Tuesday, April 11, 2006
May you live in interesting times
Things in Australia are going to become a lot more interesting.

Despite the latest Australian tourism advertisements inquiring "Where The Bloody Hell Are You?", Australia has generally been something of a global sideshow: the Lucky Country Down Under, where everyone is sanguine and simply gets on with milking their sun-drenched lifestyle, in an utterly inconspicuous manner.

There have been no bloody revolutions, no military coup d'etats; democratic institutions have evolved in their own - typically Australian - unassuming way.

Military adventures have been limited to aiding the Mother Country in the early part of the 20th century and then backing up the replacement major power in the latter. Australia has only gone-in alone once, to help secure a tiny province on the island of Timor.

Sure there's the sport. Here, Australia punches well above its weight in a range of pursuits, which sometimes makes others envious. But it is, after all, just sport.

In industry, Australia has had its fair share of success, but then again, not too many 'firsts' or 'greatests' or 'biggests'.

So there's nothing terribly complicated about the place. And, on the whole, that's just how the Australian people like things to be.

So why the growing interest in this quiet little backwater?

Though subject of intense debate, it is certainly a possibility that the global economy will experience "Peak Oil" in the next few years. Many knowledgeable analysts predict that between 2008-12, crude oil production will peak - half the world's reserves will be expended - and then begin a slow decline.

Continuing rising energy demand will push crude prices skywards, generating huge disruptions in not only the world's economy, but also its politics.

And this where Australia comes in.

Australia sits on world's largest uranium deposits (around 40% of the total known) and hence will become a major player in the post-oil world.

Renewable fuels, lack of interest in reducing energy consumption and concern over anthropogenic global warming all make it likely that nuclear power will start to take up the energy slack created by diminishing oil supply. This, despite nuclear power's inherent flaws and the salient fact that no one has yet come up with a plan to actually deal with its waste, other than making it someone else's problem.

The global economy's insatiable desire for ever-more growth will ensure that energy consumption (and thus demand for uranium) will therefore continue to grow. Any regulations or wimpish concerns over the appropriate use of nuclear material, which stand in the way, will be swept aside.

The world will then begin to take an interest in Australia and its mineral deposits. (Actually, it already is.) Already, international bilateral relations have shifted and such intrigue is only more likely to effect Australian politics. Are we to become the next Middle East, a region beset by the machinations of foreign interests, whose only motive is the exploitation of what lies beneath the sand?

Ironically, the one thing that might save Australia from the same fate as the Middle East is John Howard's growing willingness to sell uranium, to just about anyone.

Howard has recently signed a deal to sell uranium to China for "peaceful purposes" only. Though Australian uranium may not directly find its way into Chinese warheads, its import will of course free-up more of China's existing supplies for use in making bombs. There is no real difference, other than in rhetoric.

China is not a democracy. China is consistently criticised for violating human rights. China has also made clear it will deploy its nuclear deterrent if its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan is threatened.

Two weeks earlier, George W Bush agreed to sell US nuclear technology to that other awakening global giant, India, again with only cursory safeguards stipulating how such technology could be used in weapons programs. India needs Australian uranium. Soon, it will get it, despite India being a non-signatory to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, which thus blocks Australian companies from exporting uranium to India. It is only a matter of when, not if, yellow cake starts making its way to India.

Howard has proved that he would sell his grandmother, if there were a dollar in it for him. To hell with non-proliferation and irksome international treaties.

These three policy shifts underline the centrality of energy in the dynamics of global politics and war. They have no doubt been inspired by US concerns over future oil supply and are an attempt to pre-empt growing competition for the remaining crude reserves. If India and China expand nuclear technology for their growing energy needs, that leaves all the more oil for Uncle Sam. When there's suburban SUVs to fill-up, who wants to worry about global security?

So can we expect the world's energy guzzling superpowers to start meddling in Australian politics, or stationing military bases in Kakadu National Park, or perhaps running covert insurgency wars against any State Labor government which refuse to expand uranium mining?

The Middle East could soon drop off the media radar as it ceases to be of interest to the world and, like Africa, will become just another forgotten basket case of failed economies and polities.

Instead, Australia will become the new battleground for the latest round of energy-inspired wars. Australians will find out how much fun it is to live atop of the world's biggest energy source.

Australians will suffer collateral damage, doors being kicked down in the middle of the night and punitive arbitrary military justice. The US, China and India will all be jostling to assert military dominance, arming friendly regimes, assassinating errant State Premiers and executing a ceaseless, low-intensity war, sapping the will of Australian people. And no one will care because for most people, it will be something that is happening 'somewhere else'.

So things are going to become a lot more interesting for Australia.

Food for thought, anyway.

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