World
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A new world order is emerging and Australia has some decisions to make
Australia’s world is changing. With the decline of US hegemony, a new world order is emerging led by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the BRICS and the Eurasian Economic Union. Will the Albanese government choose to realign with this new world order, or will it maintain its alliance with the fading hegemon of North America? Continue reading »
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Chinese Australians still have hopes for the Federal Labor Albanese Government
The Government needs to keep in mind that Labor won office significantly due to the ‘Chinese Australian’ vote in 5 to 6 key electorates. The government’s inaction on China could see those ALP votes disappear. Continue reading »
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We urgently need to give Ukraine peace talks a chance
Six months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. The United States, NATO and the European Union (EU) wrapped themselves in the Ukrainian flag, shelled out billions for arms shipments and imposed draconian sanctions intended to severely punish Russia for its aggression. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review: We should regard the Taiwan issue as one for us to ‘sit out’
It is almost impossible to imagine any realistic circumstances, short of general war in the Asia-Pacific, under which China would launch a military attack on Australia. Continue reading »
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Silencing the lambs. How propaganda works in the West
Isn’t it time that writers who are meant to keep the record straight declared their independence and decoded the propaganda? The urgency is greater than ever. Continue reading »
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The Defence Strategic Review – we need to urgently reduce conflicts and global warming
Cabinet needs to insist Marles’ return to Labor’s previous support for an independent foreign policy and recognise there is no guarantee an arms build-up won’t lead to a calamitous war. Crucially, the Albanese government needs to give a clear priority to helping reduce conflicts and global warming that cause horrendous suffering to innocent people around Continue reading »
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We have to learn to co-exist with China
None of the ASEAN countries wants a US-led conflict over Taiwan, which if it occurs, is likely to accelerate America’s decline in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Continue reading »
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Tomorrow’s adults want democracy ‘but not the western kind’
The people of Africa are joining folk around the world to speak out against the policy of insisting that western liberal democracy is the only acceptable form of government. Continue reading »
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A final word on NATO expansion and Ukraine
Mr Jon Richardson has written a piece commenting on some of the points that I made in my critique of an earlier piece by him, and while I think exchanges often reach the point of exhaustion, some of his comments do warrant a response. Continue reading »
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In decline, can the US escape the Thucydides Trap?
Conflict is far more likely to be initiated by a United States under threat of the loss of its top status. Continue reading »
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Getting away with mid-air murder
Studying in Europe was to be a highlight of Munir Said Thalib’s career. The voice of the Indonesian activist and forceful critic of the army’s human rights record was being heard internationally. His opponents hoped a spell abroad might silence the censure. Instead, it was amplified. Now it’ll be turned off as time for action Continue reading »
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‘Country that helps us is China,’ Africans say
YOUNG ADULTS FROM 15 African countries see China as the foreign power with the biggest positive impact on their lives, a new survey shows. More than 70% gave the Chinese an upbeat review. This matters. By 2050, 80% of the world’s youth will be from Africa. Continue reading »
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Jon Richardson: NATO and Ukraine: once more into the breach…
Professor Graeme Gill has written a detailed response to my own article in P and I on NATO and the origins of war in Ukraine. I argued the latter were to be found in Russia’s post-imperial angst and domestic authoritarianism rather than in any threat presented by NATO expansion or Western policies. Continue reading »
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Why invisible cultures will determine humanity’s future
A deeply flawed culture is spreading throughout the world epitomised by today’s global, technocratic and managerial elite with growing inequality and concentration of wealth and power. Continue reading »
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Ruan Zongze: US must stop sleep walking in the Taiwan Strait
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China. Taiwan is part of China’s territory. Although the two sides have been politically against each other for a long time, China’s state sovereignty and territorial integrity has never been split. Continue reading »
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Biden’s China policy, US business and Australia
Washington’s concern about China is real and not just threat inflation, which seeks an enemy to promote military Keynesianism: the traditional method of transferring public money to private corporations in the military industrial sector. Continue reading »
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John F. Copper: Where are the Chinese students going?
According to recent data published in China and admission reports from U.S. universities, the number of Chinese students applying for study in American institutions of higher learning in recent months has fallen markedly. Continue reading »
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Caitlin Johnstone: US invades Syria, kills people, claims self-defence
The US is an occupying force who is there without the permission of the Syrian government, without having been attacked by Syria, and without any valid claim to be defending itself from anyone in Syria. Continue reading »
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Kari McKern: Sixty years and twenty-seven days ago Australia sent 30 advisors to Vietnam
That war has lessons for us today. Continue reading »
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Canberra is a fashioned spear for the US against China.
There is an overwhelming boisterous ignorance that characterises Australia’s foreign policy approach to China. Continue reading »
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David Armstrong’s Asian Media this week – small step for rights
Singapore, Hong Kong rule out same-sex marriage Continue reading »
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The many lives of Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead – or so we are told. Al-Qaida’s chief and successor to the slain Osama bin Laden, he was deemed the chief ideologue and mastermind behind the audacious September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. On July 31, he was supposedly killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, while Continue reading »
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China–US rivalry no new Cold War
Seventy-five years ago this July, the US diplomat George Kennan published his seminal essay in Foreign Affairs introducing the idea of ‘containment’. In The Sources of Soviet Conduct, Kennan advocated for a policy of containment against Soviet expansionism. As some in Washington prepare for a new Cold War with China, the Kennan-era template is being Continue reading »
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Ann Marie Murphy: Ukraine war highlights differences between Indonesian and US foreign policy frameworks
To many Americans who view Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked war that must be opposed, Indonesia’s high levels of public support for Russia may be perplexing. But divergent US and Indonesian views should not come as a surprise. The United States and Indonesia tend to perceive international events — and one another — Continue reading »
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Questioning AUKUS. Opposition is growing
Criticism of AUKUS and serious questions about the wisdom of the agreement are coming from multiple sources. There have been many examples in P&I, some quite strident in their opposition. Continue reading »
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The west’s false narrative about Russia and China
The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an Continue reading »
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The war you don’t see
In The War You Don’t See, John Pilger returns to the subject of war reporting and its critical role in the making of wars. This ‘drum beat’ was the theme of Pilger’s 1983 documentary Frontline: The Search for Truth in Wartime, a history of war journalism from the Crimea in the 19th century (‘the last Continue reading »
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Everett Bledsoe: The US military empire. How many US military bases are there in the world?
The Pentagon does not know how many bases it has around the world so it relies on academics to tell it. The US bases are gated communities which replicate US suburbs, shops and amenities to the exclusion of local people. Continue reading »
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Jon Richardson: No, NATO expansion didn’t cause the war in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has met with opprobrium in most quarters. At the same time, commentators of diverse stripes still argue that Western policies, particularly NATO expansion, should bear part or much of the blame for these events. Continue reading »
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Jessica Corbett: Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan pocketed $108 billion over 20 years
Military contracting “obscures where and how taxpayer money flows,” and “makes it difficult to know how many people are employed, injured, and killed,” said the Costs of War Project report’s author. Continue reading »
