If Thucydides were asked about what’s happening in relations between the US and China today, what would he say? That was the question posed to me at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. I responded that he would say that this is a classic Thucydidean rivalry in which the two parties are right on Continue reading »
Defence and Security
With the publication of the series, “RED ALERT” in the two leading newspapers in Australia, predicting that China will invade Australia in three years, the constant push from the ASPI, and the increasingly strident rhetoric from the China hawks in both major political parties, will the Australian security apparatus be encouraged to re-establish a “Chinese Continue reading »
The $368 billion AUKUS deal raises many more questions than we have had answered to date. The Labor Government has followed the Morrison Government as if the plan unveiled by Mr Morrison was a fait accompli. On September 15th 2021, following a two hour briefing from the then-government in which no documentation was presented, key Continue reading »
AUKUS. This is a horror for which I now fear for the lives of my children and their children. Every time a Labor member of parliament or senator puts foot outside their office to appear in public, turns up at a public meeting, we need to ask them: why have you betrayed us? Why have Continue reading »
The nexus between war and capitalism has been extensively explored by historians, particularly those on the political left such as Gabriel Kolko. It is one of the reasons why the term state capitalism, rather than market capitalism, is a more accurate description of the economic structures of advanced industrial societies. War, or more often the Continue reading »
Defence Minister Richard Marles has now told us why we need nuclear submarines – not to defend Taiwan or attack China, but to defend our merchant shipping. Sounds credible until one does the maths. There are 26,000 ship port calls involving over 3,000 different ships at 70 Australian ports each year to exchange 580 million Continue reading »
Reflecting the diminishing public support for the AUKUS deal, a new Guardian Essential Poll has found that only one quarter of Australians support paying the $368bn price tag to acquire nuclear submarines. For decades Australians were gung ho about going to war – almost any war. Today – despite the best efforts of the Nine Continue reading »
As AUKUS propagandising gathers pace, the Australian public is being softened up to believe that whatever else the arrangement entails (and that still mostly remains a mystery), there will be no compromising of Australia’s sovereignty – none whatsoever. History teaches us that such reassurances can be dangerously hollow. Since its inception in the Treaty of Continue reading »
Comment by Hon. Melissa Parke on AUKUS 22 March 2023. I welcome the speech given by Josh Wilson MP, my successor in the federal seat of Fremantle, in the Australian parliament on 20 March in which he raised concerns regarding the AUKUS agreement. I also welcome the contributions from former Prime Minister Paul Keating last Continue reading »
ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs. If you do cite them (and, again, don’t), then at the very least you need to disclose the conflict Continue reading »