A new US warship has been ushered into service in Sydney. The ship is called the USS Canberra to honour the military union of the United States and Australia, and, if that’s still too subtle for you, it has a literal star-spangled kangaroo affixed to its side. That’s right: the first US warship ever commissioned Continue reading »
International Relations
“One of the most extraordinary moments in politics in the last five years has been watching Anthony Albanese, notionally from the left of Labour, adopt, without any internal democracy within the Labor Party, without any public investigation of it, adopt wholeheartedly Scott Morrison’s AUKUS plans… It’s perhaps one of the most extraordinary betrayals of the Continue reading »
Australia must carefully monitor US domestic developments as a barometer of longer term risks to the reliability of our “great and powerful friend”, and to avoid being drawn into a US war against China. But the biggest lesson from the political polarisation in the US is that it is better to have lower overall economic Continue reading »
Senior Australian “conservative” figures continue to attend conferences backed by illiberal Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) hosted its 2023 London Summit in late June, featuring Alexander Downer and Greg Sheridan as two of the five speakers. Australians must focus on connections between our Right and Hungarian fascistic politics. Peter Browne of Continue reading »
Can the United States avoid a descent into political violence? Of the 52 cases where countries reached the levels of polarisation which now exist in the US, half had their status as democracies downgraded. The US is the only Western democracy to have sustained such intense polarisation over such an extended period. It really is Continue reading »
One of the great claims for representative democracy and federations is that they provide a uniquely successful way of dynamically negotiating, rather than suppressing, social differences and tensions. So, when it appears to be failing to do that in one of the world’s oldest and most successful democracies it is worth asking “why has this Continue reading »
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have published serious allegations about millions of dollars of Australian government funding for Offshore Processing Centres finding their way through contractors to bank accounts controlled by South Pacific politicians. This comes on top of a history of criticism by the Auditor-General on how providers were selected and contracts Continue reading »
“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government, everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.” So said Marjorie Taylor Greene in a Continue reading »
From Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO cast its eyes east to the Ukraine. For the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, there was a desire to look even further east beyond the Ukraine. He, some NATO members and invited guests, remain undeterred in their desire to bring NATO into Asia. Jens Stoltenberg supports the ambition noting that ‘‘This Continue reading »
One side seems to prefer dealing with former leaders rather than current ones. The other likes to talk, while piling on coercive measures. If what passes for diplomacy between China and the United States is any indication these days, we are all in real trouble. One side seems to prefer dealing with former leaders rather Continue reading »