While alliances and treaties offer some protection against an aggressor, they cannot be counted upon. Australia needs to maintain an independent military capability to deter possible future threats to our independence – not least because we cannot rely on the US in all possible future circumstances. Today Part 2 of this series on Australia’s national Continue reading »
World
The announcement of the Australian Government’s decision on the purchase of nuclear powered submarines is looming and it is timely to take a cold hard look at the “facts” rather than the inevitable spin. The more Prime Minister Albanese maintains this will be a momentous decision for Australia the more it should have been the Continue reading »
In his State of the Union speech, Biden is expected to address the U.S. gun violence crisis — but not the gun crisis it exports to foreign countries.
The post Biden Pledged to Reverse Trump’s Weak Gun Export Rules — but Instead Did Nothing appeared first on The Intercept.
When caught, the Eisenhower administration lied through its teeth about it.
The post U.S. Sent “Weather” Balloons to Spy on China and the Soviet Union in the 1950s appeared first on The Intercept.
Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that “President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia.” In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in Continue reading »
Three years into the Covid -19 pandemic the many weaknesses and disconnections within the jurisdictional decision-making arrangements are clear. These fault lines significantly impair our national capacity to reliably detect and respond to this ongoing outbreak in a timely, effective and efficient manner. We urgently need to develop integrated national and international responses to disease Continue reading »
As the government offers new hints at the ‘optimal path’ for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, the questions about the viability of the project mount. The political pressure to out-muscle the Coalition on ‘national security’, if that’s what is driving the Labor government’s enthusiasm for this impending car-crash, should not be allowed to undermine the national Continue reading »
The perceptive Singaporian diplomat Kishore Mahbubani remarked recently that: ‘Australia’s strategic dilemma in the twenty-first century is simple: it can choose to be a bridge between East and West in the Asian Century—or the tip of the spear projecting Western power into Asia.’ He clearly believed that it was a matter of deliberate choice, a Continue reading »
To paraphrase former US President, Theodore Roosevelt, Australia’s national security is best achieved by talking softly while carrying a formidable stick as a deterrent. For decades following World War II, American leadership provided both security and economic order for the Indo-Pacific region. This rules-based system underpinned stability and unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in our Continue reading »
General Mike Minahan, head of the United States Air Force’s Air Mobility Command has sent a message to the world. It is blunt, threatening and sinister. ‘My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.’ The General sent his message as a memorandum to the leadership of the 110,000 strong USAF, with the unambiguous title, Continue reading »