Mark Beeson
Mark Beeson is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. His latest book is Environmental Anarchy? International Relations Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene, (Bristol University Press: 2021) He has also written Environmental Populism: The Politics of Survival; in the Anthropocene Palgrave 2019
Mark's recent articles
18 March 2025
The Manichean moment is over
If Donald Trump has done nothing else, he should have convinced Australian strategic thinkers that the long-standing mantra of China-bad/America-good is no longer appropriate.
1 March 2025
Donald Trump’s axis of authoritarianism
Even for those of us who feared the worst about a possible second coming of Donald Trump, the pace and nature of the changes his administration is undertaking are astounding and alarming in equal measure. We can’t say we weren’t warned, though.
28 February 2025
Just how bad can Trump 2.0 get?
Even those of us who feared the worst have been astounded by the Trump administration’s attack on the rule of law, democratic principles and even morality – not to mention America’s long-suffering allies, of course.
24 January 2025
How stupid is America’s ruling class?
Yes, there is an American ruling class, and we’ve now got the photos to prove it.
17 January 2025
With friends like these...
Despite the decades both major parties have spent ingratiating themselves with the leaders of the United States, Australia is unlikely to receive any favours from the Trump administration.
24 December 2024
Peace on earth, goodwill toward men (and women) – unless they’re Palestinians, of course
Why do American Christian evangelists support Israel’s genocide in Gaza?
6 December 2024
Can Australia and Indonesia provide leadership on climate change?
Almost certainly not, but someone really ought to try while it’s still possible.
15 November 2024
Environmental breakdown: We have been warned
Sometimes a single event can throw global problems into sharp relief. The recent flood in Spain is one such phenomenon. If past experience is anything to go by, however, the implications of this catastrophic ‘weather event’ are likely to be studiously ignored by those in a position to do something about them.
5 November 2024
History cannot excuse the crimes of the present
One of Mark Twain’s more celebrated aphorisms is that ‘history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme’. Witty, no doubt, but it doesn’t seem quite adequate to Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza, its longstanding, settler-led expansion into the West Bank, or the implausible use of history to justify current policy.
12 September 2024
Taking one for the team
I’m thinking of calling it a day. Don’t be alarmed. I’m not planning to do so for two or three years, and this definitely isn’t the proverbial cry for help. Even at this seemingly late stage of planetary evolution, I don’t have too much to complain about. On the contrary, my biggest recent problem was deciding which Scandinavian country to visit as part of a (non-Australian) taxpayer-funded jaunt to Florence.
28 August 2024
There are alternatives to Anglo-American capitalism, however unlikely they may sound
It is becoming less and less controversial or eccentric to claim that endless economic expansion and consumption, of a sort that the United States has so successfully championed, is simply incompatible with life on a finite planet. [This is Part II of a two-part series; read Part I.]
27 August 2024
Capitalism with American characteristics
It’s not mindlessly anti-American to suggest that any nation experiencing the number of gun and drug deaths that the US does every year is evidence of a nation not entirely at ease with itself, to put it delicately. Likewise, any political system that may reinstall a narcissistic, breathtakingly ignorant, self-serving, convicted felon as its leader clearly has a few problems, too.
19 August 2024
Is peaceful cooperation a hopeless pipe dream?
According to Matt Pottinger, ‘a China expert and deputy national security adviser in the Trump White House…anyone who has entertained the idea of stable ties with Beijing is really smoking dope.’ If that’s what it takes, it might be time to light up.
6 August 2024
Spaceship Earth is experiencing turbulence
Spaceship Earth remains a compelling metaphor for our collective reality. Unfortunately, our ship looks as if it may have been made by an inter-galactic branch of Boeing.
29 July 2024
Donald Trump and God: not a match made in Heaven
One of the more noteworthy features of the recent Republican convention was the reverential reception of Donald Trump. Even before Trump’s brush with death, eighty per cent of evangelical Christians supported him. What does this say about their beliefs and motives?
13 July 2024
Security: when even the good give up
I’m a great admirer of George Monbiot. As one of the The Guardian’s most prominent and influential columnists he has long been a trenchant critic of neoliberalism, and an informed and persuasive commentator on key issues surrounding the environment and economic inequality in particular. This is what makes his most recent column on geopolitics and security such a surprising and rather depressing read.
3 July 2024
AUKUS enthusiasts are still preparing for the wrong war
Even some of the more thoughtful justifications of AUKUS are ultimately implausible as they ignore real and immediate threats while inflating the significance of improbable dangers Australia can do little to address.
14 June 2024
Can China save the world?
As the climate crisis accelerates and intensifies, it’s easy to despair about the possibility of any country taking the lead in ‘saving the planet’. And yet Xi Jinping at least says encouraging things. Should we take China seriously?
7 April 2024
Its a pity Bernie Sanders isnt the president
A few years ago, I gave a talk at the annual conference of the Australian Institute for International Affairs. Afterwards, one of the local luminaries observed that it sounded like I was channelling Bernie Sanders. It was not meant as a compliment. On the contrary, both of us were clearly regarded as unrealistic and nave, if not downright flaky.
14 March 2024
Asia, America or independence: Australians have decided, will politicians listen?
A recent poll conducted by The Guardian found that nearly twice as many people agreed with Paul Keatings suggestion that Australia should be an independent middle power in Asia, rather than an ally of the United States. Perhaps the electorate are smarter than some of our political class seem to think.
5 March 2024
Is ASIOs paranoia hypocritical?
Some of my best friends are Chinese. This is entirely unsurprising given my frequent visits to the PRC, the Chinese students I have supervised and the colleagues I have collaborated with over the years. I used to think such relationships were unambiguously a good thing and the possible basis for a better understanding between our two countries.
27 February 2024
West Australia and the art of state capture
The idea of state capture is usually associated with the global south, but Australia, and Western Australia in particular, demonstrates that established democracies are far from immune. As the Australian Democracy Network explains, a key element of state capture is the management of political parties both in government and oppositiona range of techniques are brought to bear to reward compliance and punish dissent, ensuring that even in a change of government, the whole infrastructure of state capture remains intact.
19 February 2024
The new Dark Age
Sometimes one event encapsulates the zeitgeist. Alexei Navalnys death from what are almost certainly unnatural causes is one such moment. One of the most heroic figures of our time appears to have been eliminated by one of the most despicable and loathsome. The only thing that is really surprising given Vladimir Putins track record is the brazenness of his apparent murder.
27 December 2023
Plutocrats and political elites: The way we do things in the West
Western Australia is famously a long way from everywhere. Given our isolation, its not surprising that politics can be a bit parochial. While this may have been forgivable in another era, at this current historical juncture its becoming rather embarrassing.
10 December 2023
Saving the world, one suburb at a time
Privileged people trying to save the world shouldnt be dismissed as bourgeois virtue signalling. There are worse things to signal and it could make a difference.
18 November 2023
Losing my religion
Theology has long been used to justify war. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, its happening again in the Middle East.
25 October 2023
The razing of the Warsaw Ghetto: Are our leaders incapable of learning from history?
If we are looking for historical parallels to the current destruction in Palestine, then the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis is unfortunately one that comes readily to mind. While we would all agree that this was appalling, inhuman and unfathomable, is blowing women and children to pieces in Gaza any less so?
15 October 2023
Australia and the US: Breaking up is hard to do
I dont think its too controversial or anti-American to suggest that our long-term strategic partner has been having a few issues lately. We may have grown used to people in the US shooting each other in large numbers, taking too many drugs, and generally over-indulging in self-destructive and planet destroying ways, but we still expected them to be democratic.
10 September 2023
As good as it ever got? Hurtling towards the environmental abyss
As we collectively hurtle toward the environmental abyss, its worth asking whether we have definitively passed the highwater mark of human development. If so, should baby boomers be wracked with guilt about their entirely underserved good fortune and failure to avert the imminent crisis? The answer to both questions is probably yes.
28 August 2023
Inside the AUKUS bubble
UWA Defence and Security Institutes Masterclass Series AUKUS: Pillar 1 provided an illuminating insight into what some of our brightest and best think about national security and how to achieve it. The net effect was profoundly depressing and unsettling.
12 August 2023
Australian foreign policy is traditionally hitched to the US but the rise of China requires a middle path for a middle power
Few nation-states have been shaped by their underlying physical geography and location in the world quite as much as Australia.
23 June 2023
AUKUS: Paul Monk praises elitism, derides Australias vibrant civil society
In an opinion piece published in The Weekend Australian (10 June 2023), Paul Monk offers his response to critics of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine agreement. A central focus of his critique is this open letter signed by more than 100 academics. As two of the principal co-authors of the letter, we requested a right of reply, but received no response from The Australians Opinion Editor. The following is our rebuttal to Monks criticisms of the letter.
10 June 2023
Alls not quiet on the home front
Labors ability to seamlessly follow in the Coalitions strategic footsteps is showing welcome signs of weakening as opponents of AUKUS and the submarine deal find their voice.
1 June 2023
An open letter to Mark McGowan
WA premier Mark McGowan was rightly popular and admired as a consequence of his leadership, especially during the Covid crisis. Now he has a real opportunity to make an even more important contribution beyond state borders.
18 May 2023
Harbinger: US allies low priorities amidst America's poisonous politics
Joe Biden isnt coming to Australia. The good news is he hasnt had a senior moment and forgotten all about an appointment with another interchangeable fella down under. The bad news is that the United States increasingly poisonous domestic politics and crises take priority over everything else, including the long-term security of the Indo-Pacific.
4 May 2023
Australias special responsibilities
Do some states have special responsibilities or obligations to help solve collective action problems as a consequence of their position in the international system? Australia should.
23 April 2023
Whats the point of the Australian Labor Party?
The ALP seems intent on abandoning progressive policies and turning itself into a competent version of the Coalition. This is not good for them, our collective future, or democracy.
6 April 2023
Strategic culture and the AUKUS echo chamber
Despite some brilliant analyses of the AUKUS agreement from credible and informed commentators, it is hard for critics to get a hearing, much less influence policy.
8 February 2023
Environmental apocalypse? Dont blame us
Like the environment itself, discussions of our collective future are becoming heated. They are also contradictory, polarised and - in my case, at least - increasingly pessimistic.
29 October 2022
China, UK leadership transitions illustrate how the world has changed
The leadership transitions in China and the UK shed an illuminating light on their very different political systems.
17 September 2022
The Defence Strategic Review: How not to think about security
In both Australia and China strategic debates are dominated by specialists with similar views, a situation epitomised by the forthcoming Defence Strategic Review. A fixation with traditional threats wastes resources, increases the risk of conflict, and makes addressing the immediate danger posed by climate change even more difficult.
30 July 2022
Notes from Nomadia
Thousands of grey Nomads are travelling endlessly around Australia contributing in a small way to the destruction of the very environment they apparently admire. Good luck to them.
10 March 2022
Rational despair and with the US almost always at war...
Its hard to know how to respond to a situation in which you have absolutely no confidence in the intelligence, the motivations or the historical understanding of those who lead us.
2 November 2021
Stupid or cynical? How our leaders contribute to climate crisis
Effective leadership on climate change is in short supply. Are our leaders too stupid or too cynical to respond to the world's greatest problem?
5 October 2021
Could AUKUS open a Chinese window to international leadership?
While there may still be quite a bit of debate about the strategic merits of AUKUS, theres one thing most people agree about: China is not very happy.
20 May 2021
Max Suich, China and the greatest example of our diplomatic self harm
How did it come to this? How did Australias foreign policymakers and their advisors manage to devise policies that have simultaneously enraged our most important trade partner, and made us even more dependent on an increasingly unpredictable notional guarantor of our national security? If our political and strategic elites had intentionally set out to undermine Australias economic security and exacerbate existing strategic vulnerabilities they could hardly have done a better job.
14 April 2021
If Australia needs nukes, who doesnt?
Sensible people are making the case for a nuclear-armed Australia. Given Australias other problems, the ruinous cost, and the dangers of proliferation, this is the last thing we should be considering.
26 January 2021
Greg Sheridan: Principles, privilege and punditry
The Australian newspaper's foreign affairs editor Greg Sheridan epitomises the capacity columnists have to promote ideological agendas even ones that are seemingly at odds with their professed values and beliefs. They are hardly conservative.
6 January 2021
2020: Apocalypse now (or next year)
2020 was an unambiguously bad year. Unfortunately it wont be the last. Will political rhetoric eventually have to change to acknowledge this?