Defence and Security
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GREG BARTON. Morrison wants Muslim leaders to do more to prevent terrorism, but what more can they do? (The Conversation)
With the simple statement “more needs to happen”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was emphatic. In the wake of the terror attack on the crowded streets of Melbourne’s CBD last Friday, it is difficult to argue against any plan to do more to fight terrorism in Australia. Continue reading »
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PETER STANLEY. PM Hughes said ‘I bid you go fight for White Australia in France’- WW1 as the war for White Australia
Peter Stanley reviews Peter Cochrane’s Best We Forget: The War for White Australia, 1914-18 Australians’ racial anxiety towards Asia in general and Japan in particular in the decade before 1914 made Australians’ political leaders prepared to underwrite an imperial war in the hope of securing British support for the security of White Australia. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL MULLINS. The politicisation of remembrance
In Australia there is a highly selective regime of remembrance that chooses to exclude the Frontier Wars that killed large numbers of indigenous Australians, and also the many unsavoury aspects of war such as the mistreatment of women by our ‘heroes’. My view is that communal war remembrance should be more nuanced. It needs to Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. The Turnbull Legacy Hour
Malcolm Turnbull appeared on a special edition of the ABC’s QandA last Thursday. Charming, at times evavise and polite as ever, we didn’t learn much, but is this the end of his political career as he claims, or the beginning of a new chapter? Continue reading »
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GREG LOCKHART. Armistice and Remembrance Day in Australia
The signing of the armistice at 11 am on 11/11/1918 did not raise great enthusiasm among members of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), because their first thought was for sleep. It then took a year for the battlefield silence to spread across the Empire. Continue reading »
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DOUGLAS NEWTON. For Armistice Day: Lest we forget the realities of the Armistice
Armistice Day dawns. Supposedly, it marks ‘the end of the First World War’. It was not. There was no peace. Wars and civil conflicts continued to rage across Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Moreover, the victors cruelly maintained the economic blockade of Germany during the eight-month armistice period. Hundreds of thousands of malnourished Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has become a ‘go to’ organisation for anti Chinese commentary A repost
The important agents of influence in Australia are organisations linked ‘hip to hip’ to the US and its military/industrial complex. One of these is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute which is an enthusiastic supporter of almost all things American including its hostility to China. It pretends it is an independent think tank. It pretends it Continue reading »
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DEAN ASHENDEN. Don’t mention the war (Inside Story, 05.11.18)
The Australian War Memorial and its embarrassing director Brendan Nelson are getting some of what they deserve, but only some. The AWM’s (successful) bid for half a billion public dollars to house its tribute to those who have served and died in conflicts since the second world war has provoked hostile commentary, culminating in Jack Continue reading »
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What are the real lessons of the First World War?
The Centenary of the Armistice of 1918 is almost upon us. There will be sincere and solemn events. But prepare also for a hurricane of media puffery, a cascade of clichés, narrow nationalism, the familiar medley of cheers and tears – and little serious attention to the real lessons of the First World War. Continue reading »
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Time to pull the curtain on memorial industry (Canberra Times 3.11.2018)
A fairly safe rule of public life is that the more flag lapels one wears, and the more one speaks of love of country or national greatness, the less likely the person has served in the nation’s armed forces and put himself in harm’s way, least of all in a time of national need. Two Continue reading »
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DAVID STEPHENS. A grandiose commemorative project for Canberra raises lots of questions
There has been for some time an air of inevitability about the extensions to the Australian War Memorial, a project announced on Thursday by the Prime Minister and Memorial Director, Dr Brendan Nelson. Serious questions remain, however, about this grandiose undertaking, which is known irreverently to some observers as the Brendanbunker and could be seen Continue reading »
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NICK DEANE. Armistice Day
On ‘Remembrance Day’ we should not forget that the majority of war’s casualties are actually non-combatant civilians. We should also remember that the original day was a day of great joy, as warring came to an end. Peace is the ‘default position’; war an aberration. However, current commemorations still focus on the ‘warrior hero’. Continue reading »
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DAVID STEPHENS. Did the War Memorial deliberately mislead the Parliament about the money it gets from arms companies – or is it just careless about accountability? (Honest History 26.10.2018)
The Senate Hansard for 25 July 2018 contained the Australian War Memorial’s answer to Question 166from the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (FADT) Committee (question asked by then Senator Rhiannon in Estimates). The answer included a table that purported to show figures for the value of financial contributions that the Memorial received from military and Continue reading »
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Invictus Games do nothing to remedy government failure to properly care for veterans
No amount of royal fairy dust or ministerial speech-making at the Invictus Games can hide the abject failure of successive Australian governments to fulfil their moral responsibility to veterans. Continue reading »
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Invictus Games, glossing over inconvenient truths – the arms trade and the British royals
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have arrived and the media frenzy has erupted, fuelled by news of the royal pregnancy. As media coverage goes, the Invictus Games team couldn’t have managed it any better. Yet, when it comes to the actions of the royal family, all that glisters is not gold. Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Whose rules? What order?
As baby diplomats we learned always to vote in good company. Countries, we understood, were judged by the company they kept. Not any more. The countries Australia rubs shoulders with now, and the hips we are joined at, make people who used to represent Australia overseas wonder how much worse it can get. Other Australians Continue reading »
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LOGAN PAULEY. China stakes out a role for itself in post-war Syria.
As Syria’s civil war winds down, China is looking to establish itself as an economic, and possibly military, partner for the post-war period. Continue reading »
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JON STANFORD. The Future Submarine: Time for a Review
One year ago, Insight Economics, sponsored by Sydney businessman Gary Johnston, published a comprehensive, independent report on the future submarine (FSM) acquisition. Launched at the National Press Club by Professor Hugh White and Dr Michael Keating, the report highlighted the excessive cost of the FSM; its unacceptable delivery timetable leading to a dangerous capability gap; Continue reading »
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REG LITTLE. Rethinking Australian Strategic Thinking on China.
Disarray and confusion amongst the values, ideals, narratives and mythologies of the English-speaking peoples will increasingly press Australia to choose between a familiar past tending to decline and disarray and a challenging and daunting China-focused future. Continue reading »
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AARON PATRICK. Did 41 Australian soldiers die in Afghanistan for a failed war? (AFR 27.9.2018)
Australia’s bloodiest war ended 100 years ago in melancholy victory. Australia’s most recent war may end in a delayed defeat, raising an awful question: what did 41 Australian soldiers die for? Continue reading »
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DAVID STEPHENS. The Australian War Memorial admits receiving $1,271,473 over three years in donations from military and defence firms.
During Budget Estimates hearings, then Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon (NSW) asked Dr Brendan Nelson, Director of the Australian War Memorial, how much the Memorial had received in donations from military and defence firms. The answer covered the years 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 year to date, which would have been almost the full year, as the answer Continue reading »
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GREG LOCKHART: Tearing down our heroes.
The Director of the Australian War Memorial (AWM), Dr Brendan Nelson, has inappropriately used his position to criticise Fairfax Media over its reporting of allegations that former Special Air Service (SAS) Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC has committed ‘war crimes’. The Director says the allegations are an attempt to ‘tear down our heroes’ and that ‘unless Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. Japan’s nuclear options.
Hiroshima was the first city in the world to be attacked by an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945. The last time that an atomic weapon was used was to bomb Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. By the end of that fateful year, an estimated 214,000 people had died from the two bombs. Ever since, Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Many happy returns of al-Qaeda.
On 11 August 2018 the members of what became al-Qaeda met in Peshawar, Pakistan to form the movement which is now 30 years old. With Osama bin Laden’s money, political vision, religious fervour, and capacity as a modern communicator, it changed the course of the 21st century. Even though Its profile is lower now, there Continue reading »
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The need to think more seriously about war
Government justifications for major investments in ADF new capability and assertions by defence experts that Australia should substantially expand its defence spending rarely address two important issues. The prospect for military success in a war in East Asia and the expectations around Australian casualties—military and civilian. Thinking about the first issue helps shed some light Continue reading »
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JUDY HEMMING. The US Marines in Darwin according to precedent: neither in the national, nor the local interest.
Australian Defence Policy, in lockstep with the US as regards “managing” the rise of China, embraces the deployment of US Marine to Darwin as being consistent with the national interest. Where the social fabric of the Northern Territory is concerned, however, the potential for Darwin to be just another locale to be trashed by the Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Who is in charge of Australia’s relations with China? The Australian Prime Minister or ASIO? (Repost from 28/5/2018)
ASIO is on a roll in co-ordinating the attack on China and its alleged covert operations in Australia. Only last Friday we learnt that super patriot Andrew Hastie, formerly an officer in SAS and currently Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, cleared his parliamentary speech with ASIO but not his own Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Australia’s perpetual ‘war footing’. (Repost from 7/5/2018)
We should have paid more attention at the time. It was September 2013 and the Abbott government had just been sworn in. The new Defence Minister, Senator David Johnston, gave an interview to a Fairfax journalist which was reported on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The content was truly extraordinary. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Defence Plan B.
Canberra’s foreign and defence bureaucracy is appalled by Donald Trump’s monstering of the Anglo allies and of NATO, his enthusiasm for Kim Jong-un and his appeasement of Vladimir Putin. Where to without the comfort of a great, powerful and reliable friend, it asks? To Plan B, say some analysts – a more capable and self-contained Continue reading »