Alison Broinowski

Dr Alison Broinowski AM is a former Australian diplomat and a member of Australians fr War Powers Reform

Alison's recent articles

The National Insecurity State

When the war on terror was only seven years old, an Australian former Ambassador to Beijing pointed to its risks and costs for Australia. Garry Woodard warned that rather than protecting national security, such an open-ended war could widen our obligations to the US and narrow our options in dealing with China.

The military-industrial-intelligence-security complex

In 1961 President Eisenhower warned that a vast and permanent military-industrial complex could produce the disastrous rise of misplaced power. Earlier, US Senators Robert La Follette and J. William Fulbright also foresaw the dangers of militarisation. Now we have a military/industrial/security/intelligence complex, and it is dangerous.

What else have the Archives got?

Jenny Hockings persistence has revealed the Palace Letters between Canberra and London which the National Archives didnt want Australians to see. If there were other exchanges with Washington and Langley they may be even more reluctant.

Australia-'The most oppressive of the Western Democracies'

When theres a concerted attack on the interests of the Australian mainstream media they will rise in joint defence of journalists freedom. But they are slow to support five other Australians who have already lost their freedom.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The crisis is political too.

In his almost daily televised updates, Scott Morrison's successive rescue packages turn conservative orthodoxy on its head, and without resorting to Trumpian monologues. Yet his response to the international questions shows no new thinking.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Outstaying our welcome in Iraq.

As US installations in Iraq come under increasing attack, the message that they are no longer needed is clear. Camp Taji near Baghdad, where a few hundred Australians are still based, has been hit by missiles in recent days. How much longer before they get out?

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Organised violence: the US and China compared

The world has seen the rise and fall of some 150 empires. That number doesnt even include the United States, whose unacknowledged empire includes more than 800 military bases in some 70 countries.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Quiet Australians wait for the truth

Forty-four Australian servicemen have been killed in action or have died in accidents since our forces went to Afghanistan in 2001, and since the deployments to Iraq and Syria. But in that period, at least ten times that number of Australians serving or no longer in the military have died of suicide. This week, former Commander Kevin Frost was the latest.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Friends of Assange, at last.

Influential Australians are suddenly stirring in support of Julian Assange, who will face extradition to the US and several life sentences unless political intervention heads it off. Is it too late?

ALISON BROINOWSKI. October and a discontented world

This is the October of our discontent. Suddenly, its manifestations are everywhere. Unless the few in power heed the shouts, slogans, and strikes of the many demanding change, worse may occur.

ALISON BROINOWSKI Iran: Maximum Falsification

Step by predictable step, President Trump has been tempting Iran to come out and fight. Most of the mainstream Western media have obliged him by suggesting that every recent hostile event in the Gulf is Irans doing, and have dismissed protests from Tehran that these reports are lies. But so far, the US hasnt got a coalition.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Julian Assange - Find Justice and Make It Quick' (American Herald Tribune 28-9-19)

With the US on the warpath andAustralia sending military, air, and naval support for American activities in the Gulf, three Australian and British nationals are being made an example of in Iran, where they arein solitary confinement on charges of espionage. British politicians have been quick to accuse Iran of hostage diplomacy, saying the allegations against the academic and two tourists are clearly false. Australia, which still has an Embassy in Tehran, is making representations on their behalf. But Irans response is unlikely to be magnanimous or quick.

Julian Assange One case dismissed: one to go

From the Australian mainstream media most readers wont know it, but on 29 July a Federal Court in New York dismissed the Democratic National Committees case against Julian Assange for publishing leaked internal emails in 2016.

'Australia agrees to everything'

Australia and the United States see the world through the same eyes, Scott Morrison told sailors on USS Ronald Reagan during the Talisman Sabre war games on 12 July.But after hearing what Mike Pompeo and John Joseph Mearsheimer had to say in Australia in recent days, we might conclude that if our eyes are the same, the world we see is different.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Who are the terrorists, Iran or the US?

In April 2014 John Howard surprised an audience in Sydney by saying that war with Iran would be next. He didnt know then about Syria but his alarming prediction about Iran looks like coming true.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. How long to extradition for Assange?

WikiLeaks watchers had been expecting it for weeks, but when news came on 11 April that Ecuador had revoked Julian Assanges asylum, a collective shudder went around the extended community. Next day the pictures appeared, and they made it worse. Images familiar to everyone of a young man waving from the Embassy balcony were suddenly replaced by the sight of a puffy-faced, balding, white-bearded victim of seven years on the inside. It was rather like when instead of the early Osama bin Laden, the world saw the new reality - a stooped, grizzled invalid, soon to be shot down by...

ALISON BROINOWSKI Integrity ,initiative and imposed ignorance

The US and UK are still fighting the cold war in new ways about which Australians know little.

ALISON BROINOWSKI Beware the Ides of March in Christchurch

It is better when a terrorist is not shot dead but arrested. So we eventually learn what is his - usually male motivation, and governments and the courts are then able to respond rationally. But Brenton Tarrant made his motivation quite clear, documenting his crime in Christchurch with a 74-page manifesto, as well as filming his running online commentary. Few would care if police had shot him, taking to 50 the total who died on the Ides, Friday 15 March.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Australian values in free fall.

What Australians value and what they fear are not, apparently, clear to the latest Prime Minister. Scott Morrisons election campaign, which began at the National Press Club on 11 February, failed to assure voters that his government understands either what they resent or what they want.Two days later, the Coalition lost a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Thisis historic, Labor was quick to email its supporters. No Federal Government has lost a vote since 1929. An election could be called any second. This is a Government in full free fall.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Most favoured notions just take time.

There are said to be no votes in defence or foreign affairs in Australia. Years of bipartisanship on both, and an Alliance that is unquestionable, have disempowered debate. The time for change may be in 2019.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The latest hobgoblins.

On the eve of an APEC meeting, with impeccable timing, Australias lack of foreign policy independence was once again on display for our Asian neighbours: mimicry of US decisions, militarism abroad, securitised borders, containment of China, and fear of Islam. Indonesians and Malaysians recognise the pattern from long experience. Another terrorist event in Melbourne could not have been better timed to reinforce it.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Whose rules? What order?

As baby diplomats we learned always to vote in good company. Countries, we understood, were judged by the company they kept. Not any more. The countries Australia rubs shoulders with now, and the hips we are joined at, make people who used to represent Australia overseas wonder how much worse it can get. Other Australians who come back after a decade abroad say they cant believe what we have become.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Afghanistan: Set And Forget.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. (Sun Tzu,The Art of War)

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Truth isn't truth

While Australia was transfixed by the events of 21-24 August, troubles for another leader were mounting in Washington. Turnbull lost the Lodge, and Trump has not yet lost the White House, but a common actor in both dramas remains the Murdoch media.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Many happy returns of al-Qaeda.

On 11 August 2018 the members of what became al-Qaeda met in Peshawar, Pakistan to form the movement which is now 30 years old. With Osama bin Ladens money, political vision, religious fervour, and capacity as a modern communicator, it changed the course of the 21st century. Even though Its profile is lower now, there is still a lot below the horizon.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. A law to end all wars?

Hamlet was depressed about the laws delay. To this day, legal processes take a notoriously long time, and international ones take even longer. International lawyers, and the world, have been waiting at least since 1998 for the crime of aggression to be activated.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The conference season begins, in denial.

On the last weekend in June, the ALP will hold its NSW Conference. The agenda is packed with items including indigenous, community and country issues, education, health, and social justice. Right at the end is Australia and the World. This is to be expected, as State governments arent responsible for foreign affairs and defence although they do have to consider treaties. But resolutions from the NSW ALP will go forward to Labors National Conference in December, where they could influence the more vigorous debate you might expect about the growing list of problems facing Australia.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Banks wake up to their responsibilities: will governments be next?

Australians are watching transfixed as the Financial Services Royal Commission gives a running report on a reactive, insular, complacent, greedy culture which has broken its own rules and failed its customers for years. With the peoples verdict looming at the next election, Ministers who last year resisted holding the Royal Commission now proclaim a wakeup call for every director, particularly those who are the custodians of the savings and shareholdings of Australians (Scott Morrison, SMH 2 February 2018: 1). The salaries and bonuses their top executives receive put politicians remuneration in the shade. The billions Australia spends on defence and...

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Anzackery and the preening peloton.

When John Kenneth Galbraith was Kennedys Ambassador to India in the early 1960s, he reported that he had inspected a guard of honour and they seemed to him to be fine. His dry wit was lacking when the Murdoch media reported the safe return from Afghanistan of Pauline Hanson, her colleague Brian Burston and Labors Senator Kimberley Kitching. There they had inspected a Bushmaster MR6 multi-role armoured vehicle (built in Australia by the French company Thales, which makes a counterpart in Canada) and a Chinook helicopter (made in the US by Boeing). They were briefed on the security situation and...

ALISON BROINOWSKI. War on demand

The UK and the US moved closer this week to enabling their governments to bypass legal and democratic processes in committing forces to war, virtually anywhere, at any time and continuously. Australian politicians and the mainstream media seem to assume that this has nothing to do with Australia and we are not interested.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Happy Anniversary Iraq

If there are any Australians who think we have anything to celebrate on the 15th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq and the start of our longest war, they must know something the rest of us dont. In fact, theres a lot nobody knows.

The trust deficit in Canberra.

When Marshall Green was sent by Richard Nixon as Ambassador to keep a close eye on Gough Whitlam, some said his was the first serious American appointment in our history. Harry Harris, for different reasons, may turn out to be another.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Is militarism in Australia's DNA?

Australians who dont live in other countries dont realise how our self-image differs from the perception, particularly in Asia, that we were militarists from the start. Australias tendency to resort to force is hard-wired, hard to eliminate, and goes back a long way.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Murky wars and missions unaccomplished.

In December 2017, Australia announced the withdrawal of six RAAF Hornets from Syria. But this is not our mission accomplished moment. The US is committed to a longer war in Syria, and its target is Iran.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. War on the cheap.

Its unlikely that the Army will commission a further report following Albert Palazzos account of the ADFs operations in Iraq. We have years to wait for Professor Craig Stockings official history. What Australia urgently needs is a full independent inquiry into our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Truth is not an excuse.

If ASIO bugged Mr Huangs phone, and sat on what it knew, the political timing of the latest leak against Dastyari could not have been more deliberate.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. If you want to know the truth

WikiLeaks continues to get up the nose of the media and security establishment. They will use a newly revealed proposal to make Assange Ambassador to Washington to make things worse for him.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Back to the FutureAsia.

How can Chris Bowen ensure that engagement with Asia will be different this time? By convincing all Australians its important and urgent, and by getting Bill Shorten to endorse it convincingly.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Till war do us part.

A survey reports a significant movement of Australian opinion about the US alliance, away from current government policy which unquestioningly supports the Afghanistan deployment.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Existential threats

In a sequence of events that recall the Cuban missile crisis, the world has again come within a brain-snap of nuclear destruction. This is the moment Australia should have been ready to deal with properly and democratically, by having a parliamentary debate to decide whether and why we should or should not go to war. Instead, this most serious matter of national security is reduced to party rivalry and media sensationalism.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Still losing the last Afghan war.

President Trump's many current distractions did not prevent him telling his military advisers the simple truth about Afghanistan on 19 July: 'We aren't winning. We are losing.'

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Beware, armed response.

If Turnbulls plan becomes law and the prospects of the Opposition stopping anything to do with fighting terrorism are remote we can expect a terrorist attack to trigger an emergency response from the Special Operations Command, whose officers will have to be trained to shoot to kill other Australians.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Our mission creeps into Southeast Asia

We should not have to resort to speculation about what our troops are doing either in Syria or in the Philippines. But the mere mention of Islamist terrorism now generates an armed response.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Shameful wars.

During more than a century, our Anglo-allies fought several highly-publicised wars, but also many secret ones, directly or through proxies. If we dont know the details, people in whose countries the wars were fought certainly do, and those who survived have not forgotten them.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Agents of influence and affluence.

If energy and armaments are the agents behind Americas empire of bases and its empire of markets, how influential are they? On security, barely; on terrorism, hugely.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. The Merkel moment: wherever that works.

If NATO cannot rely on a Trump administration, should Australian leaders not see this as an opportunity to face the facts?

ALISON BROINOWSKI. Press freedom is a minefield

Julian Assange has cleared the Swedish legal minefield between him and freedom. The two which lie ahead are British and American.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. What Australian Foreign Policy?

Insider, analyst and adviser Allan Gyngell finds that Australian defence and foreign policy are more bipartisan than ever. But even as Australias national security agenda metastesizes, we have more to fear from an unreliable ally and an increasingly lawless world.

ALISON BROINOWSKI. If Australia has switched enemies in Syria, who and why are we fighting?

If Australia has switched enemies in Syria, as our allies apparently have done, the Turnbull Governmentowes us at least an explanation about who and why we are fighting.

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