Defence and Security
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MIKE SCRAFTON. The strategic significance of Abqaiq and Khurais
The debate over the military implications of relatively inexpensive drones and cruise missiles has been enlivened by the recent attacks on the Saudi Arabian oil facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais. This spectacular demonstration of the effectiveness of drones and cruise missiles has prompted claims that it has ‘changed global warfare’. Inevitably all modern defence force Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. What is new about drones?
The attack on Saudi oil wells has given rise to a debate about the effectiveness of drones in warfare. Some have argued that this heralds a whole new world in warfare while others see it as just another example of the age old leap frogging between new attack weapons and the development of new defence Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Morrison joins the conga line.
And so back to Mark Latham’s conga line of suck holes – Scott Morrison goes to Washington. The regular obeisance is hardly unexpected, but it is no less embarrassing for that. Morrison has made it clear that the main purpose of his visit is to shmooze. He will continually tell The Donald how grateful and Continue reading »
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GARETH EVANS. Emotion, reason and nuclear disarmament
I first came to Hiroshima in 1964 as a twenty-year old student, and it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. Nothing had quite prepared me for the experience of standing at the epicentre of that first nuclear bomb strike, and being overwhelmed by the almost indescribable horror of what had occurred Continue reading »
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BRENDON KELSON. Letter to Minister for Veterans and Defence Personnel
The Hon Darren Chester MP, Minister for Veterans and Defence Personnel, Dear Minister $498M AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL EXPANSION Thank you for Robert Curtin’s reply of 25 July 2019 to my letter to the Prime Minister of 19 June 2019. That reply rather missed the main points of my letter so I restate them here in Continue reading »
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Urgent appeal to save nuclear agreements (Japan Times 25-8-19)
HIROSHIMA – The Hiroshima Round Table held its seventh annual meeting last Wednesday and Thursday. For the first time, in recognition of the uniquely dangerous international security environment since the dawn of the atomic age in this beautiful city, the Round Table issued an urgent appeal to maintain existing nuclear arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation Continue reading »
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QUENTIN DEMPSTER. New nuclear arms race brings higher risk of global catastrophe
The world is at its highest risk of a global catastrophe in decades, thanks to an unpredictable resumption in the nuclear arms race. Veteran defence and security analyst Brian Toohey has warned that talk of war between the West, and China and Russia, along with brinkmanship with North Korea and Iran, has escalated the conditions Continue reading »
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KELLIE TRANTER. Defence exports – what are we subsidising?
Last month Australian defence company, Electro Optic Systems (EOS), again denied its weapons system was being used in the Yemen war when photographs surfaced of four consignments of its Remote Weapons System for export in June and July to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. But what slipped through in relation to EOS is its February Continue reading »
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Australia’s strategic folly: lessons from Barbara Tuchman
We arein a situation where decisions that seem simple can commit Australia to fundamental errors of strategic judgement. The decision to send a ship and a plane and headquarters staff to a new venture with the United States in the Middle East is foolish. It is described in isolation by the government but is additional Continue reading »
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ERNST WILLHEIM. The saga of Bernard Collaery and Witness K continues.
If you watched the program [ABC 4-Corners] you will already know this is a talk about some shameful events in Australia’s recent history. And I very much fear the shameful saga is about to continue. It is about Australian commercial espionage. [SPEAKING NOTES, ADDRESS TO AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS. CANBERRA. 27 August 2019] Continue reading »
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Hong Kong and the ghost of Tiananmen
Michael Shoebridge of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has artfully given the appearance of logic to a melding of fact, supposition and obsession in order to reach the conclusion that it is ‘time for the international community to step up to prevent a foreseeable massacre that will further cleave China—and other authoritarian regimes—from the rest Continue reading »
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ILAN PAPPE. Israel’s latest attempt to erase Palestine (The Electronic Intifada 25-7-19)
The attempt to suppress official documentation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 is not new. Continue reading »
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BILL CLEMENTS. Grain silos and war memorials
In 2008, archaeologists from the University of Chicago discovered ancient grain storage silos in Southern Egypt. Made from mud brick, they were there when Jacob’s sons, in a time of famine, came seeking grain. We are fortunate that these silos constructed from simpler, cheaper materials than the great tombs, have survived. For ancient Egypt reserved Continue reading »
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Battles, campaigns, and wars
The United States Studies Centre’s latest publication, Averting Crisis: American strategy, military spending and collective defence in the Indo-Pacific, contrary to its title, offers up a path to crisis. While the report draws attention to the fading of the previously unchallengeable military dominance of the US, the recommendations for Australia are flawed. Continue reading »
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All the way with Trump’s USA … this time into the Strait of Hormuz (New Daily, 21 August 2019)
Here we go again – joining an American military adventure created by Donald Trump, an adventure that has no end in sight.Nobody with a sense of history and Liberal Party politics can be surprised that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is donating Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force personnel and assets to a flashpoint Continue reading »
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The conversation about China
Senator Wong’s call for a mature conversation aboutf the issue of China is more than welcome. A serious discussions of the implications for Australia flowing from the rise of China was sadly missing from the recent election. However, there is an unexpected naivety in her suggestion that MPs and Senators receive ‘foreign affairs and national Continue reading »
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A nuclear world in disarray. (The Strategist 7.8.2019)
We are in a uniquely dangerous period in the atomic age. Geopolitical tensions have spiked in Europe, in the Middle East, on the subcontinent and in East Asia. The nuclear arms control architecture is fraying and crumbling, but no negotiations are underway to reduce global nuclear stockpiles. Continue reading »
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PHILIP GIRALDI. Israel Has “The Most Moral Army in the World”? (American Herald Tribune)
The creepy French “intellectual” Bernard-Henri Levy gets it wrong Continue reading »
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VINCE SCAPPATURA. American Missiles in Darwin?
While in Australia last week for the annual Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, twice hinted at the possibility of Australia becoming host to American missiles pointed at China. Although Prime Minister Scott Morrison attempted to “rule a line” under the idea, it is unlikely to be the end of the Continue reading »
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The US Killed INF, Russia Buried It, China Will Not Disinter It (Australian Outlook 8-8-19)
The end of the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age will almost certainly be accompanied by American pressure on allies to host US intermediate range missiles. Continue reading »
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JESSICA MATHEWS. America’s Indefensible Defense Budget – Extracts-(The New York Review of Books)
With what former defense secretary Robert Gates termed a “gargantuan, labyrinthine bureaucracy” in the Pentagon, manufacturers and subcontractors for each weapons system carefully distributed across congressional districts and backed by aggressive lobbyists, members of Congress determined to protect constituents’ jobs, and military leaders loyal to the weapons systems they trained on and commanded, it is Continue reading »
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Avoiding the Crossfire from the USA – China Confrontation
Australia is on a ‘hiding to nothing’ from the escalating USA confrontation with China. If we choose USA, China can peacefully inflict devastating economic damage by choosing other countries to supply its resources. If we choose China, USA can withdraw its security guarantees, (albeit never tested in a situation where Australia, but not the USA, Continue reading »
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RAYMOND ZHONG. Vietnam is gathering the spoils of a trade war (The New York Times International)
No country on earth has benefited from President Trump’s trade fight with China more than Vietnam. Continue reading »
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Tugging our forelock again and again to our dangerous ally. An update
The US has coming calling again. Not an Admiral this time but the Pentecostalist Secretary of State Mike Pompeo . He is whistling us up as a faithful dog to join with the US in tackling the problems which Donald Trump created with Iran and presumably to soften us up to host missiles to protect Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia’s 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 Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS. Alliance Management- Morrison’s First Challenge : Iran
The past week of the Australian-US Ministerial Consultations (Ausmin) talks has presented the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and his inexperienced ministerial team with the first serious test of how to manage the US alliance relationship. Despite the very difficult contemporary problem of coping with the most dysfunctional US administration in recent history we should not Continue reading »
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RICHARD TANTER. An Australian pathway through Pine Gap to the nuclear ban treaty
The Pine Gap Relay Ground Station could be closed, with appropriate notice of intent, without genuine disadvantage to US national security. This would provide a technically and strategically feasible pathway past the most important obstacle posed by Pine Gap to Australia becoming compliant with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(TPNW). Continue reading »
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DOROTHY HORSFIELD. Measures Short of War. Australian National University’s Emeritus Professor Hugh White’s Plans for Defending Australia
One response from a colleague to the contentious proposal by Professor Hugh White in his new book ‘How to Defend Australia’ that the government should seriously consider adopting a nuclear capability was the brief ‘Oh, for God’s Sake!.’ Underpinning such a comment is the prospect of the kind of dystopian nightmare that stalked the West’s Cold War MAD Continue reading »
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BINOY KAMPMARK. Militarizing Australia: Talisman Sabre and the US Military Build Up (American Herald Tribune)
Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on islands for seizure and capture as part of a forward projection of sea and air power aimed at the mainland.” Continue reading »
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WILLIAM D. HARTUNG. The US Military-Industrial Complex on Steroids (TomDispatch 16.7.2017)
When, in his farewell address in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the “unwarranted influence” wielded by the “military-industrial complex,” he could never have dreamed of an arms-making corporation of the size and political clout of Lockheed Martin. In a good year, it now receives up to $50 billion in government contracts, a sum larger Continue reading »