World
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Ukraine and the battle for Skaro
Over the past eighteen months, I’ve often found myself under scrutiny for not outrightly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Any acknowledgment of Russia’s stance—that the hasty expansion of NATO played a role in the current conflict—earns labels: indifferent to Ukraine’s plight, a “Putin” apologist, a victim of Kremlin misinformation. Continue reading »
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Our planet is imploding: when will we act to save ourselves?
While much of humanity was glued to the unfolding drama over one tiny submarine, the Earth we all inhabit is slowly, steadily and implacably imploding around us. Continue reading »
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Chasing shadows in Cuba
Why does Washington believe they have the right to conduct joint military exercises off the Chinese Pacific coast, but will not tolerate even the barest hint of those activities by China and Cuba in ‘their’ maritime neighbourhood? Continue reading »
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“Like the Hydra”: Strategic incapacitation fails to decapitate the climate movement
Blockade Australia’s return this week, in larger numbers and across three locations, represents a victory over ‘Strategic incapacitation’, a policing technique that aims to smash the organising ability of a group of people, such that the group can no longer function. “Like the hydra, we are back threefold. You cannot decapitate the climate movement,” they Continue reading »
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Competing with the US and the West for discourse power
For a long time in the future, in the increasingly fierce and implacable competition between China on one side and the United States and the West on the other, the competition for global discourse power will be the decisive battlefield between them. And who can defeat the enemy on this battlefield will determine to a Continue reading »
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The discourse of dominance
I was rather amused, or to use the American expression “tickled pink”, when I read the article titled “Coexistance: the only realist path to peace” by Stephen M. Walt in Pearls & Irritations. The article’s claim to the “realist path” to peace would make sense only to those who have dominated others for so long Continue reading »
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Asian economic heft keeps Russia’s economy afloat
Thirty-seven countries have imposed economic sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The breadth of this campaign has few precedents in recent history. The sanctions covering finance, energy, technology, travel, shipping, avionics and commodities are aimed at one of the 10 largest world economies. Continue reading »
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Darkness: nuclear winter – fire, ice, famine
The Ukraine conflict, and the nuclear threats uttered by Vladimir Putin have made the risk of nuclear war as high as it has ever been. The current position of the Doomsday Clock hands at 90 seconds to ‘midnight’ is the closest ever. Nuclear Winter, together with tech-ending EMP, is one of a number of civilisation- Continue reading »
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Ukraine: Taking leave of our senses
My first article published here at Pearls and Irritations, titled Built on a tower of lies, described how positive feedback loops have created at a societal level an enormous tower of lies that guide public discourse. I further warned that if we failed to dismantle this tower the consequences would be traumatic. Unfortunately, the horrifically Continue reading »
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China ‘giving up’ on Biden team – Asian Media Report
In Asian Media this week: Chinese see Biden Admin as ‘incompetent and ignorant’. Plus: China ready to sign no-nuke zone treaty; spending on nuclear weapons surging; Beijing, Delhi expel each other’s journalists; ambassador slams Seoul’s foreign policy; China passes 50pc non-fossil fuel power supply Continue reading »
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Why is America so reluctant to acknowledge China’s economic power?
The statistical evidence clearly shows that China is the world’s number one economy. Unfortunately, the US and many commentators are unwilling to acknowledge that reality, but the future stability of the region depends on acceptance that we are living in a multipolar world. Continue reading »
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The compulsion to intervene why Washington underwrites violence in Ukraine
Allow me to come clean: I worry every time Max Boot vents enthusiastically about a prospective military action. Whenever that Washington Post columnist professes optimism about some upcoming bloodletting, misfortune tends to follow. And as it happens, he’s positively bullish about the prospect of Ukraine handing Russia a decisive defeat in its upcoming, widely anticipated, sure-to-happen-any-day-now spring Continue reading »
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Paul Keating, Confucius and the CCP – understanding China
Misunderstanding China has a long and distinguished history. Much of that misunderstanding has been generated by western media going right back to the Qing dynasty. Continue reading »
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Our greatest blunders
Ten years ago Anthony King and Ivor Crewe published their book – The Blunders of Our Governments. Continue reading »
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Requiem for our species
The effects of the climate crisis intrude with increasing regularity into our lives and yet we do not act. We are as paralysed as past civilisations were when facing catastrophic destruction. Continue reading »
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The mass media used to publish perspectives on Ukraine they would never publish today
The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn. Continue reading »
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War crimes? Don’t forget Jeju
Admitting guilt for war crimes doesn’t come easily to many nations, as Australia knows from our extended investigations of the activities of some ADF soldiers in Afghanistan more than a decade ago. Continue reading »
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Does the shift in influence in Southeast Asia betoken something more global?
A Lowy Institute survey issued in April this year showed that the balance of Chinese-American influence in Southeast Asia had shifted in China’s favour over the last few years. Specifically, in overall diplomatic, defence, economic and cultural influence, the balance was 52 to 48 in China’s favour in 2018 but its lead increased to 54 Continue reading »
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Harvard China academic takes on the Economist
Even without Chat-bot assistance, it is fun to look up quotations and their origins online and then discover, for example, this quote reportedly from Winston Churchill: “The only statistics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself.” Continue reading »
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China – US: Buy America and subsidies mix with national security to see off the rules based order
Today the global trade system faces three systemic challenges. None are new, but strategic competition between China and the United States has brought a dangerous edge to each of them. Continue reading »
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Coming to terms with the ‘China Threat’
Is it not a great irony that the Chinese are now more supportive of the post-war Bretton Woods system than the Americans? Continue reading »
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China and US power in Southeast Asia
China’s power has replaced the United States’ in the eyes of most of our Asian neighbours, according to the latest Lowy Institute Asia Power Snapshot. What are the implications for Australia? Continue reading »
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China has no need for the United States, for now
In ordinary anticipatory history the game is waiting for Trump. Continue reading »
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Aukus leaders prefer posturing and provocation over dialogue
Shangri-La Dialogue was a missed opportunity for talks as defence chiefs Austin and Marles insisted on belligerence and doublespeak. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and the security pathology of colonial racism
Today, there are strong arguments that Australian security and defence thinking, which was historically race based, is now culturally embedded; that the current situation is close to what race theory describes as ‘racism without racists.’ How, then, might Australian colonial racism have conditioned our security culture to put the ‘A’ in the AUKUS nuclear powered Continue reading »
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A climate of betrayal
“All grimly true, but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history – because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky) Continue reading »
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Australia catching up with the Asian century at last?
Every word of Anthony Albanese’s address to the Shangri-La dialogue on 2 June was chosen with care. It was a balancing act, with the Prime Minister poised between peace and war, defence and diplomacy, the US and China, in a high-wire performance his Coalition predecessors wouldn’t have attempted. Continue reading »
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The real world shatters the myth of personal choice
When a government proposes a policy to improve our diet, it can trigger a gag reflex. Some people feel that deciding what to eat is purely a personal choice, and the ‘nanny state’ should stay out of the way. No-one wants to be lectured, shamed, or forced to eat their greens. Perhaps it goes all Continue reading »
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How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning
The myth of the “Tiananmen Square massacre” is arguably the most successful disinformation campaign of modern times, according to western and eastern sources—so much so that proud psychological warfare specialists recently used it to ADVERTISE their news manipulation skills. We’ll get to that below. Continue reading »
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Shirtfronting Australia
Australians are more used to pointing the accusing finger at other countries than having it pointed at us. Continue reading »
