China knows that, if it has to, it can stand alone and that it can defend itself. It knows, too, that most nations of the world, other than America (which is, despite itself, somewhat conflicted), want to do business with it; to connect with its growing confidence and with its strengthening brand of non-threatening, non-coercive, Continue reading »
Defence and Security
Anzac Day. We mark it respectfully. True respect demands that we also not forget the essential question about the first ‘Anzac Day’ – 25 April 1915. Why were Australian soldiers at Anzac Cove in the first place? In fact, Gallipoli provides a stunning lesson in the disasters that can follow from unwavering loyalty to a Continue reading »
Perhaps it is my imagination, but in the days immediately preceding Anzac Day 2024, there seems to be less media exhortation to observance than has been usual in recent years. I think that we can take it as given that those who march and attend at dawn will participate again this year with undiminished spirit Continue reading »
At the levels of public ritual and private observance, the ANZAC narrative is much about processing loss and assuaging grief. But let us recall here its nature as an imperial romance, and what that might mean for our place in the multi-polarity of the current world order? With its genesis in imperial war, the Anzac Continue reading »
The idea that nuclear submarines can be built in Adelaide under AUKUS has the characteristics of the “group think” that led to invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has been described by former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as a “bit of a fairytale”. “Some government in the future will make the obvious decision and not Continue reading »
What the present moment reveals, once again, is that Western aggression during the “Cold War” was never about destroying socialism, as such. It was about destroying movements and governments in the periphery that sought economic sovereignty. Why? Because economic sovereignty in the periphery threatens capital accumulation in the core. This remains the primary objective of Continue reading »
Manifest Destiny, now more commonly called American Exceptionalism is a traditional and widespread view in the US. American views of its relationship with the world vary from isolationism to leadership, but the underlying base is always that the US is something special. While some may be more subtle than others, how many Americans could accept Continue reading »
The United States, having learnt nothing from the 20th Century, is, quite characteristically, spoiling for a fight with one of the great success stories of our time, China, on the basis of nothing more than a doltishly unfounded fear of this success and an ever so faintly emerging spectre of American fragility. A fragility across Continue reading »
‘New era for alliance’ headlined the right wing Japan Times after the Japan-US summit talks in Washington this week between President Biden and Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida.. But not everyone was so enthused. Moscow repeated its warnings going back to 1960 that it could not sign a formal end to World War Two if Continue reading »
On Easter Saturday, a friend and I drove down to Mullumbimby to hear Afghan war crimes whistleblower David McBride speaking at the Mullumbimby RSL. The previous Monday, I had watched the Four Corners program about David McBride, called Rules of Engagement. My friend hadn’t seen it, so we listened to it on the iPhone as Continue reading »