When Anthony Albanese addressed his federal electoral council on July 6 he rebutted criticism of AUKUS by saying Labor governments always have to prove themselves on national security. This was an explanation for Labor acquiescing in the Scott Morrison plan in 2021. It was the justification for not reopening the issue eight months later when Continue reading »
Defence and Security
The next few weeks could be Ukraine’s last chance to grasp the flower of safety from the nettle of war by negotiating a compromise peace with Russia that would safeguard its future statehood and sovereignty. The strategic failure of Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive signals it is locked into a losing war of attrition with Russia that Continue reading »
The Australian Government has a big problem with its security narrative. Preparing for a putative war with China is the nation’s top security priority, while the government’s knowledge of the growing existential threat of climate disruption and their security consequences remains a closely-guarded secret. It is embarrassing for the government that it will not share Continue reading »
Tuesday 26 September is the anniversary of the Biden administration’s destruction of three of the four pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2. There is more I have to say about it, but it will have to wait. Why? Because the war between Russia and Ukraine, with the White House continuing to reject any talk Continue reading »
Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki has implored the UN for international backing in his opposition to the prefecture being overrun with US military bases. The Japan Times reports: “I am here today to ask the world to witness the situation in Okinawa,” Tamaki told a session of the world body’s Human Rights Council, arguing that the Continue reading »
President Ranil Wickremesinghe also derided the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ as an artificial framework with an inconsistent definition. He also countered recent claims by New Delhi that Beijing was sending ships to Sri Lanka to spy on India. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday declared the Aukus security pact between Australia, Britain and the US “a mistake” Continue reading »
NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, resulted in a chaotic and murderous failed state. Libyans pay a horrific price for this catastrophe. “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton famously quipped when Muammar Gaddafi, after seven months of U.S. and NATO bombing, was overthrown in 2011 and Continue reading »
A new US investigative report has excoriated the controversial Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program which included the USS Canberra – commissioned in very unusual circumstances with great fanfare by the US Navy recently in Sydney. Should its revelations about the manifest failures in the USN’s procurement performance – with former officers describing the LCS class Continue reading »
“War is good for business.” So reads a quote from an arms industry executive in a recent Reuters article titled “At London arms fair, global war fears are good for business” about Europe’s biggest arms show, the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International. You will probably be unsurprised to learn that Reuters does not name Continue reading »
During the disastrous Vietnam War, it was said that the US government treated the public like a mushroom farm: keeping it in the dark and feeding it with manure. The heroic Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting the unrelenting US government lying about the war in order to protect politicians who would be embarrassed Continue reading »