Defence and Security
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TIM LINDSEY. Indonesia’s inconvenient truths.
Concerns regarding Australian military teaching materials and remarks uncovered late last year have placed strain on relations with Indonesia. The strange affair of our on-again-off-again defence cooperation arrangements with Indonesia continues to confuse most observers. Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Rush for the exits
When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month stood alongside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull near The Gap––once Sydney’s favourite suicide spot––they presented themselves as brothers-in-arms for multilateral free trade. How quickly things can change. Continue reading »
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Karl Rove’s Prophecy.
The neocons stayed put in the State Department and other positions closely linked to the Obama White House, where they became allies with the liberal hawks in continuing ‘spreading democracy’ by overthrowing regimes. America’s mainstream news and opinion purveyors, without demurring, accommodated the architects of reality production overseen by Dick Cheney. This did not end Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS. South China Sea: China taps in the last nail!
It is now clear for all to see that the only potential US “ally” for any US confrontation in the region could be Australia. China has successfully wedged the ASEAN’s in through their common concern that it would be them that would suffer most from any military confrontation in the South China Sea. Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. Trump and Nuclear Weapons
Trump’s stance on nuclear weapons is ignorant, inconsistent, confused. What he has proposed on nuclear arms control and proliferation will not be accepted. His latest offer to the Russians has no chance of serious consideration. Continue reading »
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JAMES O’NEILL. More alarm bells ring for Australia in the South China Sea.
President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of state had his confirmation hearings in Washington last week. A number of his reported statements should have raised alarm among Australian politicians and foreign affairs bureaucrats. With the exception of former Prime Minister Paul Keating however, the response was largely asinine. Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Rex Tillerson and Australia’s national interest
President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks are being cross-examined in public for the first time. Here begins the real business of assessing how a Trump administration might behave––in more than 140 characters. The indications so far suggest the need for an early reappraisal. Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. The Rex Tillerson confirmation hearings, and wider issues
Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State and Trump’s best Cabinet choice so far, will probably survive his gruelling full day of confirmation hearings by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee last Wednesday 11 January (Washington time). Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. Molan v. Woolcott: The rough and the smooth in regional diplomacy
Molan writes that this sensitive touch in relations with Indonesia is reflected in a long tradition of Australian diplomats putting Indonesia’s interests and the views of Indonesians ahead of our own. Indeed he implies that but for geography Indonesia would be of little or no importance to us at all. Continue reading »
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The strange career of American exceptionalism.
In this article in The Nation, George Grandin of New York University comments ‘Obama’s recomposition of American exceptionalism was tactically successful, at least as measured by his 2012 reelection, which expanded the multiracial and cross-class coalition that had given him the White House four years earlier. Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. Syria and the Hippocratic principle: first do no harm
Western interference has worsened the pathology of broken, corrupt and dysfunctional politics across the region from Afghanistan to North Africa. Continue reading »
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Indonesia – Complexities, restraints, and opportunities for Australia
The importance of our relations with Indonesia in the future and in the wider context of the Asian century cannot be overstated. It is essential that each country acts to know more about its neighbour. Continue reading »
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DENIS FITZGERALD. Non-violence is the key to peace, and it starts at home.
For Pope Francis, peace has been a constant theme, as it was for his name-sake, St Francis of Assisi. His message for 1 January 2017, his fourth such message, draws on the major documents of his pontificate as it focuses on the role of nonviolence in building peace. Continue reading »
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RICHARD TANTER. Fifty years on, Pine Gap should reform to better serve Australia.
Pine Gap has capabilities that could genuinely contribute to the defence of Australia. This would depend on the will and resolution of an Australian government capable of identifying these. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turnbull on Indonesia and Israel.
The theory remains that Indonesians are all right to visit, but we still don’t regard them as full allies or equals. Continue reading »
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Don’t ask about the war
John Howard contributed to world events that are still affecting us: invasion, illegality, sycophancy to our allies, refugees, and even Brexit and Trump. Why do Australians not hold him accountable? Continue reading »
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JAMES O’NEILL. Lessons from the Iraq War: a reappraisal.
The release of the Chilcott Report into the circumstances under which the United Kingdom (UK) became a party to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003 has raised fresh questions about the circumstances surrounding Australia’s involvement in that same war. Continue reading »
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Australian governments have made us more at risk from terrorism.
We should not refer to ISIS as a state. It Is not a state. It has no Air Force or navy. It has no fixed boundaries. It is really a series of militant groups. It behaves in a ruthless manner, as does Saudi Arabia and its agents in Yemen. Continue reading »
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SUE WAREHAM. Why is Australia not fully behind efforts to prohibit nuclear weapons?
It’s about time for some good news. Heaven knows, we need it after 2016’s litany of human failures to find peace between ourselves and with our struggling planet. But as a Christmas gift of historic proportions, the UN – which is to say its member states – has taken the most promising action in decades Continue reading »
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DAVID MENERE. How the mainstream media mislead the public on Syria
The bias in the treatment of the Syrian conflict by the mainstream media is not accidental or due to laxity on the part of the media. Rather, it is the result of the opposition groups’ exclusion of independent reporting, coupled with western governments’ financial assistance to the opposition for media production. Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. The Sideline is Out of Play
‘Taking sides’ is a schoolyard conception of how a nation’s strategic interest is to be calculated and diplomacy shaped. Standing on the sidelines of a fight, pointing an accusing finger at other barracking spectators and crying ‘you’re taking sides’ is merely a way of avoiding the more challenging task of assessing the rights and wrongs Continue reading »
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RAMESH THAKUR. What a Twitter-Happy Trump Might Mean For Nuclear Diplomacy
Far from making America great again, Trump is more likely to make America grope again in the darkness of the post-nuclear age. Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Just a case of Israeli ‘chutzpah’ or the action of a village tyrant?
The apoplectic rage of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was something to behold. How dare the U.N., an organisation he takes little notice of anyway, condemn his ever expanding housing program for Jewish families in the contested West Bank and how dare the U.S. not even bother to veto it as has been the Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. Julie and Julia in the Promised Land
Australia’s position on Israel’s policy of building settlements in occupied Palestinian land is contrary to that of a clear majority of countries. It is driven by domestic political calculations, by both sides of Australian politics. Foreign Minister Bishop’s unnecessary public reiteration of this position not only addresses a favoured domestic constituency, but seeks to reassure Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. Henry Kissinger’s last hurrah!
Henry Kissinger‘s renascent role in US-Russian diplomacy Remarkably, 93-year old Henry Kissinger is still making judicious and fruitful public and private interventions in Russia-US relations. It seems his moment may have come again to make a difference as an East-West peace-broker, as he did in the Nixon-Brezhnev years ( for which he won the Nobel Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. ‘Fighting Monsters’
Australians, Americans and Japanese have been ‘fighting monsters’––the monsters of war remembrance––since 1945. A high-profile visit to Pearl Harbor during the week seemed to suggest another monster was being laid to rest. But while that piece of theatre left much to be desired, especially in its aftermath, another recent attempt, away from the spotlight, gives Continue reading »
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From the American Challenge to the Chinese Challenge?
The unfolding Western effort to preach to the Chinese and paint a picture of a shining and benign America and contrasting that with a threatening and malign picture of China is, among other things, a complete distortion of the historical truth. Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. From America into Asia
As Australia necessarily rethinks its alliance with the United States, it must simultaneously educate itself into Asia. There is just no other way. Continue reading »
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End of an era in US-Thai relations!
In this article in the Bangkok Post, journalist Alan Dawson writes of a trend by the Thai government to improve relations with China at the expense of the US. Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is having difficulties in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. See link below to Bangkok Post article. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1167845/end-of-an-era- Continue reading »
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WILLY BACH. Australia’s Collaboration in the CIA’s Secret War in Laos
US forces left Thailand in 1975-76 at the request of Thai authorities. SEATO was disbanded in 1977. Australia’s forward defence doctrine was quietly forgotten. Continue reading »