America is Australia’s “great and powerful friend” so it matters a great deal how reliable our firmest strategic partner is. Is the US heading for a degree of political dysfunction that could blow back into its steadfastness as a leading player and an Australian ally in a multipolar Indo-Pacific? In this series, Roger Beale explores Continue reading »
World Affairs
Gibran Rakabuming Raka is smarter than his stolid Dad Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, President of our huge neighbour since 2014. As Vice President Gibran could be a positive change agent – but that demands missionary zeal and the guts to challenge his dangerous leader. Does he have The Right Stuff? In the lead-up to the 14 Continue reading »
In this series, I explore how US narratives on the ‘China threat’ have become entrenched in Western security communities and how a ‘China threat’ narrative has been constructed by Republicans and Democrats in the United States in an attempt to create a “rally round the flag” effect designed to internally unite a deeply divided America. Continue reading »
The African country, one journalist noted, “fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the U.S.” “No one knows apartheid like those who fought it before,” said one Palestinian rights advocate on Friday in response to the news that South Africa has taken a “historic” new step to hold Israel accountable for its Continue reading »
Former U.S. Ambassador Charles Freeman questions the true intentions of Israel’s renewed bombing of Gaza. Charles “Chas” W. Freeman Jr. is an American retired diplomat and writer. He served in the United States Foreign Service, the State and Defence Departments in many different capacities over the course of thirty years. Most notably, he worked as the Continue reading »
In these sad, anxious times, pearls of hope are rare and truly valuable. Thankfully, here are a couple to contemplate… In 1988 a group of Israeli and Palestinian women got together and did something extravagantly unlikely: they founded a peace movement. Women In Black. Regularly standing together in sombre clothes, their silent vigil sent out Continue reading »
The American republic today and the Roman republic in the years following Cicero’s consulship (63 BCE) have enough similarities to entertain an interesting comparison. They are also different enough as to make the drawing of firm predictions specious. Nevertheless, there are shared factors that offer warning signs for today from the fall of the ancient Continue reading »
Is there any light in the Christian message in the face of the horrors in the Ukraine and Gaza? Apart from wishing peace on Earth does Christian belief actually change anything? Well, along with Nick Cave, I don’t believe in an interventionist God. At least not a God sitting above our lives pulling the strings Continue reading »
‘In the document drawn up by a top secret and high-level working group that met in Washington in September 1957, Mr Macmillan and President Eisenhower were left in no doubt about the need to assassinate the top men in Damascus.’‘Documents show White House and No 10 conspired over oil-fuelled invasion plan’, The Guardian, 27 Sept 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 »