Writer
Richard Broinowski
Richard Broinowski is a former diplomat. He was also manager of Radio Australia. After retirement he was an adjunct professor at University of Sydney in media studies. He has written four books, and is bringing a fifth out this year (2020), on the life and times of Melbourne book seller Edward William Cole.
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Ships in the Night: A Vietnam war story, by Greg Dodds
Greg Dodds’ career began as a professional Australian soldier who served as an intelligence officer with the Australian Task Force in Vietnam in the late 1960s. In this racy 200-page monograph, Dodds disposes with scholarly requirements – no footnotes, no glossary, no reading list or sources. To appreciate its full context, the reader should have Continue reading »
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Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions
The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is immensely provocative to all Iranians, and may be the tipping point towards a full Iranian nuclear weapons program. Continue reading »
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Australian Soaps to the Pacific – Good Diplomacy?
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade launched an initiative to send commercial (soaps) Australian television programs to stations in the South Pacific. This will do little to enhance vigorous and discerning projection of Australian news and values in the region. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. American delusions about the Philippines
When someone pointed out that President Duterte had just abrogated the bilateral Visiting Forces Agreement, Admiral Davidson conceded the point, but said it was up to ‘agile Australian diplomats’ among others to get it re-instated. Continue reading »
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MARK DIESENDORF and RICHARD BROINOWSKI – A Push for Nuclear Weapons?
A recent push for nuclear power in Australia has been promoted by the usual public advocates and amplified by the Murdoch press. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Pernicious Secrets
Brian Toohey begins his new book Secret with a deliciously revealing quote from Harold Thorby, Australian Minister for Defence in 1938: ‘We the Government have vital information which we cannot disclose. It is upon this knowledge that we make decisions. You, who are merely private citizens, have no access to this information. Any criticism you Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Can Australia Defend Itself?
Since the advent of Donald Trump as United States president, the certainties that are said to underpin Australia’s defence doctrine are less than ever convincing. Trump’s cynicism about alliances underlines the fact that ANZUS is no longer (if it ever was) a guarantee of American military assistance. Neither Prime Minister Morrison posing on the deck Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Inverting Reality in Persian Gulf
US assertions that Iran mined two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on 13 June is as unconvincing as blaming Iran for attacks on three tankers in the same area on 12 May. Iran has no apparent motive, but the United States and its regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, clearly seek to portray Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. War Drums Over Iran
In a tweet to President Rouhani in July 2018, President Trump warned: Never, ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. Similar threats to Kim Jong-un in 2018 did not result in war with North Korea. Could they now, in Iran? Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. The Competence of our Intelligence Agencies
On 6 April, the ABC’s Geraldine Doogue interviewed Nick Warner, head of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI), which coordinates the activities of Australia’s intelligence agencies. During the interview, Warner ventured the opinion that President Trump did the ‘right thing’ in walking away from Kim Jong-un at the US-North Korean Summit in Hanoi at the Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI Trump’s wall- bordering on chaos
Trump threat to cut off aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, will be counter-productive. The refugee ‘caravans’ will not stop, but increase. He will also further alienate the Mexicans, who refuse to pay for the wall along their border with the United States, but who also want to discourage Central American asylum seekers. Can Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI The ADF in the Middle East
President Trump wants to get US troops out of Syria, and probably out of Iraq as well, and soon. The Pentagon however has said US forces will be out of Afghanistan in five years, a period estimated to allow successful negotiations with the Taliban, while reserving to themselves the right to initiate drone strikes. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Growth of Tribal Hatred
Hotel Mumbai, currently screening in Australia, tells the harrowing story of attacks by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba across the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008. Indoctrinated to believe that non-Muslims are not human, 10 young men armed with grenades and AK-47s go on an orgy of destruction. Urged on through their earpieces by Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Ambiguity in Hanoi
The Trump-Kim summit began and ended in Hanoi on 28 February with Donald Trump peremptorily terminating his discussions with Kim Jong-un. According to media reports, Trump claims Kim demanded the lifting of all US-imposed sanctions in exchange for closing the nuclear complex at Yongpyon. Kim claims he only asked for a partial lifting of sanctions Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Cognitive Dissonance in Canberra
At the annual conferences of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2017 and 2018, at least two retired senior public servants strongly asserted their faith in the United States as guarantor of Australia’s security. They did so with varying degrees of asperity in response to questions from the floor suggesting that American power was Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. The US-Mexican Border Paradox
President Trump’s characterisation of asylum seekers from Mexico as illegal criminals and rapists threatening American citizens is a cynical distortion of reality. Drug runners and criminals both from Mexico into the United States and vice versa represent a tiny fraction of the flow of one million people who legally cross between the two countries every Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Trump and Syria
While Prime Minister Morrison was visiting Australian troops in Iraq this month (but not Afghanistan -‘ too dangerous’), President Trump was preparing to pull US ground forces out of Syria. Nothing Morrison said indicated that he or Joe Hockey, our Ambassador to the United States , who is supposed to have special access inside the Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Will Japan’s Love Affair with Nuclear Power be Resurrected?
On Friday 11 March 2011, a tsunami knocked out emergency generators at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, resulting in melt-downs in three of six reactors, covering the countryside in eastern Honshu with radiation. Some isotopes were short-lived, others will be around much longer. Seven and a half years later, an endless torrent of sea water continues to be Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Defence Plan B.
Canberra’s foreign and defence bureaucracy is appalled by Donald Trump’s monstering of the Anglo allies and of NATO, his enthusiasm for Kim Jong-un and his appeasement of Vladimir Putin. Where to without the comfort of a great, powerful and reliable friend, it asks? To Plan B, say some analysts – a more capable and self-contained Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. North Korea and the Trump Bashers
President Trump declared at his post-Summit press conference in Singapore on 12 June that US-ROK war games were expensive and provocative and he would abolish them, starting with ‘Ulchi Freedom Guardian’ next August. His decision has drawn some surprising reactions. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Demonising Iran.
It was the hope of all observers around the world wanting peace in the Middle East that President Donald Trump would revalidate the nuclear deal with Iran on 12 May. Not only did he not do so, but later that month his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched an inflammatory and inaccurate attack on Iran Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Iran on the ground
Iran continues to be stereotyped in western media as a rogue state full of corrupt mullahs ,an abuser of human rights, an exporter of Islamic terrorism to Syria, Iraq, the Gaza Strip and Yemen, and an extremist theocracy with territorial and nuclear ambitions on a collision course with Saudi Arabia, Israel and their backer, the Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI- Trump and Turnbull – Shared Values?
Fantasy and emotion were in free play at the White House on Friday 23 February 2018 when President Trump received Prime Minister Turnbull. Trump was well scripted, even getting Turnbull’s name right. He added that Australia was the United States’ closest friend, a claim successive US presidents have made, with variations, about many other countries Continue reading »
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A new Cold War arms race has begun
In the immediate post Cold War period, regular United States Nuclear Posture Reviews have been relatively restrained, emphasising no first use and no attacks against non nuclear weapons states which are signatories of the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. With his 2018 Review, however, President Trump has thrown circumspection out the window. Citing new emerging threats Continue reading »
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Corruption in the Arms Trade
The Turnbull government is very excited about turning Australia into one of the world’s ten biggest arms traders. The announcement was prompted as much as anything else by President Trump’s announcement of a $US716 billion rise in the United States military budget, with prospects of Australia gaining a significant share in this gigantic spend. Of Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Korean Hot Line
Kim Jong-un’s offer to re-open the hotline with South Korea cannot be seen as merely a ploy to wedge ROK and the United States, as so readily claimed last Tuesday by Nikki Haley, United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Trump’s foolishness over Iran
Those with short memories forget what a gem of non-proliferation the Iran Framework Agreement of July 2015 is. Trump wants to trash it. If he succeeds it will create regional uncertainty and the likelihood of nuclear proliferation that the Framework currently postpones. Along with his posture towards North Korea, Trump’s contempt for Iran makes him Continue reading »
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Sabre rattling off the Queensland coast
Exercise Talisman Sabre does not address any of Australia’s main security concerns and sends the wrong messages to Australia’s neighbours. It contributes towards locking Australia into America’s wars, no matter how irrelevant to Australia’s own interests. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Matching Colonial Wars
The record of British colonial history proves that what occurred to Aboriginal Australian communities at the hands of white settlers and British military forces was not a unique event. The same thing occurred with as much inhumanity and ferocity in other parts of the Empire, notably in South Africa against the Khoi, the Xhosa and Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Still demonizing North Korea
Following recent North Korean missile tests and American declarations that they have run out of ‘strategic patience’, the Western media and the governments they serve, are busily repeating time-honoured myths about North Korea. Continue reading »
