What do Panama, Canada and Greenland have in common? Could Donald Trump be getting the US back to brass tacks, to a core strategy of dominating the Western Hemisphere? Possibly, and he may be blowing away the fraudulent rhetoric about rules-based international order, territorial integrity, international law and the crusade to expand democracies. Trump said Continue reading »
International Relations
The June 2025 UN Conference on Palestine can be the long-awaited turning point for the region. The UN, on its 80th birthday in 2025, can mark the occasion by securing a lasting solution to the conflict in the Middle East, by welcoming the State of Palestine as the 194th UN member state. The upcoming UN Continue reading »
The Eagles classic “Hotel California” could be considered an allegory for membership in the imperial system of the United States. At least to this point, that appears to be the mindset prevalent in Australia’s political, defence and security class, regardless of the harm that membership causes. It is time to check out. The end of Continue reading »
The war about Israel and its right to exist is not really between Israel and the leading terrorist militias whose aim is to destroy Israel. It is now, more clearly than ever, between the US and Iran. Until this is understood, no amount of thumping of chests and gnashing of teeth and blaming of Netanyahu Continue reading »
The arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant sparked outrage in Israel and across the Jewish world. But the ICC’s decision is neither antisemitic nor a modern-day blood libel: it is a call for Jews not to sacrifice the universal ideal of justice on the altar of uncritically defending Israel. Two Continue reading »
“That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.” This is a line by fantasy author PC Hodgell, though it’s often misattributed to Carl Sagan. I think about this quote a lot. I think about it when reflecting on the way Israel is exterminating Palestinian journalists in Gaza while keeping western journalists out of Continue reading »
The Donald Trump-JD Vance victory marks a repudiation of the post-Cold War neoconservative Washington playbook of militarised responses to foreign policy challenges. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence-designate, shares their anxiety over America’s addiction to intervening in foreign conflicts not of vital interest to the US, whose net effect has been to destabilise countries Continue reading »
I have learned a few things in my time on this earth. Not many, but a few. I have learned that western regime change interventionism is reliably disastrous, and that men like John Bolton and Bill Kristol are always on the wrong side of history when it comes to such matters. I have learned that Continue reading »
When Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed his disdain for international law and his contempt for the leadership of the United Nations, he implicitly recalled an ancient tradition of the origins of Israel. He asserted that Modern Israel was not formed in 1948 by the United Nations, but by the Israeli war against the Arabs, in the Continue reading »
Australia and Germany are quite literally a world apart, and expecting to find many parallels between the two countries might appear counter-intuitive. But as secondary powers in the Anglo-American sphere of influence, many of the resulting challenges the two nations face are indeed identical. Most significantly, the severe curtailment of national sovereignty by a foreign Continue reading »