The failure of media to ask obvious questions was on full display as three ships from the Chinese People Liberation Army-Navy completed their circumnavigation of Australia. (more…)
Category: Defence
-
Imagine a secure Australia post-ANZUS and AUKUS
Let’s test Hugh White’s contention, expressed in The Saturday Paper on 8 March (‘Trump’s conduct on Ukraine prompts strategic reckoning”), that Australia will perhaps sooner rather than later have to confront the end of the US Alliance. (more…)
-
How the West was lost
Europe’s panicked response to the shift in Washington’s priorities raises a number of intriguing questions, not least why its leadership was so ill-prepared for the second coming of Donald Trump. (more…)
-
Who’s who in the war business
“All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire (more…)
-
Australia’s defence: Navigating US-China tensions
A significant intelligence failure to detect live-firing by Chinese warships near Australia, has exposed Defence weaknesses, and the fact that when it counts, we are all alone. (more…)
-
High seas farce with Chinese characteristics
The melodramatic media story about the small Chinese naval flotilla exercising with “live” ammunition off the Australian and New Zealand coasts has run solid for more than a week. I’m beginning to suspect the Chinese military may have a sense of humour. (more…)
-
Has the world gone mad?
Rational people should share a sense of amazement that virtually all European political “leaders” and Western professional commentators appear to view with shock and horror: the possibility that the United States and Russia, the two major nuclear powers with the capacity to destroy human life, might have correct and co-operative, rather than hostile, relations. (more…)
-
Australian liquid fuel security risks and the role of transport electrification
Air Vice Marshal John Blackburn RAAF (retired) noted in his 2014 report on fuel security that Australia only had sufficient stores to supply service stations and hospital pharmacies for three days, retail pharmacies and chilled/frozen goods transport for seven and dried goods for eight. The social and economic consequences of such a collapse in our public and private road transport would be profound and pervasive.
(more…) -
The MAGA challenge to Australia’s self-respect
The Trump ascendancy has, and not for the first time, posed a simple question to Australian foreign and defence policy makers: what limits are to be put on the national tolerance of egregious behaviour by the United States? What is apparent now (even if many ignored it before) is the accelerating transformation of this country’s closest, and dominant ally into an oligarchal Christian fascist state. It is a change which cannot be ignored; moreover, it is one that should give pause to all joint ventures. (more…)
-
The need for Australia to act independently and be freed of the US alliance has never been greater
Never has there been a greater need for Australia to turn away from its military alliance with the United States and forge an independent and peaceful foreign policy. (more…)
-
AUKUS SSN: A flawed plan heading for the wrong destination
The AUKUS agreement aims to increase US, UK and Australian submarine capability in the Indo Pacific and the deterrence impact they offer. The current plan will fail for four fundamental reasons. (more…)
-
Why isn’t a possible apocalypse at the top of political debate?
Last Tuesday night (2 am AEDT – 10 am US EST), the Doomsday Clock yet again moved its hands closer than ever towards midnight. ‘Midnight’ in this context means an event sequence that would destroy what we call ‘civilisation’, and probably involve the deaths of all or most humans as well as cataclysmic impacts on global ecosystems. (more…)
-
Our case against AUKUS is more relevant than ever
Next Monday, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. (more…)
-
America preying on our universities
The US is exploiting a privileged position in our society with formalised access to powerful means for shaping Australians’ attitudes to security. It purports to be ally and friend, but where’s the respect? (more…)
-
Will the Cocos Islands become like Diego Garcia, hijacked by the US?
The 2000 residents of Diego Garcia were forcibly removed to make way for a giant US military base. (more…)
-
The US sees China through the dark mirror of its own unbridled aggression
As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued – global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home. (A repost from February 2023.)
(more…) -
Best of 2024: “I told you so”: No Aussie subs in 2030s, total reliance on the Yanks
The sweetest words in the English language: I told you so. (more…)
-
Best of 2024: The military control of Australia
The Albanese government with their policy is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States, writes former Prime Minister of Australia, Paul Keating. (more…)
-
Protests disrupt Australia ‘aiding and abetting’ genocide at US Pine Gap intelligence base
There’s no question that they did it: on 27 November last year, in the middle of Hatt Road, two people, Carmen Robinson and Alexandra (Tommy) Walker, locked themselves onto a barrel filled with concrete, blocking traffic on the way into the Pine Gap military base. (more…)
-
In the fight against tyranny, don’t let your happiness depend on big wins
If you stand for truth, peace and justice in this world then it’s important not to make your happiness dependent on large-scale wins. (more…)
-
Fear-mongering claims masquerading as facts protect AUKUS from parliament’s scrutiny
The battle is on to see which side of politics can boast of siphoning the most profits to the weapons industry – at the expense of health, education, climate and environmental action, and everything else we need – and of bowing more obsequiously before the US and its war machine. (more…)
-
‘Nothing to see here’ says Australia as third Thales corruption case starts globally
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy turns a blind eye to “unethical conduct” between Thales and the Defence Department despite national audit office warning of “capture” by weapons giants. (more…)
-
Chinese scholar reveals Vietnam’s double-dealing in South China Sea dispute
When international discussions turn to the South China Sea, they often focus exclusively on China-Philippines disputes over islands and reefs, overlooking the complex web of overlapping territorial claims in the region. I seldom see Chinese media coverage or scholarly analysis from the Chinese mainland address the actions of other stakeholders in these disputes. (more…)
-
What the Australian War Memorial should be doing about children
Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man was a Jesuit maxim attributed to Ignatius Loyola. It is probably apocryphal, but it is an approach many have taken over the years to implant ideas in young minds. (more…)
-
AUKUS is an intergenerational disaster. It will cause long term detriment to Australia’s security
Australia is a part of a hostile military alliance directed at China. “Interoperability” or “interchangeability” means we’re now a US pawn, tied to its coattails. So that’s the job of every Australian: push for more information, keep talking about why AUKUS is an utter disaster and why it commits us to a costly and dangerous trajectory. (more…)
-
America, We are out of your China fight
Australia must leave the China debacle, constructively. In withdrawing from America’s aggression against China, we should offer our diplomacy as a patient bridge between China and the US. That will take time. America will become even more extreme before it considers peaceful coexistence with China. Meanwhile our action will be a moderating influence, as we pick up our own distracted security priorities. (more…)
-
Australia defies UN in defence trade with Israel
Australia is continuing to expand its relationships with Israel’s defence sector, defying the UN’s International Court of Justice. (more…)
-
With Trump victory, is it time to shut Pine Gap?
It’s a time of major events: Donald Trump has again been elected President of the USA and its biggest foreign spy base Pine Gap features in the movie Twilight Time to be screened in Alice Springs on Saturday. (more…)
