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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Nations continue to develop climate policies within a framework that prioritises economic growth, despite the starkly evident failure of this approach to achieve emissions reduction. Surely we must now recognise that the timetable for getting to net zero cannot be left to the hope that private capital and markets will prove to be up to saving millions of lives?
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The turning point at which the American hegemony began to irretrievably unravel will retrospectively be judged as the reaction of the Biden Administration to the Gaza crisis. Amid the pomp of an Official Visit to Washington did the Australian Prime Minister sense the enormity of the moment? As he paid homage to the hegemon, could he feel the facade crumbling to reveal America’s slipping power?
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The 2023 Intergenerational Report displays unwarranted optimism about the impacts and consequences that global warming will have on Australia. A problem anchored in the ongoing misconception that global warming is an economic issue and that markets will save us in the end.
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From the moment it was sworn in, the Albanese government has been swept up in a series of defence arrangements with the Americans with far-reaching implications for Australia’s ability to act independently and in its own interests. The nation’s intelligence function is the latest casualty.
Read moreAn open letter signed by concerned university academics argues that the public case for AUKUS has yet to be made, and calls on the government not to proceed with the development of a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability for Australia until issues raised are addressed.
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America’s space policy reveals its hegemonic obsession and exposes the future quandaries for Australia. How will Australia confront the inevitable question of whether to support a peaceful or a militarised exploration of space?
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The AUKUS submarines are not expected to get wet until more than 30 years from now, and then to operate until at least the late 21st century. Whatever the government’s thinking is, it cannot centre on a genuine belief that the project addresses Australia’s current pressing strategic needs.
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A recent ASPI report, arguing for Australia’s acquisition of the B-21 Raider long-range stealth bomber, sees the return of the ‘adversary-base-in-the-archipelago’ bogeyman. Hopefully the forthcoming Defence Strategy Review will not similarly rely on wildly improbable assumptions to justify very costly investments.
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Arguably, the Americans have brilliantly played successive Australian governments by casting the shiny lure of nuclear submarines out somewhere in the distant future and reeling in control of Australia’s defence policy.
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On PM Albanese’s watch Australia has, without explanation, agreed to host US B-52H Stratofortress aircraft: “a nuclear stand-off platform with global reach”. The recent US National Defence Strategy provides the missing context, and effectively confirms Australia’s role in American nuclear war planning.
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B-52s are part of the US’s nuclear capability. Basing these aircraft at RAAF Tindal draws Australia into America’s nuclear war planning. How did Australia come to this? And why?
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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 rebirth of a lost innovative technological utopia requires a vibrant, stable polity that tolerates debate, dissent, and difference; and supports objective research standards. America looks nothing like this.
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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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The recently announced Defence review looks set to be much more than the promised ‘force posture review’. The opportunity to anchor Australia’s strategy and military posture in a broad appreciation of a significantly changed international environment should not be lost.
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Submission to US strategic objectives is often on display as new Australian Defence Ministers ritually wend their way to Washington to offer up jaded homilies, full of hagiographic accounts of ANZUS and strained assertions of shared values. The new Minister’s recent visit, however, foreshadows a more dangerous abandonment of fundamental elements of national sovereignty.
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Credit is due to Australia’s new Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for moving swiftly to correct the foreign and climate policy failures of the Morrison era. But shouldn’t there be a similar rethinking and resetting of strategic policy?
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In Australia, bipartisanship over defence has mutated into a democratic pathology. A courageous new Defence minister committed to transparency and participatory democracy is required.
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In the 2022 election, too much is at stake for Australians to be duped into thinking that they ”remain well prepared for the future”, and into believing that everything can be fixed by unregulated economic growth.
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