Social change creates the space for revolutionary new thoughts. A rejection of liberalism and democracy is evident – even in nations that have been liberal democracies the longest. Trump could prove an ill-disguised Trojan horse for a vanguard of illiberal crusaders in pursuit of a post liberal America.
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As it stands, the leading Republican US presidential hopefuls, and much of their base, are supportive of military action against Mexico. What would it mean if America invaded Mexico in 2025?
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Biden, Trump, or DeSantis; the zealot, the disrupter, or the ideologue. Trump is Trump. Biden’s failing democracy crusade is already fracturing the world into opposing camps. Where would a DeSantis presidency lead?
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Past experience suggests that the postwar outcome in Ukraine could be a destabilised and failing state. Win, lose or stalemate, the postwar environment in Ukraine is likely to pose significant challenges for the EU and NATO.
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Even in the improbable setting of a joint media conference in Jerusalem, US Secretary of State Blinken serves up the ‘shared values’ narrative of higher motives underlying US foreign policy. But the real values on display are not universal and enduring – they are fluid, adaptable and self-serving.
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The Ukrainians have little reason to negotiate now. The NATO allies and partners are locked in and Ukraine’s strategic objective has now become the objective of the Europeans and North Americans.
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A group with the potential to capture the state appears to be forming in the US – coalescing around a set of illiberal and authoritarian ideas. Australian observers, commentators, and policy-makers need to watch this movement closely.
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Formidable illiberal forces are emerging in the US, which, in power, could have profound consequences for America domestically and for America’s position in the world. After the 2024 US presidential election, America’s reliability, predictability, and compatibility as an ally could even be less than under Trump.
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The new US National Security Strategy sets out the preconditions for a secure and prosperous future for all – with China meekly deferring to American intent on shaping the international order in line with American interests and values. What could go wrong?
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The US’s proposed Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, if approved, would bring the prospect of war in the Asia-Pacific closer. The draft legislation foreshadows radical changes in US policy, amounting to abandonment of the one-China policy and de facto recognition of Taiwan as a state. What does this mean for Australia?
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The people of Taiwan are in a deeply unenviable position. But international law is neutral over political systems, and Taiwan’s democracy gives it no special right to secede. Does advocating for this make Australia a revisionist state?
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Going to war over the ‘rules-based order’ seems unremarkable to our leaders. Its nature, and how it would be preserved by conflict, seems to be intuitively perceived by them. Yet, the elevation of the rules-based order to a status so sacrosanct that the destruction of civilisation is justified in its defence demands investigation.
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Bidenesque tales of a beneficent and wise ruler, who only wants his land to be the richest and strongest nation because of the benefit that it would bring to all, can’t be allowed to obscure the real situation in America, nor its brutally realist pursuit of its own interests through power.
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Russia’s President Putin rightly bears the greatest moral and legal opprobrium for the appalling death toll, atrocities, and destruction in Ukraine. But once the war reaches its conclusion, retrospectively the contribution of others will come under closer scrutiny.
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To either over-emphasise or understate the challenge presented by China is perilous. So Is Paul Dibb right to suggest that the West is failing to see China’s weakness, much as it failed to understand the weakness of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s?
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US President Biden’s proposed virtual Summit for Democracy looks like an enormous gamble at a time when the biggest challenges facing the global community will require the engagement, coordination, and cooperation of all states, not only democratic ones.
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As an ally of the US, Australia should be reflecting deeply on America’s third major postwar strategic fiasco. In each, the allies have been let down or suffered. In Afghanistan, in the final analysis, US domestic politics and US interests determined its actions. Allies were left to make do.
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US political factions seem to have moved beyond seeing each other as legitimate competitors in a democratic marketplace of ideas. The other side is perceived as the holder of totally unacceptable moral, economic, and political ideas and values, and only their total overthrow will suffice. Each side sees the other as the “enemy inside the gates”. Can the divisions in America be resolved in a pluralistic compromise?
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Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison might have gone to Europe with the Indo-Pacific region “is the epicentre of renewed strategic competition” mantra on his lips, but the NATO communique reflects the reality that it is Russia, not China, that fills Europe’s strategic horizon.
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Despite expectations in some quarters that the Americans would stamp their world view and priorities on the G7, it is clear from how the communique deals with Russia and China that the European concern for strategic autonomy was influential in its drafting. President Biden’s hopes for a strong position against China did not materialise as Russia received greater attention.
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