Defence and Security
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Caitlin Johnstone: Ukraine crawling with CIA & Co
The previously unthinkable idea that the U.S. is at war with Russia has been gradually normalised, with the heat turned up so slowly that the frog doesn’t notice it’s being boiled alive. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review – We are becoming a proxy or is it a patsy for the US in a possible conflict with China
The Defence Strategic Review must warn Minister Marles about the dangerous path he is committing Australia to. We are becoming a spear carrier for the US. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: Can we rely on the US?
Strategy: ‘a plan designed to achieve a particular long-term aim’. The strategic defence review is presumably intended to produce a plan that will guide decisions by the new Labor government on the acquisition of weapons and the use of other resources (such as people) to protect Australia against future threats to its people, its territory Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review and the received wisdom about the China threat and US support
We cannot assume that other countries will do anything but put their own interests before those of others and we must do the same. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: What suffering will we accept to keep America in first place?
Do we want to risk incalculable suffering to prevent America from slipping to ‘second place’ among the nations of the world? Without serious assessment of what cost we are willing to pay in the Defence Strategic Review – how much death and destruction we can tolerate – planning for war is little more than a Continue reading »
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Defence Strategic Review – Read all about it
According to the terms of reference Defence Security Review is now required to ensure that Defence has the right capabilities that are postured to meet the growing strategic challenges that Australia and its partner countries will face in the world in coming years. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review must not confine itself to “more of the same” but address a new world
The government is conducting a Defence Strategic Review: “an independently-led review that will consider Defence’s force posture and force structure.” The terms of reference are narrow. What is needed, what this Defence Review may not be able to do, is a review of Australia’s overall strategic circumstances. Courage is needed to choose between allocation of Continue reading »
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Japan can only blame itself for failure on the ‘northern territories’.
Japan has protested Moscow’s use of four Japanese claimed islands during its recent Vostok -2022 military exercises in Russia’s Far East and Japan’s northern seas. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review and the decline of the US led western world
It is time to take the path less travelled. The Defence Strategic Review must recommend an independent defence and foreign policy if Australia is to successfully navigate the emergence of a multi-polar world. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: the greatest threat to Australia’s security arises from its uncritical attachment to the United States
The Defence Strategic Review, or the Porcupine Strategy, cannot ignore the reality that the greatest threat to Australia’s security arises from its uncritical attachment to the United States, and to the assumption that the US will persist as a reliable and rational partner into the future. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: We should regard the Taiwan issue as one for us to ‘sit out’
It is almost impossible to imagine any realistic circumstances, short of general war in the Asia-Pacific, under which China would launch a military attack on Australia. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: Will it question the China phobia that currently holds sway?
Hardly a day goes by without an Australian politician, commentator, or member of the security establishment reminding us that China poses ‘a clear and present danger’. The messaging, consistent and unrelenting, provides the backdrop to the Defence Strategic Review recently announced by the Albanese Government. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review – we need to urgently reduce conflicts and global warming
Cabinet needs to insist Marles’ return to Labor’s previous support for an independent foreign policy and recognise there is no guarantee an arms build-up won’t lead to a calamitous war. Crucially, the Albanese government needs to give a clear priority to helping reduce conflicts and global warming that cause horrendous suffering to innocent people around Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: The insiders will just tinker around the edges
The Defence Strategic Review will tinker around the edges, but will not push back on negative game changers such as AUKUS and all it represents in casting China as the enemy. Continue reading »
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We have to learn to co-exist with China
None of the ASEAN countries wants a US-led conflict over Taiwan, which if it occurs, is likely to accelerate America’s decline in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review and the loss of our strategic autonomy to the US
Over the next two weeks we will be running a series of articles to focus on the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) which is headed by Sir Angus Houston and the Hon. Stephen Smith. In becoming a US proxy, even patsy, we are on a risky and dangerous path. Continue reading »
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A final word on NATO expansion and Ukraine
Mr Jon Richardson has written a piece commenting on some of the points that I made in my critique of an earlier piece by him, and while I think exchanges often reach the point of exhaustion, some of his comments do warrant a response. Continue reading »
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“Pitch Black.” Not a benign military training exercise
The military exercise “Pitch Black” is currently underway in Northern Australia. Continue reading »
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On Ukraine and Taiwan we are not using diplomacy; we are using weaponry
We are taking exactly the same tactics in East Asia that led to the war in Ukraine. We’re organising alliances, building up weaponry, trash-talking China, having Speaker Pelosi fly to Taiwan, when the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and now send more arms. Continue reading »
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What is it with pollies, tanks and defence waste?
What is with politicians and tanks and other armoured vehicles? Continue reading »
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Donald Rothwell: Is Australia in danger of becoming the US’s ‘deputy sheriff’ in the South China Sea?
Recent comments by Defence Minister Richard Marles about Australia, China and the international law of the sea raise the spectre of Australia acting as an Indo-Pacific “deputy sheriff” for the United States, enforcing the rules-based international order. Continue reading »
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Jon Richardson: NATO and Ukraine: once more into the breach…
Professor Graeme Gill has written a detailed response to my own article in P and I on NATO and the origins of war in Ukraine. I argued the latter were to be found in Russia’s post-imperial angst and domestic authoritarianism rather than in any threat presented by NATO expansion or Western policies. Continue reading »
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Terrorist-preoccupied Israel issues latest license for thuggery
While the world was distracted by brutalities in Ukraine, Yemen, Myanmar, Somalia and by a threatening US, China conflict, Israeli forces raided the offices of six Palestinian human rights organisations, and after stealing equipment and documents, soldiers welded doors shut. Continue reading »
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Caitlin Johnstone: US invades Syria, kills people, claims self-defence
The US is an occupying force who is there without the permission of the Syrian government, without having been attacked by Syria, and without any valid claim to be defending itself from anyone in Syria. Continue reading »
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Kari McKern: Sixty years and twenty-seven days ago Australia sent 30 advisors to Vietnam
That war has lessons for us today. Continue reading »
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War is evil. Prevention is better than cure
It is so sad for our humanity that our so-called civilised world political leaders are still not able to find a way of preventing war and achieving PEACE regardless of what excuses the leaders have to start a war. Continue reading »
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Our Air Force is already ‘operating against China’
Australia is seemingly as eager as ever to be pushed out on a plank by our American friends, professionally. Ever the faithful “patsy”. Continue reading »
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The west’s false narrative about Russia and China
The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an Continue reading »
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Everett Bledsoe: The US military empire. How many US military bases are there in the world?
The Pentagon does not know how many bases it has around the world so it relies on academics to tell it. The US bases are gated communities which replicate US suburbs, shops and amenities to the exclusion of local people. Continue reading »
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Jon Richardson: No, NATO expansion didn’t cause the war in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has met with opprobrium in most quarters. At the same time, commentators of diverse stripes still argue that Western policies, particularly NATO expansion, should bear part or much of the blame for these events. Continue reading »
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