The Australian prime minister’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update has many strengths, but it does not address the critical factors of diplomacy and development. Australia’s unbalanced strategic posture risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Secondary sanctions are a potent form of economic coercion that allows the US to extend its jurisdiction well beyond its borders, enabling interference in other nations’ foreign policy independence and infringing other nations’ sovereignty. Knudsen argues that economic autonomy depends on displacing the US from the central role in international finance.
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An impressive article by Michael Hirsh, which manages to be: a review of Barry Gewen’s “incisive new intellectual history of Kissinger and his times”, The Inevitability of Tragedy; an insightful enumeration of some key social, economic and strategic challenges the world currently faces; and a useful commentary on the US-China rivalry and the accompanying geostrategic shifts.
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Author: Greg Raymond | The Conversation (Australia) | 22 November 2018 What strategic developments did the 2016 Defence White Paper not anticipate? Do any of these point to a need to radically change Australia’s defence posture? Which of these equate to risks that increased defence spending can obviate? Although written in late 2018, it’s arguable that this article’s observations and judgements have stood the test of time, perhaps taking on greater resonance in the wake of the
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A detailed, informative and comprehensive policy paper covering the span of the current state of EU-China relations as the growing economic power of China, and Europe’s awkward situation in the US-China trade war, puts enormous pressure on the EU to find a way to manage relations with China.
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Under President Putin Russian foreign policy is more energetic than at anytime since the end of the Soviet Union. In Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere, Russia’s influence has grown. While the US has declared Russia a strategic adversary, its behaviour and policies are of even deeper direct relevance to Europe. Understanding Russia’s motivations is of growing importance.
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A survey of Central and Eastern European countries exposes the shallow roots of liberal democracy, with significant numbers indicating that they would trade off democratic freedoms for greater security, welfare, and preservation of traditional values. In only half of surveyed countries would a majority of the respondents choose liberal democracy over an autocratic leader.
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Realism is sometimes regarded as the foundational international relations theory. In this thoughtful piece, Seth A Johnston notes that realist scholars of international relations see the coronavirus pandemic as helping to validate the realist school of thought. But, asks Johnston, has the pandemic also exposed realism’s shortcomings as a source for successful policy?
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Is the pandemic not just a test for healthcare systems around the world, but an international contest for which country has the best political system? Did democracies really respond to the Covid-19 pandemic less swiftly than authoritarian systems – and if the determining factor is not the political system, what are the key elements in crisis response?
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The latest BTI Transformation Index shows that the rule of law and political freedoms are being eroded in an increasing number of democracies, and the number of people who are governed poorly and less democratically is increasing worldwide. The BTI ratings for quality of democracy, market economy and governance have dropped to their lowest level.
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In this interesting article Heisbourg frames his speculation about the transformation taking place the international environment in terms of a shift from a structured system founded on US-sponsored liberal values to a more dog-eat-dog anarchic situation: in this new “post alliance” arrangement dominated by sovereignism, transactionalism, and authoritarianism, the US, China and Russia will be the top predators.
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One of the more disturbing tendencies of modern governments is ‘securitisation’ – transforming policy problems into threats, thereby elevating them into the national security domain. In many western democracies security is accorded pre-eminent status among the various domains of public policy, creating the preconditions for securitisation to elevate the levels of state intervention in a way that displays, emphasises and enhances the power of the state and its control over its citizens.
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After COVID, the world may once again be flat and hyperconnected. Alternatively, coronavirus may be a turning point in the era of globalisation.
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Author Lauren Schwartz | Friedrich Ebert Stiftung | Published 21 April 2020 Lauren Schwartz considers what US foreign policy might look like under a Democrat president – after Trump, and after coronavirus. The paper canvasses “30 years of ambivalent foreign policy” – from 1989 through to 2020, and a Trump administration prepared to signal its willingness and ability to adopt a more competitive approach towards its rivals, militarily, economically and diplomatically. A new American foreign
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Governments point to scientific advice. Who gets included in powerful expert groups, who gets sidelined and why? Why is epidemiology dominant? What values are implicit in behavioural science techniques like ‘nudging’?
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According to a report released in January 2020 by the Bennett Institute (Cambridge), many large democracies are now at their highest-ever recorded level for democratic dissatisfaction, including the UK, US, Brazil, Mexico and Australia. Many large democracies are now at their highest-ever recorded level for democratic dissatisfaction, including the UK, US, Brazil, Mexico and Australia A report released in January 2020 by the new Centre for the Future of Democracy at the Bennett Institute, University
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An insightful paper that seeks a strategy for Europe ‘to escape the bipolar logic that demands it choose between the American and Chinese economic/technological spheres’. The recommendations for Europe should resonate equally in Australia – a country already caught up in the global competition for influence, and likely to be subject to ‘increased pressure from Washington on its allies to take a clear position on the sharpening US-China conflict and clearly side with the United States’.
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Former Australian politician, Dr John Hewson, now chair of Australia’s Commission for the Human Future and a professorial fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, warns that ‘the coronavirus pandemic should be seen as a dress rehearsal for what awaits us if we continue to ignore the laws of science, the physical world and the demands of several catastrophic threats such as climate change’.
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How appropriate is behavioural economics as a basis for making public policy? Should it be called ‘science’? What does the evidence tell us?
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This publication brings together insights of leading international scholars and next-generation expertsto produce a comprehensive and authoritative reference examining the interplay of strategic issues, including nuclear strategy and deterrence; maritime operational issues, including ASW; and technology issues, including new and disruptive technologies and potential game-changers in relation to deterrence.
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