Search Results
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DENNIS ARGALL Korea, China, US and Trump
It has not helped that senior military people have been inclined to simply call the North Koreans crazy, any more than it helps now to simply call Trump crazy. Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. The complexity of saying no to the Americans.
The degree of ‘interoperability’ with US forces shapes the minds of Australian service personnel from top to bottom as also it shapes procurement planning and justification. … Any review by us of the Alliance relationship would run-up against a deep history. It would require a radical shift in the pattern of power within Australian strategic policy-making Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Pine Gap and national strategic independence.
For a long time people have focused concern on Pine Gap. But Pine Gap is but an element of our entanglement with United States strategic policy, which is the big thing to be addressed and turned around. Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Not so scary under Korean skies
Australia has had yet another high level former US defence official breeze in, this time to warn that we might be attacked by the DPRK. Whether there is or is not a concerted plan to all this, the visits of the grave and famous and warnings about improbable threat serve a purpose of keeping us Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Trump-Kim, Korea, China and the future.
The underpinnings of Australian strategic utterances are slipping away. There will be, it is the way the world is, a flood of “yeah, but…” comment on the Trump-Kim Singapore summit. Not least because the number of experts on Korean affairs has risen multifold in the past several months much as did the number of experts Continue reading »
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DER SPIEGEL Italy Sends a Jolt Through Europe.
Euro-skeptic Italian populists are posing a serious threat to the European Union. Following the drama over Greece and Brexit, the political situation in Rome could throw Europe into its next major existential crisis. Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Many steps on Korea between the principals.
While the US and DPRK are at very early stages in working forward from the Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore on 12 June 2018, a wide range of practical steps have taken place between the ROK and DPRK and China and Russia are involved too. While upheavals in American political perspectives are possible, there is orderliness Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS. Korea: what should Australia be doing?
While the pace of media reports about the Korean Peninsular has slowed a little since the Singapore Summit there has been much going on – in public and under wraps. Skepticism about the North’s commitment to the core issue of denuclearisation has grown but it is still clearly too early to form definite conclusions about Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. In a changing world, who are we, where are our eyes and minds?
In what is perhaps a fantasy endeavour – to find Trump’s objectives in recent travel and assess outcomes – I suggest three. And in this essay, I look further into global and perceptual actions and needs… and the lack of decent vision in Australia. Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. A letter from Italy: to put some global and Australian issues in perspective.
In the languages of the mighty, in the temples of globalisation, the simplicities of neoliberal globalisation and orthodoxies of Brussels and money, Italy is the coming big problem, bigger than Greece, needing to be reined in, needing to conform and spend less. A country which many of the serious and mighty think is a bit Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Lessons and thoughts for Labor’s future
There is a lot of emotion in the wake of disaster for Labor in the federal elections on 18 May 2019. There will be forensic examinations and recriminations. There is good prospect of a Labor Government after the next elections… if… Labor must go steadily and clearly and must look like a government in brief Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL: Australian strategic posture from here forward
There is no sign of political enthusiasm to grasp the need for coherent national strategy, but basic principles need to be put in place and three particulars need urgent attention. Continue reading »
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DENNISS ARGALL. Thinking through the choppy issues in trade and strategic threat.
The public discussion of trade war and security issues is too simplistic. Trump’s bilateral adventures in liking and bullying will mean discussion of structural changes in regional affairs to which Australia will not be party. Trump is not a passing phenomenon. We cannot say as some are saying “our alliance is with the US, not Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Tiananmen in context
There has been feverish interest in the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen incident, in Australia with some focus on repression in China, fuelling antagonism towards China. In this essay I want to provide context that is lacking: in the evolution of economic reform and liberalism in China, in the evolution of Sino-Soviet relations and regional Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. Absenting Ourselves From the World.
This is mainly about China, but more. We have excluded ourselves in many ways from the engines of modernity in Asia and more widely by our recalcitrance on so many issues and our unwillingness to engage with the new. We are not of such weight for others to care. We demonstrate an incapacity to maintain Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. The Pompeo view
US Secretary of State Pompeo said a couple of things in Sydney recently that were wrong in fact. He articulated an absurd philosophy about foreign investment, unaware that he’d just accused China of thinking something similar. His utterances of high-minded principles in the Australia-US relationship and US strategic policy mask very dark realities. Continue reading »
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Hong Kong and Londonderry and the global crowding of everything
The uproar in Hong Kong has become very serious, with a situation as developed in 1989 before Tiananmen: of leaders unable to cope and an uprising implacable in resolve and unable to focus on achievable objectives. The comparison should not be overdrawn but Hong Kong now is threatening greater consequence than did Tiananmen. Tactically the Continue reading »
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Australia’s strategic folly: lessons from Barbara Tuchman
We arein a situation where decisions that seem simple can commit Australia to fundamental errors of strategic judgement. The decision to send a ship and a plane and headquarters staff to a new venture with the United States in the Middle East is foolish. It is described in isolation by the government but is additional Continue reading »
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DENNIS ARGALL. We are ill prepared for inevitable dramatic change. and the need to shift fundamentals of national strategy
“A revolution is not a dinner party”: Chairman Mao. We are in the middle of a number of revolutions, which we must try to understand and which require independent national strategy and vigour. These processes will be rough and unavoidable. Can we make it? Not with present political leadership and community attitudes. Continue reading »
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When all you have is a defence hammer, what about some quality diplomacy?
‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ comes to mind upon the release of Australia’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update, continuing the tendency to view international issues mainly through a security lens. Continue reading »
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The world cannot afford a war between US and China
It is so obvious that the world cannot afford a war between US and China. We have a very serious COVID pandemic with us. We have to try to feed the 7-8 billions global citizens around the world affected by this pandemic and keep them safe from illnesses and dying. We could be facing even Continue reading »
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Darkness in a propagandised state risks war with China.
Our distorted perspectives, our ignorance, is now more dangerous than the situation leading to the Vietnam War in the 1960s. We have experienced a sudden end to immediate knowledge of Asia including China We are vulnerable thus to pandemics of media misinformation. Continue reading »
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Being driven to war with China by government folly. How to change course?
Essays by Max Suich on 16, 17, 18 and 19 May 2021 in the Australian Financial Review have unearthed the dreadful path of mismanagement of Australia’s relations with China since 2017, entrapping us foolishly in a path to war. We have to end this folly. Machinery of government is bung, leadership is out of control. Change Continue reading »
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The axis of evil shaping our minds, on China and more
If ever there is now an axis of evil it is surely the uncoordinated journey of fellow travellers ASPI, now reportedly replacing DFAT as strategic advisor to government; Adrian Zenz, conservative Catholic inventor of Xinjiang genocide, who wants to see the overthrow of the government of China, and the ABC team led by Stan Grant, Continue reading »
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Hong Kong and Taiwan: seeking perspectives
My intention here is to provide some information on Hong Kong and Taiwan, having regard to media failure and the general drought of information in Australia. Policy and public sentiment is being driven by passions and our tendency to prefer conflictual in news and argument. Continue reading »
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Trapped by memes: on China, national strategy, and Ukraine
There is popular concern about climate and the environment. But of comparable danger is the way we have simplified our thinking about the world, seeing threats, losing our capacity for diplomacy and for building and maintaining friendships, wildly overspending on defence force toys. This must change. Continue reading »
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Australian and international voices call for de-escalation of Ukraine situation
In contrast to the voices and actions of the governments of U.S., U.K. and Australia inflaming the situation in Ukraine, voices from citizens and organisations for de-escalation and peaceful resolution are being raised around the world. Continue reading »
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US, Russia, NATO, Ukraine: Truth is out there, beyond the memes
“Today we face an avoidable crisis [between the US and Russia regarding Ukraine] that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense”. Continue reading »
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Nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference in historical context
The Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is underway at the UN in New York. The record of the treaty is not perfect but it is the major persisting arms control agreement. If peace means a continuing negotiating process with the other, as President Kennedy asserted, we need more of this. Continue reading »
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The age of stupidity and enthusiastic folly – Australia, an endangered nation
It is difficult to understand how weirdly Australia now conducts itself internationally, the postures it adopts. We have notionally a new government with a sense of social justice and a vision opposed to inequality. But it is promptly, a neocon enthusiast. Continue reading »