Michael McKinley

Michael McKinley is a member of the Emeritus Faculty, the Australian National University; he taught Strategy, Diplomacy and International Conflict at the University of Western Australia and the ANU.

Michael's recent articles

For the Prime Minister, sovereignty is reduced to possessing 70 fighter jets

Prime Minister Scott Morrison appears to be suffering from the neurological condition visual agnosia - the inability to recognise certain objects for what they are. It is a condition popularised the neurologist, Oliver Sacks, is his book on the condition, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales.

Sleepwalking into a fascist alliance

Those critically engaged in understanding and debating the future of Australian defence and national security strategies should pass two votes of thanks: the first is to former President Donald Trump; the second to the recent political-strategic proclamations of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

It's time to decommission ASPI

The time has come - indeed, is well past - for those responsible for giving the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) its Length Of Type Extension to decommission it in the manner of a ship of the line, or submarine, whose usefulness to the fleet has demonstrably expired and cannot under any circumstance be regarded as fit for purpose it was designed for.

Hamlets glass and the Brereton Report: the radical reality of Australias security culture

It is almost an invariable rule that the citizens of nation-states in their generality, and Australia in particular, are obsessed with security and fascinated with violence; equally, they are illiterate in understanding their own traditions and practices. And when they ostensibly honour international law, rules-based orders, add peace, they require a more suspecting glance than they are accorded. An iconic play provides the invitation.

The Brereton Report: the failure of political and military leadership

Our political leadership will never be the subjects of the Office of the Special Investigator or the Australian Federal Police, nor, therefore, will they ever be charged. Indeed, in their exaggerated innocence they will display only the inevitable hypocrisy of the failed war-maker: a passion for condemning others and a total unwillingness to accept responsibility for their role in their crimes.

Australia and the United States: the opposed fantasies at the heart of the alliance relationship

One of the refrains among those defending Australia's alliance with the United States is that arising out of their pasts, sharing a core set of moral and ethical values, political and economic arrangements, and visions of the desirable world order.

Pathological philanthropy in the Australia-US Alliance

With confirmed coronavirus cases in excess of two million, the number of new, confirmed cases across the country approaching 45,000 per day for most of the last ten weeks, and resultant deaths in excess of 126,000 (and climbing), the decisions made across the United States to open the economy should not surprise.

Accelerating securitisation and militarisation in Australian politics: symptoms of democracy in decline.

As though these trends are not worrying enough in themselves, in the present, they need to be understood as effects rather than causes. And the causes are even more frightening.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: Surveying Australias future submarine debate and finding that it doesn t start with Australia. Part 5 of 5.

In the course of studying the arguments for and against the decision to acquire the Shortfin Barracuda submarine to replace the Collins Class boats the sense has emerged that almost every aspect of the debates was concerned with the need to please strategies determined elsewhere. This applies, moreover, to both the bureaucratic inarticulacy of government statements and the Insight Economics reports which, on the other hand, are compendiums of empirically based critique written for Submarines for Australia.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: Questions which should have preceded the decision on the future submarine. Part 4 of 5

The enemification of China and Russia in US, and thus, alliance statements and documents on international security can now reasonably be described as an ide fixe: a persistent preoccupation which has become a delusional idea that dominates all proceedings and is demonstrably and firmly resistant to any attempt to modify it no matter the dangers quite possibly fatal - which arise from persisting in it.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: Substituting the Strategic Dreamtime for the Berthold Brecht Principles of Strategic Analysis. Part 3 of 5.

Sometimes important strategic issues and questions are made more intelligible and transparent when viewed from the perspectives not normally associated with national security and defence policies. Now is one of those times.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: The SEA 1000 Attack Class future submarine project and the emergence of the neo-Carrollian School of Maritime Strategy. Part 2 of 5.

In a reproach to all reason the Red Queen in Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland famously demanded verdict first, evidence later. In an evolutionary turn, the decision to acquire the Shortfin Barracuda for the Royal Australian Navy has taken the Carrollian principle one step further: evidence of a strategic-operational nature which had a direct bearing on the final decision was dispensed with.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: the now unmistakeable nature of the Future Submarine programme by refusing to ask the prior questions. Part 1 of 5.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Arse-backwards: the now unmistakeable nature of the Future Submarine programme by refusing to ask the prior questions. Part 1 of 5.

Even from well outside the arcana imperii of the processes which led to the decision to select the Shortfin Barracuda proposal by French shipbuilder Naval Group to replace the Collins-class submarines it is apparent that the result is contrary to the good order and strategic discipline which should be the hallmarks of such a project.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The China threat has moved beyond the frantic into the realm of the explicitly dangerous.

One of the most disturbing features of Australian Foreign and Defence policies over the last two years has been the obvious encroachment into actual policy-making by not only the intelligence agencies which is outrageous enough in itself - but also by the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), Andrew Hastie.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australias Domestic War Parties: The Colonisation of the Australian Strategic Mind

National Defence and Security questions in Australia are, like so many areas of government policy, difficult to follow, let alone master, and debate about them tends to attract only a small attentive public. The answers to them, in the form of various forms of cost, however, are frequently in the currency of death and destruction.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australias AUSMIN invitations: clean the driveway, wash the dishes. Again

In the course of the current AUSMIN talks Australia has once again been invited, by the United States, to assume a role for which it is well, indeed over-qualified for namely to provide janitorial services in the aftermath of a series of strategic debacles by the US itself. Serial prodigality and recklessness are to be rewarded with serial subservience and indulgence. Its a tradition.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Reflections on the nuclear dimensions of Hugh Whites 'How To Defend Australia'

Australian strategic thinking, like Draculas Transylvania, is very much troubled by the undead. Research undertaken 50 years ago by Ian Bellany, a nuclear physicist and predecessor of Hugh White in the ANUs Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, wrestled with a remarkably similar Australian defence problematic - namely whether nuclear weapons might be a safeguard against a rising China and concluded that other options (military and diplomatic) were far more preferable. The times have changed, and with them, so it seems, the need to disinter the corpse if only to rebury it.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Another climate change warning and the return of a Pentagon prophecy the new government might take seriously.

Richard Butler recently made the point on this site that, in relation to foreign policy, the Australian Government finds the disposition andpose of the ostrich to be to its liking: a futile self-absorption in reality denial. To this I would add that it is common to almost every policy area, and it recalls the traditional response of the successive Pontificates over so many years to their own travails. Essentially and ironically, it is an attempt to insist that the intruding world of dissent and challenges to the status quo ignore the nature of necessity and things which provide for current...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Returning to the time of Able Archer and Australias need to remember 1983

Nearly thirty-six years ago NATO carried out its annual Able Archer command post exercise designed to simulate an escalation in conflict with the USSR and the Warsaw Pact nations which culminated in a coordinated nuclear attack against the Soviet homeland.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The present and future national security policy of Australia is to be found on the coast of Victoria.

National security will not be the determining factor in the forthcoming elections but it will get frequent redacted mentions for the purpose of injecting elements of fear and additional insecurity into the impoverished discussions it will attract.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unsettling reality if Five Eyes is the guardian against Huawei, Part 2: A survey audit concerning prudence, integrity, law and ethics.

In the frequent denunciations of Huawei and ZTE the inference is that these Chinese corporations are existing, or potential espionage agents of the Beijing Government and a threat to all who have been foolish enough to acquire their products. These threats, moreover, are held to be of a type that are politically, legally and ethically enjoined by the Five Eyes community and it is these axiomatic principles which distinguish it from others less scrupulous. To believe this requires a deposition of the type of religious faith which Voltaire saw resulting from the first knaves encounter with the first fool. An...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The unsettling reality if Five Eyes is the guardian against Huawei, Part 1: Questions of Honesty and Loyalty.

According to a recentassessmentAustralia is the worlds 11thmost vulnerable country in terms of its exposure to internet security threat. This is the general case. The particular case, articulated by the Five Eyes signals intelligence agencies, is that China is to be feared the most because Huawei, the worlds largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, and ZTE, Chinas second largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, are both attractive suppliers technologically speaking, and a definite national security risk because they cannot conceivably be regarded as independent of the Chinese Government.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The Occupation of the Australian Mind.

Fear and apathy have taken up residence in the collective political consciousness of Australia. Indeed, it may be that they have achieved that most desirable of states for governments seeking to remain in power, or oppositions sensing their imminent ascendency to it: a state of collective unconsciousness that consents to its own increasing subservience and essential irrelevance while believing that it is being kept safe.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The ascendancy of the age of Thorby (PART 1 - the state's justification for requiring passive citizens)

Contrary to popular belief, modern democracy does not welcome an active, engaged citizenry especially between election campaigns because its interventions would hinder the operations of the state. The preferred condition is one of citizen passivity in which the authorities go about their business of securing the national interest as defined by themselves through an ever-increasing array of national security arrangements contrary to any robust definition of accountable and responsible democracy. In Australia this is justified by fiat and pseudo theory, and practised in plain sight.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The age of Thorby (PART 2 - The addictive denial of transparency and the protection of malfeasance)

Where matters defined under the rubric of national security are concerned, the intelligence agencies of the state demand nothing less than the indulgence to act with unwarranted secrecy secrecy beyond that which is absolutely essential. Over the last 80 years, as detailed in Part 1, this arrogation and its putative rationale have been explicit especially in the politicised legal casuistry of the Attorney-General. We, the people should understand our place as unknowledgeable actors in the drama of governance and desist from dissent; indeed, against an abundance of evidence, we should trust the state - it is the repository of...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The ascendancy of the age of Thorby (Part 1 - The state's justification for requiring passive citizens)

Contrary to popular belief, modern democracy does not welcome an active, engaged citizenry especially between election campaigns because its interventions would hinder the operations of the state. The preferred condition is one of citizen passivity in which the authorities go about their business of securing the national interest as defined by themselves through an ever-increasing array of national security arrangements contrary to any robust definition of accountable and responsible democracy. In Australia this is justified by fiat and pseudo theory, and practised in plain sight.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The age of Thorby (Part 2 - The addictive denial of transparency and the protection of malfeasance)

Where matters defined under the rubric of national security are concerned, the intelligence agencies of the state demand nothing less than the indulgence to act with unwarranted secrecy secrecy beyond that which is absolutely essential. Over the last 80 years, as detailed in Part 1, this arrogation and its putative rationale have been explicit especially in the politicised legal casuistry of the Attorney-General. We, the people should understand our place as unknowledgeable actors in the drama of governance and desist from dissent; indeed, against an abundance of evidence, we should trust the state - it is the repository of...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Crony capitalism and corruption in our midst.

Revelations of corruption and actions that look suspiciously like corruption shock us but they shouldnt: look for corruption in Australia as in many western democracies and you will never be disappointed. Its as common as other national institutions - the barbecue or the Akubra indeed, its been normalised.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Whither Political Science?: Not dead but on life support a response to Roger Scott.

In a recent post Roger Scott asks an appropriate question but its anachronistic like asking why doesnt Elvis do live concert anymore? Political Science was always a bastard, left-handed, red-haired child of the turn to scientism by the social sciences in the late 19th Century and it never recovered, thanks to the domination of successive generations of third-rate positivists deriving chimerical insights from mathematics ill-suited to a decent understanding of their subject matter.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. A possible deep-seated flaw in the ADFs third inquiry into allegations of misconduct and war crimes.

The allegations against rogue elements within the Special Air Service Regiment are, sadly, almost predictable: other, similar units in the military traditions of both Britain and the United States have succumbed to such behaviour in similar circumstances as those faced in Afghanistan. Indeed, they constitute a virtual template for the decline in discipline which is alleged. Equally, there are templates for what to avoid when investigating them, and the ADF, at present, appears to be scoring only two out of three.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australias China policy: who rules, who governs and the SAS connection

Australias China policy in recent days has moved from being a subject of heated and understandable debate and controversy based on argument and evidence, to a target of bureaucratic and organisational guerrilla warfare. From within the state and parliamentary system, attacks of one type or another come without warning, raising questions about who is ruling and who is merely governing.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Are we preparing to fight the wrong war : an interesting but lower order question.

In weapons systems, as in many other areas of life, Artificial Intelligence is being heralded as the future for all humankind. This description is part of the problem: it comprises a submission to a fatalistic view of the future in which we are all information organisms (inforgs). It does not have to be this way but the omens are discouraging: understanding the nature of the problem is the first step to countering it.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia, China and three fragments of militarisation in context.

The term militarisation is the new portmanteau expression for describing Chinas initiatives in the South China Sea; it is at once accusatory and exculpatory: China is the instigator, the Western powers and those Western-aligned (defensively-minded, and innocent) are exonerated from any guilt their reactions might attract. The term, however, is misused in the current context, dangerous, and a form of bubble-gum for a distracted strategic imagination.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. War talk, China phobia and Australia's Hobbesian choices.

Australias choices and policy debate on China are in need of clarification and rethinking. Currently, they are mired in an idealised past which has gone and cannot be recovered but the resulting nostalgia, now indulged, requires accepting phobic propositions by the US which reflect its preoccupation with decline and not with understanding the imperative to negotiate with historical change, which cannot be addressed by brute military power.

Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 2: Australias avoidance means complicity.

In any other context but the alliance, the facts attending the US global strategy at both the conventional and nuclear levels would be seen by Australian strategic analysts and policy-makers for what they are profoundly threatening developments and habits of mind which threaten international peace and security and the ecology of the planet. But this realisation, apparently, is beyond them. And the silence indicates not only complicity but a deep malaise.

Deeply Denying the American Reality. Part 1: Faces Australia Chooses Not to Recognise

The alliance with the United States is not now what it was thought to be at the beginning because the US itself is not now what it was thought to be. The problem was that, even then, it wasnt what Australian leaders thought it was. The rose-coloured view remains however: no evidence in official Australian thinking and acting that the US is almost self-evidently a dangerous actor. The indicators proliferate nevertheless; they suggest alliance partners exercise caution, prudence, continuous critical scrutiny and the avoidance of all measures presaging war.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 5 of 5 : White Papers, Strategic Reviews, Papal Bulls and Encyclicals

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become the new religion. Part 4 of 5 : The Sacramental Alliance.

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 3 of 5 : Alliance Wars: Papal Prerogatives and Vaticanisation.

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 2 of 5: The Acutely Deranged Present.

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. PART 1 of 5

Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australias mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects: the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency...

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry - Part 4: A REPOST The finding: a disordered national mindset and body politic

Australias alliance wars their respective causes, conduct, and consequences - are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed indeed, dead - ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. The purpose of this post is to conclude a limited coronial inquiry on the basis of the three previous posts that is, to establish the mind-set existing up to the time the death occurred.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry - Part 3: The United States military-A REPOST

Australias alliance wars their respective causes, conduct, and consequences - are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed indeed, dead - ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. The purpose of this and associated posts Parts I, 2, and 4 - is to conduct a limited coronial inquiry that is, to establish just how the death occurred.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry - Part 2: United States strategy.- A REPOST

Australias alliance wars their respective causes, conduct, and consequences - are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed indeed, dead - ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. The purpose of this and associated posts Parts 1, 3, and 4 - is to conduct a coronial limited inquiry that is, to establish just how the death occurred.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry - Part 1: History and politics. A REPOST

Australias alliance wars their respective causes, conduct, and consequences - are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed indeed, dead - ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency. The purpose of this and the subsequent posts Parts 2, 3, and 4 - is to conduct a coronial inquiry that is, to establish where, when and how the death occurred.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Pine Gap: A Case of Australias Reckless Endangerment

The Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is a reproach to Australian democracy, independence and government. Over the years Australia has achieved its goal of being fully integrated within the operations of the facility to such a degree that it is significantly responsible for the consequences of those operations. Among these consequences are the facilitation of illegal modes of warfare and of illegal operations per se. At the same time those responsible for this involvement have remained silent and allowed issues of fundamental importance to be ignored.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Due diligence in the time of chaos and on the way to hell.

At the present time when analysts, commentators and relevant government agencies are emphasising the dangerous trajectories of world politics, Australian defence is jeopardised undermined by profound strategic mismanagement and a lack of capability; worse, military Keynesianism is obvious and rampant. Capping it off, the recommendations of a government funded think tank to address this, are based on cherry-picked intelligence reports and consist in no more than resorting to a failed conventional wisdom, and stealth nuclearism.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia-as-Concierge: The Need for a Change of Occupation

Albert Camus, the renowned French philosopher, author and journalist, frequently recounted the story of the concierge in the Gestapo headquarters who went about her everyday business in the midst of torture explaining, I never pay attention to what my tenants do.

MICHAEL McKINLEY. The Foreign Policy White Paper: A Plea To See Things As They Are

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. George Orwell.

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