The claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a proxy war is not borne out by recent history, nor supported by Russian democrats, Ukrainians of all stripes nor most Western Russia specialists. They mostly see its roots in an authoritarian Russian state and the revanchist views of Putin and his acolytes. (more…)
Tag: International relations
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The real history of the war in Ukraine: A chronology of events and case for diplomacy
The American people urgently need to know the true history of the war in Ukraine and its current prospects. Unfortunately, the mainstream media ––The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN –– have become mere mouthpieces of the government, repeating US President Joe Biden’s lies and hiding history from the public. (more…)
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Hong Kong a national security threat to the US? You’ve got to be joking, Uncle Sam
A ‘national emergency’ order on itself may be more useful as no country poses a greater danger to itself and others than the United States. (more…)
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Indonesia and Australia: Missed opportunities and unfinished business
A lot of opportunities have been missed to engage more closely with Indonesia over the last few decades, a period when Australian government enthusiasm and funding for engagement with Indonesia declined significantly. Correcting that is getting harder as time goes on and Indonesia grows in economic and political influence.
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Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The failures of the Global Economic System
“Of all of these four objectives that I call sustainable development. 1. Material Sufficiency; 2. Social Justice; 3. Environmental sustainability; and 4. Peace; we’re off track on all of them” – Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. (more…)
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Ambitions of NATO in Asia are simply a delusion of grandeur
The North Atlantic military alliance has no business in the continent and it should just stop going on about the so-called China threat. (more…)
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Is Pope Francis preparing for the next pope and an “October revolution” in Catholicism?
Its mid-summer in Rome and last week there was a heat wave with a top temperature of 38° Celsius. Hot days in Rome are stifling, with the heat compounded by the over-whelming influx of tourists. (more…)
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Taiwan solution is diplomacy rather than nuclear hell
I have yet to meet an Australian voter willing to go to war over Taiwan. Further, I haven’t heard of any Australian military leader with a clear idea of Australia’s role in a showdown between China and the US. (more…)
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Albanese: Time to dismantle Israel’s “carceral regime”
“Over 56 years, Israel has governed the occupied Palestinian territory through stifling criminalisation of basic rights and mass incarcerations,” said Albanese in a report to the UN Human Rights Council on 10 July. (more…)
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The Albanese Government’s craven desire to bolster the alliance with Washington
When will Australians realise, as Paul Keating has been unerringly consistent in arguing, that they are part of the cosmopolitanism and complexity of Asia, and not a Western imagined community presided over by a fast declining America? (more…)
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The Voice and the problem of race
Defeat for the Voice referendum will reverberate internationally. Surviving suspicions about our racist past will be refreshed. It will come at the same time as our renewed embrace of our ‘forever friends’ in Britain and the United States and our growing enthusiasm for closer ties with NATO. (more…)
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Sinking Billions – Revolving Doors – Part 2
The Australian Defence Department’s new Frigates project is a jobs merry-go-round for former military officers, bureaucrats, and weapons makers. (more…)
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Barbie makes a dash in ASEAN
Geo-politics is played on a world chessboard often by sad oldies in sober suits. To keep membership exclusive the polymath gamers use polysyllables and foreign tongues. Clearly not the place for a perky American doll. (more…)
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Good news on nukes: US can’t sell Australia nuclear subs
The good news is the US can’t sell Australia the three to five used Virginia class nuclear subs that the Albanese government has announced it will buy. Nor will it sell us any new ones. (more…)
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Hong Kong and the rose garden promise: Thoughts on the “Fugitive Eight”
Eight Hong Kong dissidents now living abroad are subject to arrest warrants, including Kevin Yam, a Melbourne-based lawyer, and Ted Hui, a former politician who now lives in Adelaide. (more…)
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Why is Australia so scared?
The world has just spent two decades paralysed by fear. Ever since 11 September 2001, the ‘war on terror’ has changed the lives of most people for the worse. Millions have been killed, either by terrorists or by militarists fighting them. Fearing violence, many people have fled their homelands as refugees. Others have absorbed repeated warnings about Islamist terrorism, and fearfully accepted that the response to it has to be militarism. (more…)
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American cluster bombs in Ukraine
According to the UN Human Rights Office, 9,083 civilians have been killed in 500 days of fighting in Ukraine, and 15,779 wounded. These figures are likely to increase dramatically once American cluster munitions are deployed. (more…)
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Yellen’s Beijing visit: US-China economic reality is starting to bite
On China, Biden is faced with both a political problem, represented by his secretary of state, and an economic reality, represented by the Treasury secretary. Yellen’s visit suggests economics may be starting to play a larger role in the bilateral relationship, but the US will need to demonstrate consistent sincerity to see improvement in ties. (more…)
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The Wagner coup: Strategic setback or military deception?
The Wagner coup equation doesn’t compute. It just doesn’t add up. Herbert Wulf gave us a concise summary of the surreal 24 hours that gripped the world. But there are missing pieces of the puzzle that we haven’t been given. And now we learn that the Wagner boss is back in St Petersburg, Russia. (more…)
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Discovering the village effect
It probably wasn’t the best time to venture near to the Belarus border. (more…)
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The Palestine question: Western media and long-term solutions
Picture the Western media’s outrage if a Russian helicopter gunship went into an occupied Crimean city neighbourhood and began shooting missiles at civilian homes, claiming a militant lived in one. “War crime” would resound. (more…)
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De-risking Australia: separating our vital interests from America’s
Does it really matter that Australia’s defence policy has no moorings, and is created unaware of past pain, lessons and policy responses? By agents with unknown interests. And that American influence has been ushered into this void, most recently by Minister Marles? (more…)
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Silence and the horror of Jenin
Why hasn’t the devastation of almost an entire people been called out for what it is? (more…)
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A long war against China?
The recent visit to China by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken seemed promising, until we learned what he really had in mind: a long war with no finish line. (more…)
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US-China relations and the decline of US dominance
What is the path to peace for the war in Ukraine? Is America still powerful enough to impose global order? The US has just 4.1% of the world’s population, while the BRICS countries have 41.5%. In this conversation with economist Jeffrey Sachs, we discuss the origins of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO enlargement, US-China relations, and the decline of US dominance. (more…)
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Ellsberg’s warning: stop US empire-building wars before they start
There is only one way to stop politicians and bureaucrats from beginning stupid and immoral wars. (more…)
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The West must prepare for a long overdue reckoning
Five major trends illustrate how the world is changing, and that the West must grapple with the reality that it can no longer impose its “leadership” on the world as it once did. (more…)
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US Reforms of WTO dispute settlement: the ‘Rules-Based Order’ takes another hit
One of the more arcane developments in contemporary trade policy is the recently tabled US proposal for reform of the arrangements for managing trade disputes between members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is a landscape marked by statistics, legal texts, and arguments. However, reflected in the microcosm is a wider universe featuring the inequities, instabilities and unsustainability of global capitalism and the global security risks arising from the resistance and protests of the declining hegemon. (more…)
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Asylum seekers – Labor’s Achillies heel
While the boom in unsuccessful on-shore (ie non-boat) asylum applications started in 2015 when Peter Dutton was Home Affairs Minister, as time goes by it will be Dutton and the Murdoch press that will try to make it Labor’s Achillies heel. (more…)
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The price of irresponsibility: irrational fear
The recklessness of Australian politicians and mainstream media and the damage which that has caused, is abundantly clear in the latest poll, carried out by the Lowy Institute on Australian attitudes to China. (more…)