Defence and Security
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To solve the Syrian Crisis, we need to overcome these three obstacles.
In the Huffington Post on 9 December, Seyed Hossein Mousavian describes the three issues that need to be addressed in order to solve the Syrian crisis. For link to this article, see below. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seyed-hossein-mousavian/syria-crisis-obstacles_b_8740514.html?ir=World?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003 Continue reading »
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Walter Hamilton. The Great Wall in the South China Sea
As Australians enter the end-of-year ‘doze zone’ they would do well to take time to watch a report, available online, prepared by the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, which lifts the curtain on China’s bid to permanently militarise the South China Sea. Wingfield-Hayes and his crew defied threats from the Chinese Navy in order to video construction Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, Immigration, refugees, Politics, Religion and Faith, World Affairs
The Refugees and the New War.
In the New York Review of Books, Michael Ignatieff draws a link between failure of Western policy in the Middle East, it’s failure to counter ISIS and the resulting refugee flow into Europe. He says ‘ISIS wants to convince the world of the world’s indifference to the suffering of Muslims; so we should demonstrate the Continue reading »
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Gabrielle Appleby. What say do our elected representatives have in going to war?
The authorisation of military force is one of the most serious and consequential powers that governments possess. This power should be exercised with appropriate caution and, where circumstances allow, considered deliberation. Governments should be publicly accountable for its exercise. Across the world, debates have emerged around the extent to which the legislative branch should be Continue reading »
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Allan Patience. Fighting Holy Wars in the Middle East
How do we deal with Daesh? The Islamic State (ISIS) has proven to be a brutally formidable force in Syria and Iraq. As we saw recently in Paris, it has spread its vicious tentacles into Europe. It is highly probable that we’ll see it erupt in North America and very possibly again here in Australia, Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. Defence procurement and the new submarine
When people remember Gough Whitlam, few would identify him as an economic rationalist. Economics was not his primary interest and, partly because of the perceived urgency of implementing “the programme” after 23 years in opposition, partly because of the incompetence of some of his Ministers, the budget blew out excessively on his watch. Yet in Continue reading »
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Turkey and Daesh
In this blog on 6 December 2015 ‘Turkey’s new neighbour – Daesh (Islamic State)‘ John Tulloh referred to an article by David Graeber in The Guardian on how Turkey is obstructing Kurdish forces that are the most effective opponents of Daesh. In that article, David Graeber asserts that ‘Western leaders could destroy Islamic State by Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Turkey’s new neighbour – DAESH (Islamic State)
President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey must feel like a chess grand master playing several games simultaneously. He has far more neighbours and different cultures to contend with than most leaders: eight in all. They are a mixed bag across more than 2600 kms of borders – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, an Azerbaijan enclave, Georgia, Bulgaria Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. Bombing Syria: Where’s our Debate?
On December 2nd, the UK House of Commons debated for 10 hours, a motion moved by the Government, that it should authorise bombing of DAESH targets in Syria by UK airforces. (Prime Minister Cameron announced early in his statement that, henceforth, ISIL should be referred to as DAESH: the acronym of its name in Arabic). Continue reading »
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Travers McLeod. Relaxing airstrike rules is a recipe for disaster.
Tony Abbott has argued Australia and her allies should relax targeting rules for airstrikes to destroy the Islamic State. At best, he is ignorant of the lessons of the military campaigns waged in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. At worst, he is willing to repeat mistakes to differentiate himself on national security and open a Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Treating Islam’s clerics like their Christian equivalents will save lives
There is an unexpected upside to the mayhem and carnage across the world, visited on the unsuspecting innocents of countries where Muslims are not a majority of the population – Europe and beyond. It’s something the Catholic Church has had to learn, too. And that is the simple fact that that misbehavior among religious adherents Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Turkey shoots down Russian aircraft.
Russia supports the (Shia) Assad regime backed by Iran and others while Turkey supports the Sunni backed bySaudi Arabia, the USA and others. The Turks claim the Shia are terrorists while Russia supports them as allies of the Shia, (i.e. Assad) who support Russian strategic interests.. This is an oversimplified picture but it is relevant Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Minimising IS will take a while.
We have had a lot of apocalyptic talk about IS – we are at war, it is a death cult, it threatens civilisation. Unfortunately these exaggerations don’t help a measured and holistic response. These exaggerations play into the hands of terrorists who hope for our over-reaction and the promotion of fear. We know from experience Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. After Paris
The attacks in Paris were textbook in terms of the philosophy of terrorism: hit publicly, indiscriminately, affecting as large a group of innocent people as possible, attract maximum publicity, generate widespread fear. They also represented a continuation of terrorist actions within metropolitan Europe: Madrid 2004, 191 dead; London 2005, 56 dead; Paris January 2015, Continue reading »
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Michael Kelly SJ. Paris: the problem is deeper than criminal acts
There’s something profoundly rotten about cultures that can give birth to the murderous behaviour on show in Paris last Friday. This is just the latest and probably most visible instance because it happened in one of the hubs of the European and North American news media. These hubs make things that happen in too many Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. The Paris attacks.
The Paris attacks are yet another piece of savagery by young alienated Muslims but the question we need to ask is what is the real cause? Should we be searching the Koran or should we be looking at what motivates young idealists to die for a cause and why are these ones doing it? We Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Russian airliner and ISIS.
The almost gleeful attacks by columnists and cartoonists on Vladimir Putin when the Russian plane went down were in very bad taste. The difference between this and MH17 is clear. MH17 was shot down by accident in Ukrainian territory probably by rebels who thought they were shooting down a warplane from Kiev. It was not Continue reading »
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Ian Richards. Australia’s new submarine.
Jon Stanford’s article ‘Australia’s new submarine: what is its mission?’ is spot on. The trouble with Defence planning and White Papers is that they all start off with what in my early days in the Navy was called a “Staff Requirement”. This thing, this equipment or ship is what we “require”. The first chapter of Continue reading »
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Douglas Newton. Australia’s Leap into the Great War.
One of the great clichés of Australia’s entry into the Great War is that Australia stepped up to ‘answer the call’ of the Mother Country. Much of the press coverage of the centenary of Anzac repeats this claim and adds a nationalist frosting: our entry into the Great War was a moment of national awakening. Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Abbott lectures London on how to ‘stop the boats’.
Tony Abbott has been at it again, this time in London, claiming that he stopped the boats and that Europeans should follow suit. It is an oft repeated untruth that he stopped the boats. His one-liners are not supported by the facts. But the lie is deeply imbedded. Last month, Peter Hughes and I posted Continue reading »
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Sam Bateman. US muddle in South China Sea.
Strong calls continue to be made in Washington for the US Navy to increase its freedom of navigation (FON) activities in the South China Sea. This is despite apparent differences of view between the Pentagon and the White House about the wisdom of such action. The US has done little in 2015 to ease concerns Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Turkey at a dangerous crossroad.
Spare a thought for Turkey as it goes to the polls on November 1. It straddles Europe and Asia, but it is not sure if it is part of either. Nor is it part of the Middle East, yet it shelters more Arab refugees than any other country there. They number two million – mainly Continue reading »
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Jon Stanford. Australia’s New Submarine: What is its Mission?
Recent papers published in Pearls and Irritations by Jon Stanford and Rear-Admiral Ian Richards have suggested respectively that: the case for providing significant financial support to the naval shipbuilding industry is flawed, both on defence policy and industry policy grounds there are unacceptable risks involved in building Australia’s proposed new fleet of submarines locally. In Continue reading »
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Ian Richards. The Submarine Menace
Way back in the 1980s, then Defence Minister Kim Beasley gave birth to the greatest industrial White Elephant in the history of our nation – the establishment of the submarine construction facility in Adelaide,South Australia. So much has been written and said about the Collins Class submarine construction project that I do not need to Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. MH17
The Dutch led report doesn’t really tell us anything much we couldn’t already work out but it does highlight some valid points. That the missile was Russian is hardly news but the report does give us the make, However, while theoretically this might help trace who bought it, missiles have moved around so much that Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue. Russia in Syria and Australian implications.
What are Australia’s objectives in the Middle East imbroglio? The simple answer is that it is about the American Alliance. We see ourselves as part of a global alliance led by the USA and generally supported by European powers: countries that “share our values”. We are there because they are. Therefore the fact that our Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. Russia and Syria: The continuation of politics by other means.
In their addresses to the UN General assembly, last week, Presidents Obama and Putin focused on the civil war in Syria. Both emphasized the need for the war, now in its 5th year, to be brought to an end. They both said that a political solution needed to be found, but they differed on a Continue reading »
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Why fighters are quitting ISIS.
The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at Kings College London points to the ways that many thousands of recruits who journeyed to Iraq and Syria may now be regretting their decisions. The more defectors speak out, the more the ISIS cause will suffer. The ICSR Report Executive Summary follows. John Continue reading »
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Climate Change and Refugees.
We have had a wake-up call about how Western and particularly US policies have destabilised the Middle East with the resulting exodus of refugees. Half of the Syrian population has either fled or been displaced within their own country. Climate change in the Middle East is adding to the problem. This is examined in a Continue reading »
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Michael McKinley. Disorder in the Australian National Security Mind
Strategy is difficulty to practice and even more difficult to master. Its components – knowledge leavened by wisdom and imagination – cohabit with military science only in the most tense and difficult of relationships. That said, there are three nearly invariable rules that should govern the thinking and acting of a strategic actor – nation Continue reading »