Writer
Mike Scrafton
Mike Scrafton was a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, senior Defence executive, CEO of a state statutory body, and chief of staff and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence.
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MIKE SCRAFTON. A tale of two Americas: Australia’s foreign policy choices post-pandemic
As Michael Shoebridge has rightly pointed out, how the US rebounds from the COVID-19 crisis will be important for international relations and Australia’s foreign policy. However, hagiography and selective historical references don’t substitute for serious reflection and reassessment. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. COVID-19 and preparing for global warming
The COVID-19 crisis tells us some important things. The flaws in the neo-liberal model have been exposed. Democratic politics have been stressed to breaking point. The shocks to the economic, social and fiscal systems required to stop global warming are shown to be unfeasible. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Capability gaps: mean dogs and submarines
A flurry of submarine related commentaryhas followed a new Insight Economics report, Australia’s future submarine: do we need a plan B? Its arguments for submarine capability, and for a Collins 2.0 class to fill in until the Attack class enter service, lean very heavily on a rather fuzzy concept; the capability gap. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. COVID-19: ‘Dirty hands’ and political leadership in a crisis
Normally, bringing ethics and crisis politics together in a crisis is like putting Siamese fighting fish in the same tank; only one is likely to survive. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Shades of herd immunity stalk COVID-19 government responses.
Seeping faintly through the pronouncements and policies of some government responses to the coronavirus pandemic are the vapours of older belief systems; a whiff of utilitarianism, the scent of social Darwinism, and the fetid reek of eugenics. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. When to take the military option off the table
Many of the Chinese regime’s practises are repugnant to democratic values and human rights. That distaste and disapproval doesn’t warrant Australian governments pursuing a crusade or adopting an irrational strategic policy based on fighting a war with China, either in the company of the US or alone. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. What do the Chinese think of the US-Australian Alliance?
With similar articles in The Australian and The Strategist, Peter Jennings has lauded the government’s decision to refurbish and expand RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory as ‘a giant strategic step forward’. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Is the US a normal country?
Remarks at the Munich Security Conference by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are full of unconscious irony. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The warning that wasn’t on the submarines.
The Australian’s correspondent Robert Gottliebsen (The Australian 12 Feb 2020) has found ‘a clear warning to the Australian nation’ buried in the ANAO audit report on the Future Submarine Program. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Traps, Trump and Thucydides
The Belfer Center has announced the winner of the public competition run by Harvard academic Graham Allison to ‘craft a grand strategy to meet the China challenge’. Allison’s concept of a Thucydides Trap was the theme of the competition. The lessons of Thucydides are more profound. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. A critique of SEA1000 from the outside
When critiquing government’s strategic policy, the ‘things were better in my day’ syndrome needs to be avoided. That these decisions and the supporting background strategic analysis and assessments are always hidden from wider view by secrecy classifications and need-to-know protocols must be accepted as must the reality that pragmatic consideration will be given to other Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Democracy and Ignorance-climate deniers and climate believers
Behind many of today’s challenges is the problem of ignorance. That’s not to deprecate or disparage the intellectual capacity of citizens or their desire to be well-informed. The proliferation and complexity of knowledge and the segmentation of disciplines and expertise means there is just too much for anyone to absorb it all. This is a Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Future Submarines and Future War
The SEA1000 Future Submarine project is back in the news following the ANOA report. Jon Stanford has demonstrated how badly this acquisition project is flawed. How government imagines the submarines will be employed remains imponderable. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Mnuchin, Thunberg, Economics and Science
The comments of US Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin concerning Greta Thunberg were meant to be droll. However, they reveal a serious and dangerous cognitive dissonance affecting much of the world’s political elite. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. How good are Royal Commissions?
Morrison’s call for a Royal Commission on matters related to the bushfires is puzzling. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that it was a thought bubble exuding from the advisors of a Prime Minster under great pressure. For the government there would seem to be little upside. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. NATO, the Middle East and the policy vacuum
The Iran crisis has inspired three public utterances of relevance to Australia’s foreign and strategic policy; from, in chronological order, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, President Trump, and our own inestimable Prime Minister. Collectively, they reveal the real depths of the crisis and a disturbing lack of strategic vision. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The re-election of Donald Trump
The biggest question in geopolitics is; will President Trump be re-elected? This issue will be prominent in the private councils of Heads of Government in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. However, the American presidential election will be determined by domestic issues that swirl around a collection of policy issues as well as identity and values. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Crisis and the Transformation of Government Administration
Today, there are four simultaneous and momentous crises before which modern democracies seem impotent; global warming, population growth, wealth inequality, and a dangerous geostrategic shift. This brings me to the Thodey Review. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Iran, the US, and Australia
The Middle East situation now falls outside the province of rational analytical discourse. Small events might provoke unimaginably large and uncontrollable responses. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON: President Trump and the world at the end of 2019
Like the fierce Atlantic storms than weaken overtime and end as gentle zephyrs playing harmlessly along the coast, Trump’s blustery and boisterous foreign policy is visibly running out of wind. Strong words and sanctions have led to foreign policy impasses with none of his administration’s main objectives being any closer than in 2017. Another year Continue reading »
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Uighurs and glass houses
The West’s modern sensibility is rightly offended by the scale of Uighur incarcerations in Xinjiang the and the ruthlessness with which the Chinese government is pursuing the extermination of Uighur culture, language, and religion. To the contemporary mind these acts are repugnant. This notwithstanding, the darker episodes in European and American history nonetheless should be Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Global warming – we’re screwed!
In 2018, the IPCC warned with high confidence that ‘Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if [the rate of emissions] continues to increase at the current rate’. The World Meteorological Organisation reported this week that in 2018 emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide had equalled or surpassed emissions Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Irish Reunification-Child of Brexit
Arriving at agreement on a new Irish Constitution following a post-Brexit Border Poll would expose the cracks in Irish identity. There is little public evidence that any government—in the Republic, Northern Ireland, or the UK—has given serious thought to the steps that would need to follow a double yes vote. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. It’s not all about Brexit
Everyone’s crystal ball is fogged. The outcome of the UK’s election is clouded. More than the future of the nation’s relationship with Europe depends on the outcome. Brexit might be one of the lesser consequences. Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The Speech Albanese should have given
No! No! No! The headland speech given recently by Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, was just more of the tired old evidence that he doesn’t get it. His are the economic and political priorities of another time when people still believed resolutely in the worth of neo-liberal economics and unfettered globalisation. It was not the bold Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON.But what about war?
Military forces perform many functions, but their unique role is to fight wars. Though obvious, this is rarely addressed by commentators on defence policy or by governments. Professor Dibb’s presentation to Royal Australian Navy’s Sea Power Conference avoided direct references war. At the same function the Defence Minister’s speech was quiet on the ultimate point Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The shallowness of Australia’s strategic policy
Two largely neglected issues highlight the paucity of Australia’s strategic policy; energy and global warming Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The real basis of Morrison’s foreign policy
The Prime Minister’s speech ‘In our interest’ to the Lowry Institute is curious, befuddled, and a little disturbing. As is normal with such presentations, it was peppered with political bromides and Morrison did not drill deeply into the details. The tips of much bigger and weightier conceptual massifs were detectable through the fog of self-laudatory Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The strategic significance of Abqaiq and Khurais
The debate over the military implications of relatively inexpensive drones and cruise missiles has been enlivened by the recent attacks on the Saudi Arabian oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. This spectacular demonstration of the effectiveness of drones and cruise missiles has prompted claims that it has ‘changed global warfare’. Inevitably all modern defence force Continue reading »
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MIKE SCRAFTON. Morrison and the absence of justice
In his comments to IPAA, Prime Minister inadvertently illustrated the problem with government. It’s not the Westminster system of government or the role of the public service which are secondary issues. The primary question concerns the purpose of government. Morrison’s solution to the ‘trust deficit’ affecting democracy is wrong. Continue reading »
