Dennis Argall

Dennis Argall’s degrees were in anthropology and defence studies. his governmental work in foreign, defence and domestic departments and for the Australian parliament. His overseas postings included Beijing as ambassador, and Washington. He regrets the extent of his personal experience with disability but it has perhaps sharpened his desire that the future be a better country.

Dennis's recent articles

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 police have made mistakes in dealing with trapped demonstrators as on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972, staining decades with misery. This is written on the night of 12 August 2019, events are unfolding but I make observations that may endure.

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 hed 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.

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 a progressive society in Australia. That fact and its consequences for our standing are the greatest threats to our national security. We need to be aware of and sensitive to large issues affecting China.

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 strategy and Chinas united front with the US (and Australia) against Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

DENNISS ARGALL. Thinking through the choppy issues in trade and strategic threat.

The public discussion of trade war and security issues is too simplistic. Trumps 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 Trump.

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.

DENNIS ARGALL. Lessons and thoughts for Labors 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 exile.

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 of a joke. My intention in writing this, against a backdrop of daily fast paced developments, is to show the complexities of this country, its compassion and passions and urgencies. Things are in a ditch here. Whereas from 2010 to 2015 Australias GDP grew...

DENNIS ARGALL. In a changing world, who are we, where are our eyes and minds?

In what is perhaps a fantasy endeavour to find Trumps 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.

DENNIS ARGALL. A comparison of the DPRK now with China in the early 1970s

Public discussion of issues relating to North Korea and dtente with the United States is largely deprived of any sense of history unstudied or seen through prisms by the lawyers, commerce graduates and high priests of strategic analysis who command discussion with airy speculation and terror talkwith an adversarial sense of our justness and wisdom, the enemys wickedness and folly.

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 in security discussions and arrangements between the US and ROK. In the ROK these activities mesh with sustained progress in reform.

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 on China in the then Department of Foreign Affairs go through the roof after Whitlam and Kissinger visited China in 1971. The DPRK now and the PRC then deserve comparison, both as to their political, social and economic affairs and their prospects but...

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 from wandering away from Uncle Sams skirt in these strange times. It is useful to step away from speculation and look at some things actually happening, taking the last few days as a slice of life.

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.

DENNIS ARGALL. Ignore Trump's tweets about North Korea ; the diplomacy is being handled by adults

Since his election in May South Korea's President Mon Jae-in has developed a productive relationship with US President Trump, particularly on the difficult issue of both countries' dealings with North Korea. Regrettably Australian and other mainstream media is reporting Trump's rants, intended for his domestic support base, rather than the positive outcomes from those summit meetings.

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 bureaucracy and public commentariat.

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.

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