies of Israel are now at odds with Tel Aviv about the Netanyahu administration's creation of 'buffer zones' in neighbouring countries. (6)

Israel has, historically, relied upon the Sayanium, who have acted along similar lines to 'illegals'; the volunteers form part of networks of loyal supporters of the Israeli State elsewhere. (7) By the late 1990s, for example, it was estimated that there were over 4,000 Sayanium operational in the UK, with four times that number in the US. (8)

Studies of the Sayanium established that the shadowy intelligence networks were well provided for; it was noted, for example, that, 'MOSSAD … spent several hundred million dollars a month maintaining its assets … the Sayanium'. (9)  

It is now, however, more difficult for the Sayanium to operate with impunity; numerous questions have arisen about Israeli involvement inside other political systems.

The fact that part of the recent Israeli budget allocation has been based upon a lobbying contract awarded to a former Trump campaign manager was met with official diplomatic silence from the Israeli Embassy in Washington; it would tend to indicate the sensitive nature of the operation, in line with usual intelligence provision. (10) While Trump has been a long-time supporter of Israel, problems have now arisen. He has, increasingly, relied upon vice-president Vance when dealing with Israel. He has distanced himself from controversy.

The recent escalation of diplomatic tensions between the US and Israel, furthermore, followed attempts by the Trump administration to resolve its war-footing with Iran; allegations were made in Washington, by Vance, that a pro-Israeli journalist employed by Time magazine was behind 'a literal foreign influence campaign' by Israel to undermine peace-talks. (11) It amounts to a particularly damning criticism of a prestigious publication.

Israel is generally held responsible for providing the Trump administration with intelligence about Iran's supposed nuclear program and vested interest in promoting the present war. A statement from the corridors of power and a US intelligence assessment in Washington, however, that found that Iran has made no attempt to rebuild nuclear facilities, has added to diplomatic tensions between the US and Israel. (12) Israel's intelligence was flawed.

The developments carry a strong resemblance to earlier initiatives by Apartheid South Africa to shore up its system in the face of universal condemnation and sanctions imposed by other countries. The country was, increasingly, under siege from perceived adversaries.

The so-called Information Scandal grew out of diplomatic initiatives taken in Pretoria during the early 1970s to counter the problem. The Information Department secretly funded 138 projects designed to influence world opinion, and safeguard the Apartheid State. (13) Hundreds of influential people, including numerous journalists, were subsequently invited to South Africa to project a favourable image. Vast sums of money were allocated for the project; some was never officially accounted for, raising warning signs of illicit operations.
The whole secret operation, however, back-fired and proved counter-productive.

Even after the scandal subsided it was noted that at least half of the 138 secret projects continued to be operational. (14) Financial support was found from elsewhere for what had become vital intelligence organs for Pretoria.

It was, moreover, not coincidental that throughout the same period Israel maintained strong support for South Africa; both were regimes which rested upon supremacist and ethnic ideologies, confronting unfavourable political opinion from elsewhere. (15)

Publicity in South Africa about the Information Scandal was quickly used by the opponents of Apartheid to increase support and hasten the collapse of the political system; those associated with the controversy sought to distance themselves from involvement. The whole Apartheid system eventually ceased to be tenable. Whether a similar scandal is now brewing in Israel, remains the matter in question; it has been noted, for example, that 'Netanyahu is extremely worried'. (16) And so he should be. The writing may be on the wall.

Reports emerging from inside Israel about the widespread political divisions are not difficult to access; policies from the Netanyahu administration to continue to fight wars with neighbouring countries have met with widespread opposition and massive protests. Cracks are becoming openly observable in Israel. Emigration and draft-dodging are commonplace.

The recent Israeli initiative to create a lobbying body to promote favourable images of the Zionist State, therefore, would appear more in line with an act of desperation rather than a clearly planned and careful diplomatic manoeuvre. It is a sign of weakness, not strength.

1.     'Go to hell': Vance ramps up criticism of Israel's public opinion campaign, Australian, 17 July 2026.
2.     Clock is now ticking on Netanyahu's political future, Australian, 20 July 2026.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 17 July 2026.
4.     Former general emerges as Bibi's chief election rival, Australian, 7 July 2026.
5.     Australian, op.cit., 20 July 2026.
6.     Australian, op.cit., 7 July 2026.
7.     Gideon's Spies, Gordon Thomas, (New York, 1999), pp. 54-55.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Ibid.
10.   Australian, op.cit., 17 July 2026.
11.  Ibid.
12.   Tehran 'posed no nuclear threat': American spy chief, Australian, 27 March 2026.

13.   Inside BOSS., Gordon Winter, (London, 1981), pp. 524-525.

14.   Ibid.

15.   The Unnatural Alliance, James Adams, (London, 1984); and, Birds of a Feather: Israel and Apartheid South Africa,  Colonialism of a Special Type, Ronnie Kasrils, Israel and South Africa, The Many Faces of Apartheid, (London, 2015), Part One: Historical Roots, Chapter One, pp. 23-41.  
16.   Australian, op.cit., 20 July 2026.