Category Archives: Defence/Security

There is little to quarrel with in Hugh White’s assessment of the uncertainties in East Asia. His counsel to the government on the way forward for strategic policy, on the other hand, is less satisfactory.

The government’s $279 billion allocation over 10 years to military spending is not justified by fear-mongering and is at the expense of health and other urgent social needs.

The PM’s July speech launching the new strategic documents presents an alarming picture of the state of our immediate region, on which he says the Government will focus.

Because of our membership of the Five Eyes, New Zealand’s ability to act independently is seriously restricted.

Popularism in defence matters must have its limits. Being carried away on a wave of popularism may be exciting but when reality strikes the repercussions could be severe.

Fifty years ago this month Pine Gap, the American military base in the centre of Australia, commenced operations. With no public fanfare, this anniversary might have passed by unnoticed if former National Security Agency electronic intelligence analyst at the base, … Continue reading →

Forty years ago, Justice Anthony Mason, later Chief Justice of the High Court, made it clear that mere embarrassment — or the avoidance of being found to be a hypocrite — is not enough to justify the protection of the … Continue reading →

When there’s 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.

One of the more disturbing tendencies of modern governments is to transform policy problems into threats, thereby elevating them into the national security domain as the political rhetoric extends further into hyperbole.

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.

Seventy years ago in mid-1950, weeks after Klaus Fuchs had confessed to spying for the Russians throughout the 1940s, writes Sue Rabbitt Roff. Britain gave up hope of being able to test its first atomic bomb in Nevada and turned to … Continue reading →

Our chosen national heroes are the young men who died fighting for King and Empire on the coast of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. When will our focus shift to the many thousands of indigenous men and women who died … Continue reading →

Today there are three existential perils facing humanity, nuclear war, rapid climate change and pandemics. These are currently prioritised in the antipodean population’s thoughts and endeavours in reverse order.