AUKUS
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Albanese: The overseas Prime Minister
Prior to his most recent overseas trip to Jakarta, Manila, and New Delhi, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been abroad a dozen times. Not bad for a government that’s been in office for just on eighteen months. The next few months will see him flying off again for half a dozen more summits, head to head meetings Continue reading »
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Insulating foreign policy from domestic politics: The legacy of Marise Payne
Marise Payne’s tenure as Australia’s Foreign Minister was rightly marked with criticism. Australia’s international and strategic interests went backwards during her time. But was she really Australia’s worst Foreign Minister as some commentators assert? It’s important to consider the root cause of the damage done to Australia’s national interests: the belligerent interference and harm done Continue reading »
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Australia only has itself to blame for trade woes with China after siding with the US
Australia has no business playing the victim when the lines between strategy and economic interests have become increasingly blurred. Continue reading »
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What is Albanese hiding? Maybe it’s the experts’ vision of the climate hell ahead
A good way to scare people is to suggest your chief security body has written something so frightening that you can’t possibly let anyone read anything about it. Continue reading »
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Nuclear submarines are now a core Labor value
Perhaps AUKUS should be renamed MAUKUS – the Morrison, Albanese, United Kingdom and United States agreement – to clearly identify those responsible. Indeed, it is surprising that neither Defence Minister Richard Marles nor Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy invited Australian Labor Party National Conference delegates to support a motion of appreciation to former Prime Minister Continue reading »
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Deploying Australia’s Navy to Ayungin atoll makes no strategic sense
I wonder how many Australians know where the Ayungin Shoal/Second Thomas/Ren’ai Jiao is? Do they know that their Navy has been deployed to this atoll, ostensibly to defend their “national interest”! Continue reading »
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AUKUS: transformations and losses
In matters of defence and national security strategy Australia has entered a period of great transformations. The AUKUS submarine project is the proximate cause: a vanity project born of fantasies so dense that, strategically speaking, it has created gravitational waves of a magnitude that warps everything it encounters. More precisely, it warps in ways that Continue reading »
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Nail in the coffin: Australia has run out of luck
Once an early experiment in democracy, Australia has declined into a quagmire of unrepresentative governments at state and federal levels. Power games are played obsessively by most members of a narrowly-recruited and self-serving political class whose only interest seems to be staying in power. Politics is not a vocation for these leeches on the Australian Continue reading »
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Opposing US-led wars: can Australia become independent and peaceful?
The narrative about the inevitability of a war with China began to dominate US strategic thinking in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Continue reading »
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Breaking the suicidal impasse
In the last few months events have occurred globally which indicate an astonishing, but not unexpected, acceleration in the pace of climate change. The world has now entered a new era of extremely dangerous climate impacts which are already proving catastrophic in many parts of the world. The factors which hitherto have constrained warming, such Continue reading »
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Going dark on information: The Albanese government’s transparency problem
When governments first assume the reins of power, an air of optimism accompanies them. They will be different from their erring predecessors, adopt a more conciliatory approach to opponents, listen to various positions and develop policy with mild sagacity. Within a few months, the air palls. Old practices reaffirm themselves. Continue reading »
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War fever and the military-industrial complex
In the wake of communist collapse we have been presented with a new paradigm in international affairs. No, it is not a tinkering with the standard communism versus democracy we have had to tolerate for more than half a century of war. By strange twist of fate it is democracy which is seen as creating the Continue reading »
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Unease over New Zealand overtures to US in Pacific
New security-state documents show Wellington aligning its military with the “rules-based international order” while preparing Kiwis for war with key trading partner China, writes Mick Hall. Continue reading »
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Do we need an arms industry?
Australia needs an arms industry like it needs a hole in the head. It will only contribute to flooding the world with more weapons of destruction when we are already being killed by floods, fires and irresponsible politicians through human induced global warming. Continue reading »
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David Bradbury, lifetime war abolisher, wins award for Anti-AUKUS efforts
The cracks in Labor ranks over AUKUS won’t be going away despite Albanese staring down dissenters at Labor’s national conference. A pitched battle over the choice of submarine base is guaranteed — and now we discover that Albanese has suffered the mother of all brainsnaps: Australia has agreed to set up a weapons-grade nuclear waste Continue reading »
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AUKUS as morbid “Deterrence”
There is a curious Chinese saying that cautions against “calling a stag, a horse”. As the Qin empire disintegrated, the wily Prime Minister Zhao Gao fed the second Qin dynasty Emperor (221-206 BC) false reports of imperial military victories. Lining up all the ministers at court, Zhao showed them a stag and demanded that they Continue reading »
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A compelling voice for rethinking Australia’s national security
Sam Roggeveen’s Echidna Strategy rightly challenges Australia to act as a diplomatic powerhouse, not a military one. Continue reading »
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Albanese’s fealty to America: Shouldn’t we be white hot with rage?
Like Paul Keating, Australians should be angry. Australia’s security is at risk. No other nation is so foolish, so self- delusional, so divorced from the basics of statecraft, nor so feckless with its citizens’ security in pursuit of America’s objectives. Shouldn’t we be white hot with rage at this government’s abdication of sovereignty? Continue reading »
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Game-changer: defence industry revolving door database
Do you have information about revolving door appointments involving Australia’s weapons industry? It’s time to speak up and contribute to a new database set to expose corruption. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and Israel-Palestine at the ALP National Conference
There was little to connect AUKUS and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the ALP National Conference except their shared “victory” in style over substance. AUKUS was locked into the party platform without meaningful debate. Revised wording on Israel/Palestine is worthy but will not make the slightest difference on the ground. Continue reading »
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Only idiots believe the US is protecting Australia from China
The Economist has taken a keen interest in Australia lately, which if you know anything about The Economist is something you never want to see happen to your country. Two articles published in the last few days by the notorious propaganda outlet have celebrated the fact that Australia appears to be the most likely nation Continue reading »
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Decoding bloviation: Pat Conroy and the rule of war
Stuart Rees has provided us with a penetrating look at the hyper-masculinity of recent utterances by the government Minister Pat Conroy. As is now de rigueur for most of the MSM (including, sadly, the ABC) these utterances are focussed on justification for AUKUS and naturally, implicit demonisation of China. Continue reading »
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Republicans push for Mexican-American war: Don’t rule it out
One of the what-ifs that the Albanese government should be asking itself is; what would it mean if America invaded Mexico in 2025? If the leading Republican presidential candidates are to be taken at their word this is not a foolish question. Could anything have a greater impact on the foundations of Australia’s foreign and Continue reading »
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Asean role stuck on Myanmar coup
President Joe Biden’s decision to skip Asean-related summits in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Sept 5-7 in favour of the G-20 leaders’ meeting in India just two days later has been greeted with howls of disappointment and criticism around Southeast Asian capitals and elsewhere that are concerned about America’s role in the region. Continue reading »
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Inside the AUKUS bubble
UWA Defence and Security Institute’s 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. Continue reading »
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What do we want? War! When do we want it? Continually!
Post 9/11 the US embarked on a series of wars to ‘make the world safe’ and more importantly settle old and new scores. Continue reading »
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China: The challenge of complexity
All of us here can probably agree that we are currently living in a time of greater strategic uncertainty and challenge than at any time since the end of World War II, and certainly since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. China is seen as being at the epicentre of this. Continue reading »
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Joint retreat: AUKUS nations back peddling on climate
Leaders of the AUKUS nations, all once pronouncing ambition on addressing the climate crisis and lording the mantle of global leadership, are now each in turn forgoing their international commitments, carving out excuses and worse. Continue reading »
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Pat Conroy and the sexuality underpinning AUKUS
The sexual connotation of support for AUKUS should be obvious. An apparent fascination with phallic symbols as large as nuclear submarines, plus language describing how to dominate and penetrate enemies shows notions of security which reflect a top down, masculine interpretation of power. Continue reading »
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ABC shamelessly spruiks ‘China Threat’ stories on morning of ALP National Conference AUKUS debate
The morning of the ALP National Conference on 18 August, ABC online news led with two ‘Bad China’ stories. One about whether China is building an airstrip on a contested island, the other likely to cause great discomfort and anxiety to Australians because it showed the level of China’s spying on Australia via hundreds of Continue reading »
