Nigeria, Feb. 13 -- There were never the sharpest negotiators in the room, resembling a facsimile of Bertie Wooster in desperate need of the good advice of his manservant Jeeves. The Australian defence establishment has yet to find a wise head who will finally tell them that the A$368 billion AUKUS pact between the three Anglophone powers of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States has only one oversized beneficiary in mind.

While the Australian treasury gets drained in throwing cash at US naval yards in acts of stealthy proliferation for Washington's military industrial complex (A$1.6 billion has so far been forked out), it is becoming increasingly clear that a good gaggle of officials and lawmakers have no appetite to eithe...