The first step in fixing any problem is acknowledging it. And for Australia on climate change, that means admitting we are a petrostate. The paradox is glaring: while the UAE and Saudi Arabia are readily acknowledged and seemingly proud to be petrostates, Australia’s similar status is unspoken. It’s time to confront this uncomfortable truth – Continue reading »
Top 5
With apologies to Charles Dickens and a Christmas Carol. Christmas is an idea, a very large idea, it is captured in stories that shape our imagination and in consequence – the way we live. Sadly, the original idea is proving too big for the reductionist world most of us inhabit. Yes, we live reduced lives. Continue reading »
For most of the post-WW2 period, Washington’s strength rested on its ability to convince other nations that it was in their vital interests to see the United States prevail in its role as the global leader. Sometimes this was self-sabotaged by outbreaks of strident unilateralism, such as George W. Bush’s attack on Iraq in 2003. Continue reading »
October 7 did not occur in a vacuum. It was the result of decades long Israeli occupation, never ending violence and oppression of Palestinians. The pressure cooker exploded! A slightly updated post from December 19, 2023 Supporters of Zionism highlight the horrors of October 7 , ‘never again’ to divert attention from the continuing genocide Continue reading »
Without a large and rapid change in politics, not much in evidence, it now seems unlikely we can avoid climate apocalypse. The COP28 conference in Dubai on (allegedly) reducing greenhouse gas emissions has come and gone with the usual proclamations of triumph. Wow, this time they actually mentioned fossil fuels, and the need to ‘transition Continue reading »
Two months have passed since the events of October 7. Publicly, Australia has done nothing except perhaps indicate that it desires a two-state solution, and expects Israel to only take action which has regard to the need to protect civilians. Is this enough? The answer is no. Let us commence by considering what facts are Continue reading »
Euphemistically, the Prime Minister recently announced that he and President Biden have “inaugurated a new era of US-Australia strategic cooperation”. Presumably he meant to say he’d found new ways to surrender Australia’s sovereignty. With the US President in October, the Prime Minister issued the United States-Australia Joint Leaders’ Statement – Building an innovation alliance. Albanese Continue reading »
Henry Kissinger’s death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century. I first met Henry Kissinger in Continue reading »
In a lead article last week in The Sydney Morning Herald the political and international editor Peter Hartcher declared that Australia was ’connected to three wars’, but only one of them would be measured in decades. He was referring to the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine both of which ‘affect Australia’s security’. Continue reading »
With the expansion of all services of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – no matter that it is consistent with a defensive posture – China’s every strategic move now is rendered totally unacceptable after passing through a prism designed and issued on a complementary basis by the US. Hyper-suspicion is the attitude and threat inflation Continue reading »