The AUKUS alliance is increasingly adopting a nuclear tone. First came the promise to furnish Australia with nuclear powered submarines, absent nuclear weapons, a point that did not dissuade critics such as Indonesia. Then came the announcement to deploy six B-52 bombers to the Northern Territory’s Tindal airbase, south of Darwin, an exercise underwritten by Continue reading »
Defence and Security
Reducing the risk of Australia becoming trapped in an American war in Asia, again, requires the Australian government to give notice now to the United States that it wishes to withdraw from the Force Posture Agreement. An open letter to the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese. February 17, 2023. The Abbott government’s adoption Continue reading »
As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches and an escalation in the conflict on the ground seems likely with the passing of winter, it is appropriate to begin to think about the terms of a possible settlement. In the very unlikely event of overwhelming military victory for either side, real negotiations will Continue reading »
How might the renown mid-20th century linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein have addressed the current defence strategic review? As the perceptive mid-20th century Cambridge based English/Austrian linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein explained, the answer you get to a question depends on how the question is formed. The same wisdom could have been conveyed to military planners in the past Continue reading »
It would be a grave mistake for Beijing to respond in kind in the face of incessant provocations and escalations by America and its allies. Western countries, especially those in the Anglo-American sphere love to drum up exaggerated claims about China’s economic coercion and geopolitical threat. But compared to the often genocidal or starvation-level sanctions Continue reading »
There are very sound strategic reasons to continuously build and maintain heavily automated missile frigates and Air Independent Propulsion conventional submarines in Australia, as an alternative to spending $150B-$200B on unmaintainable AUKUS Nuclear Submarines. “I do not say, my Lords, the French will not come, I only say they will not come by sea” John Continue reading »
Scheduled for the 2040s, while the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines might never eventuate, the theatre surrounding the announcement provides a publicly-digestible narrative for the surrender of Northern Australia to the American military in the present day. Time to talk about time and submarines. Time is the most salient consideration in the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines debate. The Continue reading »
Labor came to office last May, replacing a government that had steered Australia’s relationship with the United States to new heights of servility. Our ties with China were in tatters. Many had hoped that the change of government would usher in a shift to a more imaginative and less subservient foreign policy. Nine months later Continue reading »
In contrast to Labor politicians such as Paul Keating, Bill Hayden, Gareth Evans and Gough Whitlam, the four part series recently published by Keating and Stanford on Australian national security sees no place for arms control measures and peace initiatives. Michael Keating and John Stanford recently wrote a four-part series in P&I arguing the case Continue reading »
My sources corroborate Seymour Hersh’s report that the US was behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. (My sources are logic, common sense, and public statements by US government officials.) If Putin and senior Russian officials had said what Biden and senior US officials have been saying about how much they hate the Nord Stream pipelines Continue reading »