It is time Australia made a big, if bold, shift in its foreign policy and put up its hand to be a part of the Non-aligned movement. It was refreshing to read ‘Now is the time for non-alignment and peace’ by Prashad and McKenzie in Pearls and Irritations. The Non-aligned Movement has attracted 120 nations Continue reading »
Defence and Security
The blood bath that was 2022 in occupied Palestine claimed the lives of more than 230 Palestinians. The Israeli Occupation Forces and the heavily armed illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank have continued their feral killing spree into 2023 unabated. In the first month of this year, Israel murdered 36 Palestinians. Ten of those Continue reading »
Australia’s Foreign Minister, who advocates international law and better relations with Asian countries, has surrendered to the hawks in Canberra. Penny Wong told Parliament on 9 February that the way Australia goes to war will not change. She was responding to a question from Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, whose bill for reform of the war Continue reading »
As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued- global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home. But the record so far suggests that China is different. As former US senior diplomat Chas Freeman Continue reading »
There is no way that the UK or the US would ever contemplate surrendering sovereignty over the control of its military operations to any other power. Australia should not either. If Australia is to acquire a fleet of SSNs, the government needs to negotiate an agreement that avoids counter-productive short cuts and ensures sovereign control Continue reading »
Secrets make us paranoid. We should do away with secrets and spies and become a truly open society. We have become so obsessed with the so-called ‘China threat’ that our fears are now totally irrational. The decision by the USA to shoot down a Chinese balloon might have had a strange logic to it, but Continue reading »
The previous two parts in this series addressed soft power and Australia’s alliances respectively. The focus of Part 3 is hard power and a discussion of self-reliance and Australia’s evolving military strategy. Hard power: Australia’s military strategy In an offensive sense, hard power represents the ability of a nation to coerce another country and bend Continue reading »
While alliances and treaties offer some protection against an aggressor, they cannot be counted upon. Australia needs to maintain an independent military capability to deter possible future threats to our independence – not least because we cannot rely on the US in all possible future circumstances. Today Part 2 of this series on Australia’s national Continue reading »
The announcement of the Australian Government’s decision on the purchase of nuclear powered submarines is looming and it is timely to take a cold hard look at the “facts” rather than the inevitable spin. The more Prime Minister Albanese maintains this will be a momentous decision for Australia the more it should have been the Continue reading »
In his post on 7 January Lawrence Freedman concluded that “The question of what it takes to get Russia to abandon its war of conquest remains unanswered.” The answer, at least in part, has to be a change of leadership – most likely a generational change. For Putin this is a war, not about territory, but about Continue reading »