Category: Defence

The situation in Mindanao is complicated by historical, ethnic, religious, criminal and social factors that are not easily unravelled. The introduction of Saudi Wahabism and foreign fighters complicates the mix even further. Separatism is not new but the arrival of foreign fighters which led to the taking of Marawi is a new factor. The Philippine Army has been battling separatists for many years but not forces stiffened by foreign fighters and weapons.. There is no simple solution and we may question what Western countries like Australia and the USA have to offer. (more…)

A review of how we conduct our alliance relationship with the US is urgently required, not simply because it has elected a President who is unfit for his job, but because of the US’ attachment to war. (more…)

It is self-evident that the risk of war is not confined to the South China Sea.  In fact, the risk of war there is probably less than in other significant flash points around the world.   (more…)

“The existence of a nuclear threat is not sufficient reason to go nuclear; if it were [these Asian states] would have nuclear arms by now. In each case, the reliability of the US security commitment is the dominant variable”. (more…)

North Korea’s rapid advances are a game-changer, but the quality of strategic analysis and decision-making in Washington is highly suspect. This portends troubling times ahead. (more…)

A recent report by the Nautilus Institute by Peter Hayes and David von Hippel suggests that the impact of strong sanctions against oil imports by North Korea from China may not have a telling or early impact on its nuclear and missile development program. (more…)

The dispute over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons program is a disturbing example of the renewal of anarchy as the main determinant in international politics. It is being conducted by two unreliable leaders. Intervention by saner states is needed urgently.   (more…)

While in recent weeks North East Asia has been on the edge of a precipice, the likelihood is that the military stalemate will grind on indefinitely. A decisive act by any of the principal parties would lead all into negative territory. Only an unlikely unilateral move by Kim Jong-un to abandon his nuclear/missile ambitions would alter the equation. (more…)

Sanctions are a form of force but seem to be the only answer Western countries can come up with. There is no evidence that they are effective, probably because it is not the decision-makers who suffer from them. Pressure on China to do more does not take account of Chinese interests. China wants a buffer but not an out of control nuclear state in the DPRK. Kim is not suicidal but seems to understand the restrictions on outsiders better than some of them do. Negotiations seem like the only approach that would give Kim what he wants and lead to a loss of face by the USA. (more…)

It is easy to get drawn into the drama of rockets fired over Japan, and massive hydrogen bombs tested by a North Korean regime that likes to threaten mass extinction of its enemies, particularly with the tweeter-in-chief responding in kind. I worry though that the real game is in China, because the suspicion is that China has helped NK develop its technology, and one has to wonder what could drive the Chinese leadership to do such a thing.   (more…)

President Trump is demanding that US intelligence agencies provide material on which he can base a declaration that Iran is not in compliance with the international agreement to curb its nuclear programme. The material does not exist, so they’ll need to be fake facts. (more…)

A survey reports a significant movement of Australian opinion about the US alliance, away from current government policy which unquestioningly supports the Afghanistan deployment. (more…)

The recent statement by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the effect that on defence issues Australia and the United States were “joined at the hip” raises the serious question of how far Australia will actually go in support of the United States as it embarks on one foreign policy misadventure after another?  A possible change of government in Australia after the next election will not make any appreciable difference.  The Labor leadership is always quick to ensure minimum daylight between themselves and the Coalition whenever yet another pledge of fealty to the Americans is made.         (more…)

North Korea is often righteously condemned for being the only nation to have conducted five nuclear tests and a barrage of missile tests in the 21^st century. Led by a young chubby dictator with a bad haircut, we have long been told that the paranoid hermit kingdom known for its undeniably bombastic, intensely patriotic and anachronistic rhetoric is evil, unhinged and dangerous. (more…)

For a long time people have focused concern on Pine Gap.  But Pine Gap is but an element of our entanglement with United States strategic policy, which is the big thing to be addressed and turned around.  (more…)

Whether the leaked documents from the US National Security Agency were revealing, as claimed by the ABC’s Background Briefing on Sunday morning (http://ab.co/2vSXdhD), enough has been known about the Pine Gap facility long enough for some searching questions about its accountability to be well overdue. (more…)

As the shouting match becomes more heated between Kim Jong Un and President Trump the role of the popular new President Moon has become more difficult. The most likely casualties in any outbreak of military exchanges would be the population of Seoul and would be very large. These must be considered properly in advance of military action. (more…)

Despite President Trump’s latest supercilious Tweet, North Korea may still seek to make the cancellation of exercise Ulchi-Freedom Guardian the price of not firing its missiles into waters near Guam.  (more…)

The place Russia occupies in the political maelstrom in Washington, the recent sanctions bills in Congress and Putin’s cuts to the American diplomatic presence in Russia are driving the US’s relationship—and hence the West’s relationship—with Russia from bad to worse.  However, the following thoughts—from a Russia neophyte after a trip to Moscow and road journey to Archangel on the Arctic circle—are thrown into the mix, if only to colour reflections on what might, one day, make sense. (more…)

In a sequence of events that recall the Cuban missile crisis, the world has again come within a brain-snap of nuclear destruction. This is the moment Australia should have been ready to deal with properly and democratically, by having a parliamentary debate to decide whether and why we should or should not go to war. Instead, this most serious matter of national security is reduced to party rivalry and media sensationalism.   (more…)

Rawdon Dalrymple’s 4 August blog ‘A personal link to World War One’ presents us with an automatic defence of the old imperial order.   (more…)

In his grovelling ‘hip to hip’ statement on 10 August, he served up to the Australian people an utterly false and misleading version of the ANZUS Treaty and its meaning.  (more…)