If he wins, Donald Trump says he could bring about the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine between his election and inauguration. The deal might just destabilise the West and reshape the global order.
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Author: Mike Scrafton
How democratic are the Western democracies?
Somehow, electoral success for new, rising parties in a democracy is now a threat to democracy. While relatively poor electoral outcomes for parties who have traditionally dominated – securing only around a third of the vote – is enough to give these parties an unquestioned right to govern.
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Would Harris adopt the militarism of the failed Biden Doctrine?
As Trump’s prospects of electoral success seem to fade, the question becomes whether as president Kamala Harris would carve out a different foreign policy path from the failing Biden Doctrine.
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Is the US likely to use the newly-minted AUKUS ‘get-out’ clauses?
By 2028, the next US administration may need to decide between adherence to the AUKUS deal as structured, or ensuring the operational viability of America’s own nuclear submarine force. Is there potential for the US to withdraw from AUKUS?
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Trump and Vance’s theocratic republic of America
The theocratic elements of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership unmistakably resonate with Trump’s and Vance’s views. In these key aspects of the policy program, Trump’s efforts to disown Project 2025 must be seen as disingenuous. The implications should not be ignored.
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Beyond the stockade – is Australia ready for US isolationism?
Longing for a simpler time when neither market capitalism, nor the values of the American individualist, materialist culture, were questioned, and when American preeminence was unchallenged, Trump’s impulse is to withdraw and close the gates. For Australia the repercussions could be profound.
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Let’s not forget our obligations to future generations
Will the ‘pivotal generation’ meet its moral obligation to act on timely greenhouse gas emission elimination, and urgent, effective and equitable climate change mitigation and adaptation actions? Cheap energy will not be the only preoccupation of future generations or the only yardstick by which they judge the actions of the current generation.
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The aimlessness of the G7 on Ukraine only delays the inevitable
At some point there must come a crisis. The G7 and their allies and partners will either have to cease their support for Ukraine as the toll and costs become too great, or decide that the defeat of Russia is of such importance to them collectively that they engage militarily in the conflict.
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Biden’s distorted D-Day history seeks to rally others to his endless wars
Over and over, generations of political leaders have fallen for the delusion that death and destruction bring a resolution to political problems, and people from many nations have bravely sacrificed themselves, whatever the casus belli. To remember their sacrifices is right; but to distort that memory to foster more war is abhorrent.
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Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS
How long can Australian politicians continue with the pretence that the American alliance aligns with the nation’s interests? Trump or Biden? It doesn’t really matter except for determining the path of America’s decline into illiberalism. ANZUS must be exited. The impetus to escape from ANZUS will have to come from the voters.
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Australia’s AUKUS Tributes
At this time of rising living costs, economic uncertainty, and impending climate disaster, subsidising the US and UK submarine construction industrial bases is the obvious priority for the Australian government. With massive taxpayer funds flowing through the government’s hands on the basis of media releases, are there yet to be revealed details that will explain to the taxpayer how these contributions aren’t just tributes?
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The new Pericles: Marles, master of the Seas
Australia’s future maritime warfare capability is now to include the ‘Enhanced Lethality Surface Combatant Fleet’. Requiring, like the AUKUS submarines, ambitious naval acquisition and construction programs with long lead-times before delivery, serious questions are raised about how the ELSCF responds to assessments of Australia’s strategic circumstances – and of the extent to which it would be just another contribution by Australian taxpayers to US military forces.
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Biden re-elected could be the worst strategic outcome for Australia
A second Trump administration might mean domestic chaos, violence, and division for the American Republic. However, the danger is that Biden would be more likely to lead the world into catastrophic war. Sadly, on this score at least, another Trump imperium could be the least worst outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.
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Ethics-free realism explains, but shouldn’t justify, Western responses to Gaza
How can the flood of crocodile tears from western governments for the Palestinians, without ever condemning America as the arsenal of Israel’s war on women and children, be explained? What logic explains the weak remonstrations against Israel and the failure to see war crimes in Ukraine and in Gaza as indistinguishable?
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Biden’s fanaticism might be a threat to peace everywhere
President Biden’s regular paeans to America as “the greatest nation in history” need to be a warning to Australian policy-makers that a second term for him could be worse for Australia than the election of Trump. Biden’s obsession with the challenge of China is not just geopolitics. It’s a fanaticism that makes war conceivable, possibly inevitable.
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Biden’s Valley Forge myth-making divides America and boosts Trump
Avoiding a Trump presidency requires Biden finding some compromise or accommodation with alienated voters. Instead he has opted for division; his camp are the real patriots, just like Trump calls his followers real Americans. The other side are the implacable enemy, and when the election is over, rather than increased unity, for many the result will be seen as a terrible, maybe existential, defeat.
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“O tempora. O mores.” Will the American republic survive the continuing corrosion of political norms?
The norms, customs, and conventions that have been the foundations of American republicanism are dissolving. Perhaps more precipitously than in the Roman Republic, liberal democracy seems to be passing in America.
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AUKUS: Conroy’s justification of the “greatest industrial undertaking” falls short
Extravagant claims are made about the capability that the proposed AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines will give to Australia. The latest from Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy are particularly puzzling.
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Australians need to know what lies beneath the new era of US-Australia strategic cooperation
Prime Minister Albanese has announced new commitments to the United States which have the potential to give American institutions and agencies access to the inside workings of Australian intelligence, research, and business in ways that will not be, and could not be, reciprocated.
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Western leaders must acknowledge Israel’s rights are not untrammelled
Israel’s right to defend itself is not untrammelled and by implying that it is, political leaders are undermining the authority of international law. Instead, they should be drawing heavily on it to halt the carnage in Gaza and the colonisation of the West Bank.
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