World Affairs
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RICHARD BUTLER. The State of the Union: Pantomime, With Menaces
Trump’s State of the Union speech was filled with menaces to enemies both foreign and domestic. US policy is now comprehensively militarized and in the hands of Trump’s Generals. It was a dangerous pantomime, with much cheering from Republicans who still seem to hope that no one will notice the Faustian bargain they have done Continue reading »
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JAMES O’NEILL. When will the Australian Opposition and Parliament actually do its job over the Syrian war?
The US Secretary of Defence, General Mattis, recently announced that the US was intending to create a 30,000 strong “border force” to occupy a portion of northern Syria. This is territory in which the largest group are ethnic Kurds who in the past have been supported by the US, not on any principled basis but Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 4
Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to the US, an ally that is almost always at war. The risks pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq. In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles about the US almost perpetual involvement Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners – especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea – saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded. Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Israel’s Manus/Nauru solution – Rwanda.
How incongruous that a country born of the worst genocide in history should want to deport asylum-seekers seeking shelter to a nation synonymous with another genocide. That is the intention of Israel – send their unwanted visitors to Rwanda. Virtually all of them are Eritreans and Sudanese, both their countries ruled by harsh despots. Continue reading »
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ANDREW FARRAN. A hard or soft Brexit. More likely Black and White
Letter from London Britain finds itself trapped like a fish with no way out other than capitulation to the best terms it can get – in relation to which the remaining 27 EU members have the upper hand. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …
On Saturday Extra this 27th January Geraldine Doogue is discussing the cost of government consultants with Julian Hill, ALP member for Bruce and businessman Tony Shepherd; Changes to gambling laws with Charles Livingstone from Monash University and Sam Duncan from the Holmesglen Institute in Victoria; Supreme Court judge and author Michael Pembroke on his book Continue reading »
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MICHAEL MULLINS. What happened to my Australian accent?
I spent the summer of 1983-84 in the Philippines. During this time I fell in love with the Philippines and its people and felt ashamed to be Australian. Continue reading »
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. Murky wars and missions unaccomplished.
In December 2017, Australia announced the withdrawal of six RAAF Hornets from Syria. But this is not our ‘mission accomplished’ moment. The US is committed to a longer war in Syria, and its target is Iran. Continue reading »
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HARRY DEMPSEY. Will Trump snap Japan’s tenuous tightrope?
The unhinged madman foreign policy of US President Donald Trump means Tokyo must walk a tightrope to manage the US–Japan alliance. On security policy, on trade and on North Korea, Japan will increasingly have to develop its own independent regional vision. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become the new religion. Part 4 of 5 : The Sacramental Alliance.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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ALLAN PATIENCE. Australia Day and all that.
The moral basis of contemporary Australian society is being squeezed dry by political opportunism and contempt for civic virtue among our political leaders. The ignorance those leaders demonstrate about the insult Australia Day has become for many Indigenous people is evidence that Australia has become a morally backward society. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 3 of 5 : Alliance Wars: Papal Prerogatives and Vaticanisation.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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The bomb for Australia? (Part 3)
After the Cold War ended, the existence of nuclear weapons on both sides wasn’t enough to stop the US from expanding NATO’s borders ever eastwards towards Russia’s borders, contrary to the terms on which Moscow thought Germany’s reunification and the admission of a united Germany into NATO had been agreed. Several Western leaders at the Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. Change the date of the day by all means and change Australia
Let’s change the date of Australia Day, not just for Aboriginal public relations, but to prove that we can do something – anything – to cast off the chains of our pusillanimous politicians and their little mates, the boofhead media commentators. Continue reading »
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CERIDWEN DOVEY. The mapping of indigenous massacres in Australia [New Yorker]
From New York to Cape Town to Sydney, the bronze body doubles of the white men of empire—Columbus, Rhodes, Cook—have lately been pelted with feces, sprayed with graffiti, had their hands painted red. Some have been toppled. The fate of these statues—and those representing white men of a different era, in Charlottesville and elsewhere—has ignited Continue reading »
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GEOFF MILLER: White Paper versus White’s Paper; some questions about Australian policies.
The Foreign Policy White Paper issued late last year is based on its judgement that “the United States’ long-term interests will anchor its economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific”. Is this right? Hugh White asserts the opposite. And whether it’s right or not, it seems we’re going to try to make it happen. Continue reading »
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The bomb for Australia? (Part 2)
As we consider whether Australia should obtain nuclear weapons, we need to ask who might subject us to nuclear blackmail. In the authoritative statement of China’s strategic vision in President Xi Jinping’s address to the 19th Communist Party Congress on 18 October last year, the three core elements of China’s vision of the new world Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 2 of 5: The Acutely Deranged Present.
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Explaining one-party dominance in Japanese politics.
In 1990 US scholar TJ Pempel edited a book titled Uncommon Democracies, which wrote about parliamentary democracies where a single party had been unusually dominant. These included Sweden, Italy, Israel, West Germany and Japan. Australia was also a candidate for entry to this group. Of the original members, Japan alone is left. Continue reading »
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The bomb for Australia? (Part 1)
In this three-part series, I examine the counter-arguments that proponents of Australia obtaining nuclear weapons need to address before the nation contemplates such a move. Continue reading »
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MACK WILLIAMS. New US National Defense Strategy: Back to the Cold War?
The new US National Defense Strategy heralds a new strategic direction under Trump which significantly reduces the priority of counter-terrorism and confirms a return to global competition with China and Russia with the basic objective to “outspend” both in defence. All of which has some serious implications for Australia. The influence of the US ‘junta Continue reading »
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. PART 1 of 5
Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, Continue reading »
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Time ticks closer to nuclear midnight
This week’s false ballistic missile warning gave the world its first glance of what the first 38 minutes of nuclear war might feel like as political tensions turned to real-life panic. As time ticks away, can catastrophe be averted? Continue reading »
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SHIRO ARMSTRONG. More to Australia-Japan security than bilateral defence ties.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is visiting Japan . Whatever else is said, at the top of the agenda in his discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be managing relations with the United States and China. These are the superpowers that determine and underpin economic, political and national security for Australia and Japan Continue reading »
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GREG WOOD. The China Australia FTA Meets the All Controlling State- A REPOST from September 25 2017
During Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Australia in March, Australia and China signed a “Declaration of Intent” to accelerate a review of the provisions governing services trade and investment in the bilateral China Australia free trade agreement (Chafta). So far the declaration hasn’t generated frenetic activity: DFAT set a six month deadline for submissions from Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?- A REPOST from June 23 2017
Malcolm Turnbull’s glib talk of ‘‘frenemies’’ does nothing to help the urgent debate over how we handle the rising power of China. Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. The torment of the impossible Kurdish dream.
For all the promises, for all the sterling work they have willingly done in the fight against evil, for all the sympathy they have engendered, the Kurds will never achieve their greatest aspiration: their own homeland. The fact is the world doesn’t care. They are a people on their own to be exploited when it Continue reading »
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RICHARD BUTLER. The Real Danger: A New Nuclear Arms Race.
New US nuclear weapons policies, quantitative and qualitative will ensure that a new nuclear arms race proceeds. Global danger will increase as will the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. Its not just Trump that is at issue. He has merely enabled an increased influence of the US military/industrial/intelligence complex and, of a specifically Continue reading »
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Nuclear arms: Look ahead to 2018 in hope, not back at 2017 in anger
We begin 2018 with a surreal contest between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as to whose nuclear button is bigger. Against North Korea’s anxiety-inducing rapid nuclear advances, the biggest positive story line of 2017 was a new United Nations nuclear ban treaty adopted on July 7 and opened for signature Continue reading »