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.
Read more
Category: Global
Post-liberal, post-democratic and authoritarian. Is that America’s future?
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.
Read more
After 2024 America could be a less reliable ally than under Trump
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.
Read more
US National Security Strategy: dogma for a misconceived crusade
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?
Read more
America’s proposed Taiwan Policy Act could be a game-changing act of provocation
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?
Read more
Would Australian defence of Taiwan amount to the crime of aggression?
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?
Read more
War over the rules-based order doesn’t make sense
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.
Read more
The American sophist: Blinken weaves a Bidenesque fantasy
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.
Read more
Ethics and war: the Ukrainian tragedy
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.
Read more
Why the West must tread carefully in assessing China
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?
Read more
Biden’s folly: a virtual summit with real consequences
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.
Read more
Afghanistan is a warning for all US allies
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.
Read more
The ‘enemy within the gates’: the key to American politics
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?
Read more
The NATO communique highlights Europe’s strategic concern: Russia
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.
Read more
Biden’s hopes fall short in G7 communique
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.
Read more
Once was a hegemon: Australia and the decline of the US
Australia’s Indo-Pacific obsession hides a radical global geopolitical shift, and denies the reality that US hegemony has passed a tipping point. Increasingly, the decisive great power actor(s) in any situation will be context specific, with delineation of spheres of influence and shifting balance of power arrangements requiring Australia to be nimble, smart, and independent.
Read more
Capitalism, Covid-19, and climate change
Does the Covid-19 vaccine response foreshadow how well the market-based capitalist system will address global warming? If so, and unless governments determine that saving the planet and avoiding a dangerous future for coming generations is at least as important as corporate profits and shareholder dividends, there is little chance of success in the time available.
Read more
A Minneapolis community and systematic racism
George Floyd’s death has had an international impact and the vision of him dying shocked people everywhere. For outsiders this trial is an small insight into the reality of systemic racism. It not only occasionally kills. It is a constant presence. It puts whole communities in a state of perpetual preparedness, where the worst is always to be anticipated.
Read more
Shifting national interests put Biden’s alliance strategy in doubt
The enormous military power of America will continue to make alliances with it attractive. But the Europeans and East Asians will strive to balance their alliances with their economic entanglement with China. America might find diplomatic support against China, but will in all likelihood find itself alone in a war with China in East Asia.
Read more
Refreshingly, Biden’s Middle East diplomacy looks strategic
President Trump left the Middle East in a parlous state. President Biden’s first steps in the region look more promising. The shift in America’s policy in the region, while subtle, is clear; and the messages it is sending will be received in Tel Aviv, Tehran, and Riyadh.
Read more