Today, there are strong arguments that Australian security and defence thinking, which was historically race based, is now culturally embedded; that the current situation is close to what race theory describes as ‘racism without racists.’ How, then, might Australian colonial racism have conditioned our security culture to put the ‘A’ in the AUKUS nuclear powered Continue reading »
World Affairs
Sixty years after Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, crucial lessons must still be learned about how to end dangerous conflicts in a nuclear world. President John F. Kennedy was one of the world’s great peacemakers. He led a peaceful solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis and then successfully negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Continue reading »
News that the FBI continues its investigation into the case around Assange appears to have taken both supporters and the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus by surprise. On 1 June 2023, Foreign Affairs and National Security correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew Knott, quoted from a letter received by Andrew O’Hagen, novelist and Assange’s ghostwriter, on Continue reading »
In charting the way ahead for Australia-China relations, Canberra needs to present the risks posed by increasing Chinese military power in realistic rather than hawkish terms, writes Colin Heseltine. Building the case for Australia to significantly upgrade its defence force structure and capability, including the expensive acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, is a challenge for the Continue reading »
There are two major dimensions to the US/China strategic competition. One is ideology; the other is economics. Who will eventually win depends on who has a better combination of the two; discounting a war in which all will lose. There is a Chinese saying that a tree without deep roots easily falls over. Both the Continue reading »
A radical approach to building an ecologically sustainable and socially just society. Collectively we are driving Earth and civilisation towards collapse. Human activities have exceeded planetary boundaries. We are changing the climate, losing biodiversity, degrading land, contaminating freshwater, and damaging the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles upon which we all depend. We ask how this could happen. Continue reading »
I enjoyed seeing Susan Glasser in The New Yorker take precisely my view of the polarisation and dysfunction in Washington and how it must be seen as an influence on US behaviour. Read the full article here: For more on this topic, we recommend: Australia’s real status as a submissive ally Continue reading »
Like the occasional failure of a president to pronounce the name of our prime minister, US President Joe Biden cancelling his attendance at the QUAD is a reminder that America needs to balance bilateral relationships with 192 nation states and that up to 20 flatter themselves that their relationship is a special one. One time Continue reading »
There are numerous signs that the United States is undergoing a secular and irreversible process of decline, especially relative to China and other powerful developing nations. The global influence of the US in the military, diplomatic, economic, technological, ideological, and cultural realms is declining unabatedly. In recent years, this process has sped up and is Continue reading »
Carlin gives his impressions of the war in Ukraine during a visit to the country. There may be peace one day, but there will never be love from the Ukrainian side. After a week walking the streets of Kyiv in which, to my enormous surprise, I had not seen any sign of war, the Russians Continue reading »