Hamas is the excuse for the Israeli attack on Gaza. The real intent is to expel all Palestinians not just from Gaza but from the West Bank as well. Or as Jonathan Cook put it ‘Israel is not primarily eradicating Hamas. It is eradicating Gaza’ Professor Richard Falk said .. ‘In Gaza, the west is Continue reading »
Defence and Security
What has changed since 2003? Nothing, except for the worse. Australian governments continue to accept the US enemies as their own, and shoot whoever the sheriff says. All but two of the missing Iraq War Cabinet papers have now been released to the long-suffering public. But those of us who remember the Howard government’s secretive, Continue reading »
The general theme of delusion and the particular theme of ‘dead in the water’ as they apply to the entire AUKUS arrangements are provocations worthy of taking further. These are, of course, extracted from the essays in the most recent issue of Australian Foreign Affairs (paywalled). The most prominent of these, authored by Professor Hugh Continue reading »
There has been significant media discussion (including P&I) of Defence Minister Marles’ recent announcement of the Surface Ship Review for the RAN – a step towards remedying the Defence procurement shambles inherited by the Albanese government and conducted by yet another retired US admiral! But there has been scant attention to the rabbit out of the Continue reading »
Not unexpectedly, the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine project has run into reality as Virginia class production slows down, leaving Australia with no Defence policy. A huge strategic failure, if endorsed government assessments are believed, which has left Australia vulnerable and dependent on America. The 2000 White Paper’s highest priority was to “be able to defend Australia Continue reading »
The sweetest words in the English language: I told you so. French submarines, the first of which were scheduled for delivery in 2034 under a $90bn program with France’s Naval Group – before the contract was ripped up by the Morrison government – were lethal and affordable. Now we know that the US is very Continue reading »
Instead of actually engaging in measures to promote peace, the AUKUS governments are feeding us a racist notion that three Anglo nations targeting China from thousands of kilometres away are needed to ensure it. Text of talk given to IPAN (Independent and Peaceful Australia Network) forum “AUKUS and military escalation: Who pays and who benefits”. Continue reading »
Australian governments routinely assert that the country is respected as a “middle power” in regional and global forums. Meanwhile scholars increasingly agree that the middle power concept is more fantasy than reality. In Australia’s case, the uncritical assumption of the middle power self-image, by many politicians and commentators, is undermining the country’s security. Back in Continue reading »
AUKUS has become a stillborn project. Vassal states, satellites – in other words the butlers of international relations, the minders of the royal stool – are a rarely respected lot. In Australia’s case, being Washington’s butler is hardly like being Jeeves to Bertie Wooster. Jeeves is, after all, a near omniscient being, a confidant who Continue reading »
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive! Whatever else he might have been, Sir Walter Scott was no clairvoyant. Deeply cemented into Scottish history and folklore, his long narrative poems are now largely forgotten. But this single line captures the essence of AUKUS, where a cocktail of strategic conceits Continue reading »