Writer
Michael McKinley
Michael McKinley is a member of the Emeritus Faculty, the Australian National University; he taught Strategy, Diplomacy and International Conflict at the University of Western Australia and the ANU.
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Are we preparing to fight the wrong war : an interesting but lower order question.
In weapons systems, as in many other areas of life, Artificial Intelligence is being heralded as “the future for all humankind”. This description is part of the problem: it comprises a submission to a fatalistic view of the future in which we are all information organisms (“inforgs”). It does not have to be this way Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia, China and three fragments of militarisation in context.
The term ‘militarisation’ is the new portmanteau expression for describing China’s initiatives in the South China Sea; it is at once accusatory and exculpatory: China is the instigator, the Western powers and those Western-aligned (defensively-minded, and innocent) are exonerated from any guilt their reactions might attract. The term, however, is misused in the current context, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. War talk, China phobia and Australia’s Hobbesian choices.
Australia’s choices and policy debate on China are in need of clarification and rethinking. Currently, they are mired in an idealised past which has gone and cannot be recovered but the resulting nostalgia, now indulged, requires accepting phobic propositions by the US which reflect its preoccupation with decline and not with understanding the imperative to Continue reading »
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Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 2: Australia’s avoidance means complicity.
In any other context but the alliance, the facts attending the US global strategy at both the conventional and nuclear levels would be seen by Australian strategic analysts and policy-makers for what they are – profoundly threatening developments and habits of mind which threaten international peace and security and the ecology of the planet. But Continue reading »
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Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 1: Faces Australia Chooses Not to Recognise
The alliance with the United States is not now what it was thought to be at the beginning because the US itself is not now what it was thought to be. The problem was that, even then, it wasn’t what Australian leaders thought it was. The rose-coloured view remains however: no evidence in official Australian Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 5 of 5 : White Papers, Strategic Reviews, Papal Bulls and Encyclicals
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become the new religion. Part 4 of 5 : The Sacramental Alliance.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 3 of 5 : Alliance Wars: Papal Prerogatives and Vaticanisation.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 2 of 5: The Acutely Deranged Present.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. PART 1 of 5
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 4: A REPOST The finding: a disordered national mindset and body politic
Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 3: The United States military-A REPOST
Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 2: United States strategy.- A REPOST
Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 1: History and politics. A REPOST
Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Pine Gap: A Case of Australia’s Reckless Endangerment
The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is a reproach to Australian democracy, independence and government. Over the years Australia has achieved its goal of being fully integrated within the operations of the facility to such a degree that it is significantly responsible for the consequences of those operations. Among these consequences are the facilitation of Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Due diligence in the time of chaos and on the way to hell.
At the present time – when analysts, commentators and relevant government agencies are emphasising the dangerous trajectories of world politics, Australian defence is jeopardised undermined by profound strategic mismanagement and a lack of capability; worse, military Keynesianism is obvious and rampant. Capping it off, the recommendations of a government funded think tank to address this, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia-as-Concierge: The Need for a Change of Occupation
Albert Camus, the renowned French philosopher, author and journalist, frequently recounted the story of the concierge in the Gestapo headquarters who went about her everyday business in the midst of torture explaining, “I never pay attention to what my tenants do.” Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The Foreign Policy White Paper: A Plea To See Things As They Are
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” George Orwell. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Trump, Australia, Iran, and a Question For Australia
For all of the radical change promised by Donald Trump when he was campaigning, at least one area of continuity is abundantly clear: the preoccupation with, and a distorted understanding of Islam in general and Iran in particular. His appointment of those he refers to as “my generals” to National Security Adviser (Mike Flynn), and Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Quo vadis – the future of the US-Australian alliance. Part 1:
Summary. Donald Trump, Dylan Thomas, and the Australia US Alliance – A great power in decline. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 4 of 4.
Australia is currently courting offence rather than, as governments so often assert, defence – a transformation which might only charitably be attributed to absent mindedness if the alternative, stealth, is excluded. It is, moreover, a change wrought, in the first instance, as a consequence of the ways in which Australia thinks about its national Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 3 of 4.
Australia is currently courting offence rather than, as governments so often assert, defence – a transformation which might only charitably be attributed to absent mindedness if the alternative, stealth, is excluded. It is, moreover, a change wrought, in the first instance, as a consequence of the ways in which Australia thinks about its national defence, Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 2 of 4.
Australia is currently courting offence rather than, as governments so often assert, defence – a transformation which might only charitably be attributed to absent mindedness if the alternative, stealth, is excluded. It is, moreover, a change wrought, in the first instance, as a consequence of the ways in which Australia thinks about its national defence, Continue reading »
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The unmooring of our national defence from our national interest. Part 1 of 4.
Australia is courting offence rather than, as governments so often assert, defence – a transformation which might only charitably be attributed to absent mindedness if the alternative, stealth, is excluded. It is, moreover, a change wrought, in the first instance, as a consequence of the ways in which Australia thinks about its national defence, but Continue reading »
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Michael McKinley. Disorder in the Australian National Security Mind
Strategy is difficulty to practice and even more difficult to master. Its components – knowledge leavened by wisdom and imagination – cohabit with military science only in the most tense and difficult of relationships. That said, there are three nearly invariable rules that should govern the thinking and acting of a strategic actor – nation Continue reading »
