The speech by former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison in Taipei on Wednesday 11 October, 2023, was clearly designed to undermine the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Albanese to Beijing. It continued to drive forward the American objective of goading China into war over Taiwan. His assertion that “the status of Taiwan is deliberately ambiguous, Continue reading »
International Relations
As vanquished Australians, white and black, fell back in ruin, defeat and humiliation on Saturday, the most galling prospect they must face is that for many of the victorious, the Voice battle was but the first engagement in a longer war. They do not want to give their enemies time for regrouping, or even for Continue reading »
Israel has spoken of “erasing Gaza”. Don’t turn away. Stop. And think about what that might mean. It is important for us to see what is happening here. The wider context must be understood to enable decisions to be made that are correct. And so, the wider context. This current crisis did not start on Continue reading »
There is a genocide happening on our watch. Can we rally from the brink of despair? I can usually rally myself back from the brink of despair at the state of our world. Not this time. We are in a worrying crisis of monumental moral bankruptcy. There is a genocide about to happen right under Continue reading »
I don’t think it’s too controversial or anti-American to suggest that our long-term strategic partner has been having a few issues lately. We may have grown used to people in the US shooting each other in large numbers, taking too many drugs, and generally over-indulging in self-destructive and planet destroying ways, but we still expected Continue reading »
From China’s perspective, Australia will always follow the US no matter what. And the US is out to contain China – there is nothing that China could do to change that. Australia has made relatively little effort to change this perception. This means for China, there is little point in putting much effort into dealing Continue reading »
The challenges of engagement when international tensions rise go beyond defence and security considerations. The benefits, however, are vitally important and deserve continued investment. It is essential therefore to consider carefully the terms of engagement – the sometimes conflicting principles that should guide engagement. Senior public servants, past and present, together with eminent scholars, gathered Continue reading »
The Bibi doctrine—his belief that he could control Hamas—compromised Israeli security and has now begat a bloody war. Decades ago I spent three years writing The Samson Option (1991), an exposé of the unstated policy of American presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower to look the other way as Israel began the process of building Continue reading »
On 11 October President Erdogan of Turkey came out and made a speech offering himself as a mediator in the current conflict. The first step in any mediation process had to be an immediate ceasefire on the part of both sides. It is time for Australia to accept its independent responsibility and to support Erdogan’s Continue reading »
Michael Hirsh has just published a withering review, in Foreign Policy, of the lead-up to horrific war now underway between Israel and Hamas entitled “Netanyahu’s Road to War”. Hirsh argues convincingly that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has, over an extended period: malevolently undermined all Palestinian peak bodies; artfully wooed Arab states; and (more recently) Continue reading »