World Affairs
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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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WALTER HAMILTON. Abdication in Japan?
On July 13, just three days after Japan’s ruling coalition secured a critical two-thirds majority in parliament, a news report emerged that the country’s long-serving Emperor wishes to abdicate ‘within the next few years’. (According to some news media, the abdication story was held over until after the election at the government’s insistence.) On the 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 All three interlocutors argued that in recent years Australia had superseded both Japan and the United Kingdom as the United States’ closest ally.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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JOHN CARMODY. More on Brexit
Dr John Carmody reflects on the historical journey of the European Union. 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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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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FRANCIS SULLIVAN. Economic Inequality is a Wound on our Nation: Can It be Healed?
The wash up from the Federal election echoes that from after the Brexit vote in the UK – voter disenchantment and protest. Commentators suggest this comes from electorates where the “old economy” still holds sway. Where jobs are tenuous and basic concerns on health and education are front of mind. Others say that the 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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TIM HARCOURT. Three reasons free trade has become a political football.
Surveying democratic election results around the world, it’s clear the high water mark for globalisation has been met. Free trade, always questionable economics, is no longer good politics and in many ways has jumped the shark. 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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ROSS GARNAUT. China’s new normal inches on.
China is undergoing profound changes in its economic policy and structure. These changes represent a new model of Chinese economic growth. The recent Five Year Plan (FYP) is an evolutionary document. Building on earlier official statements on the new model of growth, it provides the most elaborate statement to date on the model’s content Continue reading »
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WALTER HAMILTON. Japan’s drift towards constitutional change.
Last weekend’s Upper House election result has armed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party with the parliamentary numbers needed to bring about controversial changes to the Japanese constitution. It does not mean the dropping of the constitution’s war-renouncing Article 9 is imminent or inevitable, but in parliamentary terms for the first time it has become 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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The election campaign’s other big lie: the Coalition hasn’t delivered ‘export agreements’.
Pearls and Irritations has carried many articles about the exaggerated claims for free trade agreements. That exaggeration continued during the election campaign. One of the five pillars of Malcolm Turnbull’s ‘plan for jobs and growth’ was the alleged benefits of recently negotiated FTAs. An increasing feature of the most recently negotiated FTAs is that 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 »