Defence and Security
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MICHAEL WESLEY. The dangerous politics of national security. (Repost from Policy Series)
In January 2013, as she launched her government’s National Security Strategy, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard proclaimed that Australia’s decade of terrorism was over. Her argument was that al Qaeda had failed to regenerate after being degraded in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and that there were other more conventional security issues, such Continue reading »
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The American alliance and Vice President Biden’s recent visit
Vice President Biden’s speech at the Paddington Town Hall on 20 July was by invitation only. I had met Vice President Biden three years ago in Washington when I was on the Board of the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue. He was friendly and somewhat more impressive than I had expected and certainly had very competent staff around him. Continue reading »
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STEPHEN FITZGERALD. Security in the region. (Repost from Policy Series)
Paul Keating and Gareth Evans used to claim, with justification, that by the mid-1990s Australia had become ‘the odd man in’ in Asia. This was in significant part because of the headway they’d made in Southeast Asia, with ASEAN countries, in gaining acceptance of Australia as ‘one of them’. This was no slogan. Behind it Continue reading »
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JOHN McCARTHY. Foreign Policy. Australia, the United States and Asia. (Repost from Policy Series)
In a conversation in October last year with two British foreign correspondents and a former Japanese Prime Ministerial foreign policy adviser, the subject turned to the United States. All three interlocutors argued that in recent years Australia had superseded both Japan and the United Kingdom as the United States’ closest ally. This view should not Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Shrugging off the effects of the Iraq invasion.
‘His decision to invade Iraq is easily the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president’. Professor Jean Edward Smith, eminent US presidential biographer, on George W. Bush. The other day the Sydney Morning Herald had a cartoon showing John Howard in a military uniform and holding a pop gun. Behind him Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Why the debates about Islam have gone off the rails
One of the persistent conceits of modern history has been the growing conviction that rational scientific enquiry will completely remove religious thinking from human consciousness for all time. Positivist fundamentalists like Stephen Hawking or so-called “New Atheists” like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have triumphantly echoed the Nietzschean declaration “God is dead” without understanding Continue reading »
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TONY KEVIN. South China Sea dispute: a furious China challenges the high priests of international law
One privilege of being retired that one can watch ABC News24 daytime television while others are hard at work. On Wednesday 13 July around midday, I was treated to a dramatic spectacle: a Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister in an hour-long international media conference in Beijing fiercely denouncing, as a ‘scrap of waste-paper fit only Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. Australian Foreign Policy. (Repost from Policy Series)
Summary. Australian Foreign Policy is dominated by fear, defence issues, the American Alliance and the search for votes in marginal electorates. We talk about the importance of Asia but instinctively cleave to Europe and North America who are said to share our values but don’t always do so. We need to look beyond the next Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. Foreign Policy. An Independent Australian Foreign Policy (Repost from Policy Series)
Summary: For fifty years, since Australia entered the war in Vietnam in 1965, Australian foreign policy has been made increasingly subservient to a specific concept of Australia’s relationship with the United States. That concept, first enunciated by Prime Minister Menzies in 1955, was that for its survival, Australia needed ”a great and powerful friend”. All Continue reading »
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STUART HARRIS. What Australia’s foreign policy should look like. (Repost from Policy Series)
The focus in Australia’s foreign policy has shifted back and forth between the global and the regional, and between multilateralism and bilateralism in economic and political relationships, due only in part to party political differences. While some policies, such as immigration, refugees and to a degree defence, are widely debated in Australia, many are Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. It is becoming much easier to go to war.
In a post on 18 July 2016 I drew attention to the inter-twining of the Australian and US Defence and Intelligence establishments.The problem however goes much deeper than the current ‘dangerous alliance’ between Australia and the US. As Henry Reynolds has pointed out, we continually go off to fight wars in foreign lands in service Continue reading »
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In the service of empires from Fromelles to the present day.
See link below to article by Paul Daley in the Guardian ‘Australians didn’t sacrifice themselves at Fromelles, the British sacrificed them’. John Menadue. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog/2016/jul/19/australians-didnt-sacrifice-themselves-at-fromelles-the-british-sacrificed-them?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=182252&subid=18184347&CMP=ema_632 Continue reading »
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PHILOMENA MURRAY. Nice attack brings a difficult question into sharp focus: why France?
If you live in France, you enjoy Bastille Day. There is a buzz in the air as you celebrate a day off in the middle of summer with your family and friends. You go to the fireworks. It is good to be in France and to remember the founding principles of the state – liberty, Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. Interesting Times
The so-called Chinese Curse: “ May you live in interesting times”, is apparently not of Chinese origin, but certainly apocryphal and wonderfully ironic. I think it is hard to recall more “interesting times” than those in which the world finds itself today, nor a time fraught with more danger, since the sleepwalking towards World Continue reading »
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Unnecessary wars in service of other people’s empires.
Australia is engaged in a long cavalcade of military commemoration. It has been advancing since the 1990’s. Government largesse has speeded it on its way. War is now widely seen as the defining collective experience. The national spirit, the argument runs, emerged in battle far from our shores. A generation of school children have been Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The Philippines – President Duterte, the crack down on crime and the dispute with China over the South China Sea.
I asked a colleague with years of experience dealing with and observing the Philippines about the new President and the maritime dispute with China. He said that President Duterte revels in the unpredictable and is determined to try to root out crime and corruption in the country as he did so well in winning Continue reading »
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CAVAN HOGUE. NATO searches for role – with the help of Julie Bishop!
NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union but when the Soviet Union disappeared NATO did not follow suit so new enemies were required. Afghanistan was promoted by the USA because it harboured terrorists who attacked the USA. When the Taliban fought the Soviet Union the US provided weapons and support but the US now Continue reading »
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SPENCER ZIFCAK. Chilcot: The War and the Law
As is now well known, the Chilcot Report on the British Government’s planning, execution and aftermath of the Iraq war provided a scathing critique of almost every aspect of the Prime Minister’s and government’s conduct. There is one facet of this deplorable episode that has not yet received any adequate consideration in the Australian Continue reading »
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PAUL BARRATT. Faulty intelligence, or a war pre-ordained?
In releasing his momentous report on 6 July Sir John Chilcot stated that the judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – WMD – were presented with a certainty that was not justified. He also said it is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Chilcot and Australia.
The Report of the Chilcot Enquiry into the UK’s entry to the Iraq War in 2003 is deeply disturbing. It documents a litany of catastrophic intelligence failures and ill-informed and unsubtle decision-making by Tony Blair and his senior advisors and Ministers. Apart from exposing the appallingly weak grounds for entering the war in the Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The Defence Department prepares for war.
The release of the Chilcot report revives a memory from late 2002 or early 2003. Washington, London and Canberra were abuzz with talk of military action against the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein. President George W. Bush accused him of having weapons of mass destruction and aiding al-Qaeda, the 9/11 terrorists. The war Continue reading »
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ROBERT MANNE. Murdoch’s war.
In July 2005, Robert Manne in The Monthly Essays, outlined Rupert Murdoch’s role and that of some of his senior journalists in support of the invasion of Iraq. Robert Manne notes that ‘of the 175 Murdoch owned newspapers worldwide, all supported the invasion’. The opponents of the war were described in Murdoch’s newspapers as ‘the Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Bush ‘s poodles
There is a sense in Britain that its very foundations are shaking. Just weeks since the Brexit decision, the prospect of recession is real, the value of the pound and the price of real estate have dropped out of sight, credible leaders are lacking, and uncertainty threatens the future of Great Britain itself. Piled on Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. The Invasion of Iraq: Will anyone be brought to trial, held to account ?
There was anxiety about why it had taken 7 years for the result of the UK’s Iraq Enquiry to be published. Would it prove to be a whitewash of Tony Blair and his decisions? Within minutes of watching its Chair, Sir John Chilcot, introduce to the public the Enquiry’s report, yesterday, it was clear Continue reading »
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DOUGLAS NEWTON. ‘A 100 Per Cent Ally’ – ‘Utterly Dependable’ – conscience washing.
The Chilcot report should prompt much heart-searching, and not only about Australia’s commitment to the Iraq War in 2003. It should prompt us to think about two long-standing problems: the use of the ‘war powers’ by the Executive, without any requirement to consult parliament; and the broader issue of balancing Australia’s interests in her Continue reading »
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GARRY WOODARD. Chilcot and Australia
Tony Blair is the most flamboyant and contentious of the trio who took the coalition of the willing into war in Iraq. Attention focuses on what the Chilcot enquiry has concluded about his role, and equally importantly on what are the lessons, which it promised from the outset it would draw. The British enquiry naturally Continue reading »
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Chilcot Report and the ‘patsy from Down Under’.
The Chilcot Report on the UK involvement in the invasion of Iraq has just been released. In a commentary on the report, Paul McGeough in the SMH refers to John Howard as the ‘patsy from Down Under’. The Chilcot Report concurs with the widespread view that the invasion of Iraq set in hand the awful Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. What the major parties ignored in the election?
The election seemed more about avoiding some key issues than a contest of values and ideas. Because so many key issues such as refugees were avoided, it is not surprising that so many voters, about one third, turned their backs on the major parties. Some issues like the NBN were widely canvassed in social Continue reading »
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PAUL BARRATT. Attorney-General’s move to control access to Solicitor-General
On 4 May 2016, the last sitting day before Parliament rose for the forthcoming election, Attorney-General Senator Brandis tabled new guidelines in the Senate which ruled that no one in government, including the Prime Minister, could seek the Solicitor-General’s advice without getting permission from Senator Brandis. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE: ‘Plan for a strong new economy’
As a voter in the prime minister’s electorate of Wentworth, I have received two letterbox drops from Malcolm Turnbull on a 5-point plan for economic growth and jobs. This 5 point plan is the centre piece of Malcolm Turnbull’s national campaign. It is a very flimsy plan which the media has not seriously examined. Continue reading »