We live in a global community, and many of us enjoy the benefits. A far greater number have no such enjoyment, existing in disadvantage; in poverty, hunger, homelessness, oppression, violence of one kind or another- preventable travesties. (more…)
Category: USA
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Trump is surveying Australian academics about gender diversity and China – what does this mean for unis and their research?
Shortly after taking office, US President Donald Trump issued executive orders banning federal funding on so-called “woke” research. (more…)
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Geopolitics, Australia-China-US relationship and its impacts on Australian-Chinese voting priorities
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The MAGA answer to DEI is a return to the golden days of exclusion
When the New York Times reported on a tense Cabinet meeting in the White House, it became clear that one of the few members to take on the DOGE boss, Elon Musk, was Sean Duffy, Trump’s new transportation secretary. Although a number of cabinet secretaries were neither accustomed to nor happy with the scorched-earth approach to government efficiency that Musk’s fresh-faced goons were undertaking, they were reluctant to speak openly against Musk. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
As media campaigning ramps up for the forthcoming election, Peter Dutton avoids the question of his polling while Media Watch reveals the Liberal Party connections of Freya Leach and Juice Media produces a satirical clip on majority government. On global tensions, Professor Keyu Jin from the London School of Economics speaks about China and the US. (more…)
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ANZUS and NATO are kaput and Trump doesn’t care
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have proven too gutless, so far, to speak frankly to Australians about the implications of the imposition of new tariffs by the US, the first of many, to be imposed on Australia. They have expressed some ritual regrets and said it was a poor reward for their sycophantic grovelling over the years. They have not said that the coming election is the perfect time for blunt discussions of what it all means. (more…)
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The Manichean moment is over
If Donald Trump has done nothing else, he should have convinced Australian strategic thinkers that the long-standing mantra of China-bad/America-good is no longer appropriate. (more…)
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Sultanistic or neo-fascist? President Trump and 21st century ideology
In trying to understand US President Donald Trump, the proposition has been put that he is sultanistic. In many respects, Trump’s second presidency does appear to be “sultanistic”. (more…)
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US-Europe relations flipped by Trump
For most of the post-World War II period, relations between Europe and the United States have followed a consistent pattern regardless of changes in government on both sides of the Atlantic. (more…)
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AUKUS, Trump and independence
How should Australia respond when the US, our closest ally, is engaged in a very public and petulant global meltdown? (more…)
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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…)
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Escaping Thucydides’s trap: A discussion between Graham Allison and Henry Huiyao Wang
During the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, Professor Graham Allison from Harvard University met Dr Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Centre for China and Globalisation based in Beijing, to discuss Dr Wang’s new book (“Escaping Thucydides’s Trap: Dialogue with Graham Allison on China-US Relations”) which is grounded on and develops arguments made in Professor Allison’s highly influential 2017 book, “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap.” (more…)
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Is Peter Dutton the tip of a Trumpist foreign policy for Australia?
In 1951 Australia turned to its newfound “great and powerful friend” America, consummating the move by signing the ANZUS treaty. ANZUS remains seriously misunderstood by most Australians, especially among the ageing ranks of conservative aficionados in Australia where it has the status of a holy cow. This is despite the fact that the treaty is only an agreement to “consult” if ever Australia’s security is threatened. It is no guarantee that the US will come to Australia’s defence, whatever threat may arise. (more…)
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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…)
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Power and alienation
The hollow man thought he had
power over everything,
a snap of the fingers
was the sound of a king. (more…) -
Australia’s China diplomacy: Is it ready for a world without US certainty?
President Trump’s emerging foreign policy ideology is forcing US allies, including Australia, to reassess their strategic positions. As American leadership becomes increasingly transactional, Canberra must navigate a shifting global order by balancing security concerns with economic resilience, forging new regional partnerships, and maintaining strategic flexibility in an era of geopolitical uncertainty. (more…)
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Are America’s values our values anymore?
No issue in the forthcoming election is as important as Australia’s international identity and the crisis in the Western alliance about its senior partner, the United States. The alliance is fragmenting and, it appears, President Trump is daring Europe to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression independently. He wants NATO members to double their defence spending so they are no longer freeloading from America’s military spending. Other allies, including Australia, should do so too. At just the same time, he is beginning to wage economic war against most of Europe, Canada, and Australia,by swingeing tariffs, as a punishment, he claims, for stealing American jobs. (more…)
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Noicide: advent of a new Dark Age
Something far more sinister than mere genocide is unfolding in the United States and other advanced nations around the world: the forces of darkness have declared open war on human knowledge. (more…)
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Trade and tariffs: Reality and fantasy
Donald Trump’s recent actions with respect to the use of tariffs as a weapon to re-industrialise America demonstrates not only an utter failure to understand the economics of that move but also the geo-economic realities of the world in which those actions are being taken. (more…)
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America’s day of infamy
While all the chaotic fireworks were exploding from Trump’s Oval Office — from Canada as the 51st State to Gaza as his waterfront Club Med — one little cracker caused barely a flicker of interest in a bedazzled media. (more…)
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The only enemy the US has in the drug war is itself
No one wakes up one day and says to him or herself that today is the day I’ll become a drug addict – society pushes people, in some cases high disposable wealth creates a sense of boredom from which the stimulus of recreational drugs is a form of escape, in others it’s peer pressure, we see others doing it, they encourage us to try and off we go down a slippery slope. (more…)
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Jeffrey Sachs: Negotiating a lasting peace in Ukraine
Ukraine will have to cede more territory than it would have in April 2022 — when the US and UK talked it out of a peace deal — but it will gain sovereignty and international security arrangements. (more…)
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We can see clearly now: We’re closely allied to a fascist regime and so must realign
Donald Trump’s election to the presidency is a Gift. Notwithstanding that it, and his subsequent behaviour, has induced involuntary bowel movements and Acute Disorientation Syndrome throughout the policy-making establishments of the Western alliance, his advent is not, therefore, without its merits if we are the richer for it. (more…)
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Is it the US electoral system that is at fault?
The US as a new nation rejected the rule of the British monarch in a revolution and the newly created presidency was granted, ipso facto, monarchical power for four year terms. After a revolution it was deemed undesirable to have an hereditary monarchy, so a system was devised in which a president with a form of monarchical power could be elected for four years, with later constitutional amendments allowing only one subsequent term. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
The Chinese Embassy in the US underlines the country’s differences with the US. Marco Rubio and Boris Johnson refer to the war in Ukraine as a proxy war, while Rubio also reaffirms Trump’s warning to Hamas. Ohad Kozminsky of the Jewish Council of Australia shares his views on Western colonialism and Gaza. (more…)
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Downsizing of NOAA: consequences for the planet
News out of the US on the firing of public servants by the Trump administration has consequences worldwide. Downsizing of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will potentially impact many nations including our capacity to forecast extreme weather events and understand the consequences of climate change. (more…)
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Russophobia and Sinophobia: projection, narcissism and denial
There is a certain cadence to decline, a rhythm of arrogance and desperation, of miscalculation and delusion. The late-stage empire, unmoored from reality yet clinging to myths of its own indispensability, lashes out at perceived threats not because they are real, but because it cannot conceive of a world in which it is no longer the gravitational centre of history. In this way, Russophobia and Sinophobia function not merely as ideological constructs, but as symptoms of systemic decay, the fever dreams of a civilisation struggling to process its own obsolescence. (more…)
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Resolving insolvency: Tariffs are key to Trump’s solution
Donald Trump has resorted to tariffs, imposed against friend and foe alike. There are no compromises or special deals because it’s not about favours for friends, or compliance, or punishment. Tariffs are part of a desperate bid to stave off insolvency. (more…)
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A five-minute scroll
Justin Trudeau eloquently calls Trump’s tariffs a trade war. Miko Peled questions why the allies aren’t liberating the concentration camp that is Gaza, Jeffrey Sachs asks how many wars China has been in in the last 40 years. Peter Cronau lists our eclectic list of defence priorities. (more…)
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WEU redux?
NATO was, in part, established to prevent moves by France and Germany towards independent European defence and foreign policies, such as the West European Union. This has been a geo-political priority for Washington since the end of World War II. (more…)