Australia’s defence reporters are being denied access to senior Department of Defence officials under a clampdown imposed by new Defence Minister Peter Dutton.
Category: Defence
-
The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes. Serving a corporate ruling class.
The U.S. working class, led by people of color, has, at least temporarily, defeated the criminal Trumpian regime and the specter of the consolidation of gangster neofascism.
-
Archival documents reveal British H bomb was developed in Australia despite denials
Documents found in the National Archives reveal previously ignored proof that promises made by the UK not to test thermonuclear weapons in Australia were broken.
(more…) -
Militarism has become the norm. We now even have an Army Lieutenant General heading the vaccine roll out
What a reflection this is on the standing of the Australian Public Service and the Morrison Governments lack of interest in a robust and well functioning civil society. We invariably turn to the military. (more…)
-
The use of US armed forces abroad, 1798-2020, by US Congressional Research Service: 20 July, 2020
This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its Armed Forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.(Covert activities are not included) (more…)
-
Planning to not lose: the Australian Army’s new philosophy of war
The Army and the wider ADF will not go forth and force the enemy to succumb to our will. That is no longer possible, as the succession of lost wars shows. Instead, our future lies in being a state whose objective is to maintain the status quo or, in other words, to not lose.
-
Militarism the winner in Biden’s budget
The Biden budget of $6 trillion dollars is being sold as a turn to liberal reform, but the media has largely neglected one significant fact. The budget allows for $1.52 trillion that is ‘discretionary’ spending. Half of that figure will be devoted to the military. It is a record figure. The US has an economy to restore and a pandemic to fight, but the bottomless pit of military spending just continues to rise.
-
Of bars, prosthetic legs and statements that are no longer operable
Whether General Angus Campbell was aware of the “Fat Ladies Arm” bar or not, fact is, it was allowed to operate, and its mere existence points to a broken culture within the ADF. (more…)
-
Not the war over Taiwan again!
The lack of high-quality strategic analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has been frequently highlighted in P&I. Nonetheless, ASPI’s dangerously inadequate analysis should be regularly confronted. (more…)
-
Intelligence agencies have helped precipitate the crisis in our relations with China (An updated post)
In Max Suich’s outstanding series in the Australian Financial Review, on 16, 17 and 18 May, on how we got into the pointless confrontation with China there is no doubt that much of the ‘intelligence’ came from US sources and that our naive and China ignorant intelligence agencies tagged along and served up US intelligence dressed up as their own. But in the end the Australian Government is responsible for the mess. (more…)
-
Israeli deceit and US complicity in attacks on Palestinians
‘We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier.’..Hanan Ashrawi
‘America is behind this war and I am ashamed to be an American’…Anthony Hopkins. (more…)
-
Review Essay: David Kemp. A Liberal State. How Australians Chose Liberalism over Socialism 1926-1966
David Kemp’s multi-volume studies of settler-colonial Australian Liberalism since 1788 have been carried out with support from the Menzies Research Centre and funding from the Cormack Foundation, which is registered as an ‘associated entity’ of the Liberal Party with the Australian Electoral Commission. But does the latest volume forget to factor in Australia’s regional challenges in the mid twentieth century?
-
The True Meaning of the Afghan “Withdrawal”
The many Afghans who believed in America’s democratic promises will join a growing line of abandoned allies, stretching back to the Vietnam era and including, more recently, Kurds, Iraqis, and Somalis, among others. Once the full costs of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan become apparent, the debacle may, not surprisingly, discourage potential future allies from trusting Washington’s word or judgment. (more…)
-
Whitlam, Keating, Anzac, and the drums of wars past
“I think the war against Hitler was justified. I don’t know whether the war against Wilhelm II was.” Thus spoke Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in a BBC TV interview with Lord Chalfont recorded in September 1973, and aired in December. It was screened in Australia in early January 1974. The transcript is in the Whitlam Papers. (more…)
-
Armed Neutrality: an alternative, principled defence policy to safeguard an independent Australia, keep us out of wars and promote peace- Part 2
Armed Neutrality provides an alternative defence policy which would safeguard continental Australia, keep us out of wars and promote peace. It is strategically feasible and cost effective but would require investment in rebuilding our manufacturing base, restructuring the ADF and removing foreign bases from our soil in a series of steps.
-
On the bandwagon: Australian media helps government peddle disinformation
There has, quite rightly, been criticism in the mainstream media of authoritarian states and their use of disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks. However, the US and its democratic allies decades ago pioneered the use of disinformation in their huge propaganda campaigns. China is just a beginner.
-
Anti-China Threat Production in Australia: A redundant, out-of-control industry
Australia cannot lay claim to being the sole, or even senior author of its defence strategies and policies.
-
War with China despite their immense military capabilities?
Five years ago, I would’ve said that the possibility of a “kinetic war” in the Indo-Pacific was very unlikely, now it is more likely than it was then. This is something that you and I may well have to confront in the next 5 to 10 years, Christopher Pyne.
-
Afghanistan: drawing the curtains on the final act
The past month or two has brought back some imagery that’s haunted me for some time. Images that were part of footage taken by insurgents of my husbands smouldering crash site. It featured on news channels being watched in lounge rooms across the world well before any military official had the chance to even get to my front door.
-
Anzac Day and the frontier wars
Anzac Day in Hobart in 2019 did not turn out in the way that participants expected. The Hobart Mercury explained why the following morning. The front page was dominated by a large and arresting headline. ‘Battle Cry’ it declared and went on to explain that ‘Anzac Day Marchers Highlight Black War.’ Underneath the headline was a picture of a large black, red and yellow banner which read: ‘Lest We Forget The Frontier Wars.’ (more…)
-
Reinventing ANZAC Day away from its imperial origins
Attendance at ANZAC DAY dawn services plummeted by 70% between 2015 and 2019, and questions have been asked about the Day’s ‘fading relevance’. We need to re-invent ANZAC Day as a day of restitution for the appalling losses of an imperial expeditionary tradition that bears no relationship to the defense of Australia and its dignity as an independent nation.
-
How do we show true respect for the Anzacs?
First things first: let us remember and respect all those lost forever to the juggernaut of war, and all those crushed by it who still live with the trauma. But what does it mean to be truly respectful of our ‘Anzacs’? Should we focus unwaveringly on military achievement, or should we also probe fearlessly the origins, purposes – and sometimes the folly – behind our long history of expeditionary warfare?
(more…) -
It’s not what they know, it’s what they choose to tell us: reading the Australian War Memorial
Many more things happened in the past than are recorded in history. Some versions persist. Others have currency for a time, then get put aside, because fashions change or because the version does not fit political agendas or notions of what audiences expect. Some versions have been sanitised. Others are just suppressed. The Australian War Memorial has form in this regard, although there are some glimpses of change.
-
I’ve got the Anzac Day Blues
Australia has never been the maker of its own history. So said the legendry Manning Clark, who spent a life mapping the heart of our nation. From the utterly worthless Sudan campaign of 1885 to the atrocity-ridden Afghanistan War of 2001-2013, our people have been made to wade through blood in foreign lands to satisfy feckless sycophantic leadership at home and unfathomable geo-political intrigues festering far away.
-
Will secrecy trump justice for murdered Afghans?
Thousands of Australian men and women fought in Afghanistan and Iraq without being in breach of any of the rules of warfare, but one can imagine that whatever pride they have in their personal and military accomplishment is muted by their knowledge that a small minority face credible charges of murdering civilians and other war crimes. (more…)
-
Anzac and Australasia: war and democracy in our national museums
The paradox of Anzac commemoration in Australia is that an acronym representing a transnational formation – Australia and New Zealand – known collectively as ‘Australasia’ in earlier decades – has come to stand for a nationalist celebration that effectively renders New Zealand invisible. (more…)
-
Our MPs and Generals hope we forget the foolish Afghanistan war and the wounds it left on our honour
The aftermath of the Brereton inquiry into war crimes committed by SAS soldiers involves much more than continuing efforts to prosecute. It also involves findings of the degree of culpability of officers at all levels above the non-commissioned soldiers accused, as well as the whole culture of the SAS, perhaps of the whole army. (more…)
-
The role of the ADF and its core business model
The core business of the ADF “will always be the application of lethal violence in the defence of our values, sovereignty and interests”, according to the newly installed Assistant Defence Minister, Andrew Hastie, speaking to military personnel. This statement is dangerous and wrong. The only person whose core business is the application of lethal violence is an executioner; a hangman. Thankfully, we don’t have hangmen anymore. (more…)
-
If Australia needs nukes, who doesn’t?
Sensible people are making the case for a nuclear-armed Australia. Given Australia’s other problems, the ruinous cost, and the dangers of proliferation, this is the last thing we should be considering. (more…)