The theory remains that Indonesians are all right to visit, but we still don’t regard them as full allies or equals. (more…)
Category: Defence
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Don’t ask about the war
John Howard contributed to world events that are still affecting us: invasion, illegality, sycophancy to our allies, refugees, and even Brexit and Trump. Why do Australians not hold him accountable? (more…)
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JAMES O’NEILL. Lessons from the Iraq War: a reappraisal.
The release of the Chilcott Report into the circumstances under which the United Kingdom (UK) became a party to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003 has raised fresh questions about the circumstances surrounding Australia’s involvement in that same war. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Australian governments have made us more at risk from terrorism.
We should not refer to ISIS as a state. It Is not a state. It has no Air Force or navy. It has no fixed boundaries. It is really a series of militant groups. It behaves in a ruthless manner, as does Saudi Arabia and its agents in Yemen. (more…)
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SUE WAREHAM. Why is Australia not fully behind efforts to prohibit nuclear weapons?
It’s about time for some good news. Heaven knows, we need it after 2016’s litany of human failures to find peace between ourselves and with our struggling planet. But as a Christmas gift of historic proportions, the UN – which is to say its member states – has taken the most promising action in decades to lead us towards the elimination of the world’s worst weapons. Late on December 23 in New York, the UN General Assembly resolved by a strong majority to begin talks in March on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
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DAVID MENERE. How the mainstream media mislead the public on Syria
The bias in the treatment of the Syrian conflict by the mainstream media is not accidental or due to laxity on the part of the media. Rather, it is the result of the opposition groups’ exclusion of independent reporting, coupled with western governments’ financial assistance to the opposition for media production. (more…)
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WALTER HAMILTON. The Sideline is Out of Play
‘Taking sides’ is a schoolyard conception of how a nation’s strategic interest is to be calculated and diplomacy shaped. Standing on the sidelines of a fight, pointing an accusing finger at other barracking spectators and crying ‘you’re taking sides’ is merely a way of avoiding the more challenging task of assessing the rights and wrongs of an issue and how it might, sooner or later, directly involve others. This is a repost from 20 September 2016. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. What a Twitter-Happy Trump Might Mean For Nuclear Diplomacy
Far from making America great again, Trump is more likely to make America grope again in the darkness of the post-nuclear age. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Just a case of Israeli ‘chutzpah’ or the action of a village tyrant?
The apoplectic rage of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was something to behold. How dare the U.N., an organisation he takes little notice of anyway, condemn his ever expanding housing program for Jewish families in the contested West Bank and how dare the U.S. not even bother to veto it as has been the custom. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. Julie and Julia in the Promised Land
Australia’s position on Israel’s policy of building settlements in occupied Palestinian land is contrary to that of a clear majority of countries. It is driven by domestic political calculations, by both sides of Australian politics. Foreign Minister Bishop’s unnecessary public reiteration of this position not only addresses a favoured domestic constituency, but seeks to reassure the Trump camp of our fealty. (more…)
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TONY KEVIN. Henry Kissinger’s last hurrah!
Henry Kissinger‘s renascent role in US-Russian diplomacy
Remarkably, 93-year old Henry Kissinger is still making judicious and fruitful public and private interventions in Russia-US relations. It seems his moment may have come again to make a difference as an East-West peace-broker, as he did in the Nixon-Brezhnev years ( for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1973). (more…)
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WALTER HAMILTON. ‘Fighting Monsters’
Australians, Americans and Japanese have been ‘fighting monsters’––the monsters of war remembrance––since 1945. A high-profile visit to Pearl Harbor during the week seemed to suggest another monster was being laid to rest. But while that piece of theatre left much to be desired, especially in its aftermath, another recent attempt, away from the spotlight, gives us reason to hope. (more…)
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From the American Challenge to the Chinese Challenge?
The unfolding Western effort to preach to the Chinese and paint a picture of a shining and benign America and contrasting that with a threatening and malign picture of China is, among other things, a complete distortion of the historical truth.
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ALLAN PATIENCE. From America into Asia
As Australia necessarily rethinks its alliance with the United States, it must simultaneously educate itself into Asia. There is just no other way. (more…)
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End of an era in US-Thai relations!
In this article in the Bangkok Post, journalist Alan Dawson writes of a trend by the Thai government to improve relations with China at the expense of the US. Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ is having difficulties in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. See link below to Bangkok Post article.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1167845/end-of-an-era-
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WILLY BACH. Australia’s Collaboration in the CIA’s Secret War in Laos
US forces left Thailand in 1975-76 at the request of Thai authorities. SEATO was disbanded in 1977. Australia’s forward defence doctrine was quietly forgotten.
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MICHAELSAINSBURY. Xi who must be obeyed
Already China is prodding at the U.S. at this delicate time when it is shifting administrations, testing the waters, as it were with its capture of an underwater drone not far from the Philippines this week. Internally, he faces the 19th Congress as his test. (more…)
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ALISON BROINOWSKI. What side are we on in Syria and Iraq?
The mainstream media are agonising about the Syrian government‘s nearly completed overthrow of rebels and the devastation of Aleppo. But the fog of war is not a sufficient excuse for their utter confusion about who the enemy is. The Australian Government doesn’t seem to know either, nor to have any idea what a successful outcome would be. As the latest example of vacuum that is at the core of our defence and foreign policy, we can expect soon to be involved in retaking Fallujah for the Iraqis against whom US and coalition forces led by Australian General Jim Molan fought over it in 2004. (more…)
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RICHARD BROINOWSKI. Series. We can say ‘no’ to the Americans
How Bill Hayden stood up to the Americans on Vietnam.
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DOUGLAS NEWTON. The forgotten and ignored German peace initiative of 1916.
Forgotten Great War Centenaries
This month, truly important Great War centenaries are passing by quite unnoticed in Australia. A hundred years ago, diplomatic events occurred of far greater significance than any battle in which Australians fought. And – if true political wisdom and courage had prevailed – a negotiated peace might have been achieved, cutting short the orgy of mechanised killing. (more…)
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MACK WILLIAMS. When and how to say ‘no’. Darwin?
We cannot remain oblivious to the fact that the creeping incrementalism, which has characterised the Defence Postures relationship, is likely to slip us into positions from which it would become increasingly difficult to say No. We need a line in the sand now to prevent this happening. (more…)
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ROSS BURNS. After Aleppo.
The international community remains hopelessly divided and in many cases incapable of assessing the real dynamics of the conflict in the face of its gut-wrenching humanitarian dimensions.
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JAMES O’NEILL. Dangerous delusions in Australian foreign policy.
Our media just does not get it.
It is not disputed that there are significant US military bases in Japan (Okinawa), the Philippines, Guam, South Korea, Afghanistan and Australia, among other places. … Strategic planners are unable to point to a single instance of China interfering in the freedom of navigation of civilian shipping. (more…)
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A transformational foreign policy
Some of Australia’s most experienced former foreign policy and defence bureaucrats have issued an open submission to the Foreign Minister calling on her to rethink the Australian-US alliance now that president-elect Donald Trump is set to lead the US. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. A declining Australia.
With dropping levels in education and a fading economy Australia is in a decline. What we need is a clear focus on our own area, Asia and the South West Pacific. (more…)
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BRIAN TOOHEY. New Series. We can say ‘no’ to the Americans.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing Australia’s commercial interests and avoiding pointless military gestures demanded by the US. (more…)
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We can say ‘no’ to the Americans
Other countries with which the US has very close relationships have not always supported or joined in with the United States in ventures which the US government of the day thought of as of the highest importance. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. New series. We can say ‘no’ to the Americans.
Without rupturing ANZUS, Australia must reclaim the space to chart an independent foreign policy according to a Canberra-based calculation of national values and interests. Indeed, a visibly independent foreign policy on matters important to Australia could be the most effective strategy for quarantining the alliance from the disruptive Trump effect. (more…)
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KELLIE TRANTER. FOI documents expose Australia’s unlawful invasion of Syria.
‘Make no mistake: we unlawfully invaded a sovereign state.’~ Kellie Tranter
Not one journalist in the country – although I am happy to stand corrected – asked either the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Attorney General or the Defence Minister to explain how the Government of Syria was ‘unwilling or unable’ to prevent attacks.