Defence and Security
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ASPI outsourcing our defence policy to the gun runners!
Australia’s strategic policy discourse takes place in a fog of claims about risk and the warning time, while the key issues are the balance and trajectory of military forces in the Asia Pacific and the strategic interests of the regional states. Recent exhortations to urgent actions and radical defence reforms are alarmist and confused, and… Continue reading »
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The right reasons for saying no to nuclear first use
Washington is once again debating whether to declare that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. There are good reasons why it should. But it would not be right to suggest that a no-first-use policy would cost the United States nothing strategically…. Continue reading »
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Australian Government must ensure cases of sexual assault against Australian women by U.S. marines in NT are investigated thoroughly and the perpetrators face Australian courts
SBS News has uncovered three cases of sexual harassment/assault on women in the NT by U.S. marines. The cases have not been thoroughly investigated and there has been no trials in Australian courts. The Australian Government’s SOFA Treaty with the United States Government gives Australian authorities the right and duty to deal with such alleged… Continue reading »
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ASPI, AZERIs, the ADF, and the Defence hierarchy
ASPI’s Michael Shoebridge’s criticism of the professionalism and competency of the Defence hierarchy is serious. He paints the military and civilian hierarchy in Defence as hidebound, and infers they are placing service personnel and the nation’s security at risk. His analysis, however, displays a surprising degree of unfamiliarity with military affairs, and does not support… Continue reading »
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Japan is tempting fate by joining the US-led anti-China coalition
War between China and the US is not inevitable. But it is becoming increasingly likely – and Japan’s actions could be the trigger. Japan and its US backers should not tempt fate…. Continue reading »
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Public service or politics?
Senior public servants are only as good as the leadership provided by politicians working in the national interest. With appropriate checks, balances and protections in place, senior public servants should be able to give the frank and fearless advice required of their position and as set out in law…. Continue reading »
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What are hostilities if not war?
Rarely is the United States not at war. Trump didn’t start any wars, but he didn’t end any either. Biden is keeping America’s enemies and adding new ones. Congressional control over how the US goes to war and what it’s called has again become a pressing issue…. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan: The graveyard of empires was one of the greatest follies of US foreign policy.
The US-led war in Afghanistan looks to be ending, and not a day too soon. America’s father, Benjamin Franklin, wisely wrote: “No good war; no bad peace.” Yet for 20 years, the United States waged all-out war against this small, remote, impoverished state whose only weapons were old AK47 rifles and the boundless courage of… Continue reading »
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Biden promised diplomacy, but he’s overseeing military buildup against China
Shortly after Joe Biden took office, the president delivered a speech at the U.S. Department of State, declaring, “I want the world to hear today: America is back…. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy…. By leading with diplomacy, we must also mean engaging our adversaries and our competitors diplomatically, where it’s… Continue reading »
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Australia’s alliance with the United States: passed its use by date
Australia’s alliance with the United States has become an unthinking custom and practice. It has already cost us dearly in both blood and treasure with little to show for it. It is time to look at the alternatives…. Continue reading »
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Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Counting down to the 1956 Melbourne Olympics
In April 1949 Chifley agreed to host the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, the first time they were held in the southern hemisphere. Six months later, within days of returning to office as Prime Minister, Menzies agreed in principle to UK atomic weapons testing in Australia. Thirty kilotons were detonated at Maralinga in the three months… Continue reading »
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Australia’s strategic conundrum-Is America declining?
Jon Stanford and Hans Ohff criticise the ADF for “[P]lanning for the last war rather than the next”. Yet, their plan returns to a simplistic defence of Australia scenario from the 1980s. Nevertheless, their recent piece in ASPI’s Strategist blog (republished in P&I) provides an entrée to the related conundrums facing Australia’s strategic policy; the… Continue reading »
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Why is Australia still investing in a balanced defence force?
When the Prime Minister recently compared Australia’s strategic situation to that in 1939, he was right in two respects. Both in 1939 and in 2021, we have put too much trust in a ‘great and powerful friend’ to secure our independence. Australia’s problem is a Defence department that, simply put, lacks foresight, resourcefulness and innovation…. Continue reading »
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A refection on our engagement in Afghanistan – echoes of Vietnam;
As Australian troops pull out of their twenty year engagement in Afghanistan, I find myself reflecting on the similarities of the outcome of this conflict and the war that I served in- Vietnam, half a century ago…. Continue reading »
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Australia is suffering from a defense information dearth
Australia’s defence reporters are being denied access to senior Department of Defence officials under a clampdown imposed by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton…. Continue reading »
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The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes. Serving a corporate ruling class.
The U.S. working class, led by people of color, has, at least temporarily, defeated the criminal Trumpian regime and the specter of the consolidation of gangster neofascism…. Continue reading »
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Archival documents reveal British H bomb was developed in Australia despite denials
Documents found in the National Archives reveal previously ignored proof that promises made by the UK not to test thermonuclear weapons in Australia were broken…. Continue reading »
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Militarism has become the norm. We now even have an Army Lieutenant General heading the vaccine roll out
What a reflection this is on the standing of the Australian Public Service and the Morrison Governments lack of interest in a robust and well functioning civil society. We invariably turn to the military…. Continue reading »
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The use of US armed forces abroad, 1798-2020, by US Congressional Research Service: 20 July, 2020
This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.(Covert activities are not included)… Continue reading »
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Planning to not lose: the Australian Army’s new philosophy of war
The Army and the wider ADF will not go forth and force the enemy to succumb to our will. That is no longer possible, as the succession of lost wars shows. Instead, our future lies in being a state whose objective is to maintain the status quo or, in other words, to not lose…. Continue reading »
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Militarism the winner in Biden’s budget
The Biden budget of $6 trillion dollars is being sold as a turn to liberal reform, but the media has largely neglected one significant fact. The budget allows for $1.52 trillion that is ‘discretionary’ spending. Half of that figure will be devoted to the military. It is a record figure. The US has an economy… Continue reading »
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Of bars, prosthetic legs and statements that are no longer operable
Whether General Angus Campbell was aware of the “Fat Ladies Arm” bar or not, fact is, it was allowed to operate, and its mere existence points to a broken culture within the ADF…. Continue reading »
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Not the war over Taiwan again!
The lack of high-quality strategic analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has been frequently highlighted in P&I. Nonetheless, ASPI’s dangerously inadequate analysis should be regularly confronted…. Continue reading »
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Intelligence agencies have helped precipitate the crisis in our relations with China (An updated post)
In Max Suich’s outstanding series in the Australian Financial Review, on 16, 17 and 18 May, on how we got into the pointless confrontation with China there is no doubt that much of the ‘intelligence’ came from US sources and that our naive and China ignorant intelligence agencies tagged along and served up US intelligence dressed up as their own…. Continue reading »
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Israeli deceit and US complicity in attacks on Palestinians
‘We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier.’..Hanan Ashrawi ‘America is behind this war and I am ashamed to be an American’…Anthony Hopkins…. Continue reading »
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Review Essay: David Kemp. A Liberal State. How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926-1966
David Kemp’s multi-volume studies of settler-colonial Australian Liberalism since 1788 have been carried out with support from the Menzies Research Centre and funding from the Cormack Foundation, which is registered as an ‘associated entity’ of the Liberal Party with the Australian Electoral Commission. But does the latest volume forget to factor in Australia’s regional challenges… Continue reading »
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The True Meaning of the Afghan “Withdrawal”
The many Afghans who believed in America’s democratic promises will join a growing line of abandoned allies, stretching back to the Vietnam era and including, more recently, Kurds, Iraqis, and Somalis, among others. Once the full costs of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan become apparent, the debacle may, not surprisingly, discourage potential future allies from trusting… Continue reading »
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Whitlam, Keating, Anzac, and the drums of wars past
“I think the war against Hitler was justified. I don’t know whether the war against Wilhelm II was.” Thus spoke Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in a BBC TV interview with Lord Chalfont recorded in September 1973, and aired in December. It was screened in Australia in early January 1974. The transcript is in the Whitlam… Continue reading »
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Armed Neutrality: an alternative, principled defence policy to safeguard an independent Australia, keep us out of wars and promote peace- Part 2
Armed Neutrality provides an alternative defence policy which would safeguard continental Australia, keep us out of wars and promote peace. It is strategically feasible and cost effective but would require investment in rebuilding our manufacturing base, restructuring the ADF and removing foreign bases from our soil in a series of steps…. Continue reading »
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