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Tag: Mike Pezzullo

Warriors, war and Mike Pezzullo’s ANZAC Day message

8 May 2021 Mike Scrafton Australian focus

What are the ‘drums of war’ that senior Australian public servant, Michael Pezzullo, can hear? His words have been understood as echoing anti-China warmongering found among some commentators and hinting strongly at the current hysteria around Taiwan. So how did the Australian government deal with a senior public servant stepping into the political limelight in this way?

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Extremism and race: slaying the phantom

27 March 2019 Mike Scrafton Australian focus

The conviction that racial differences account for behaviours and values in the real world, although erroneous, is strongly held by some. Singling out the racism of extremists as being exceptional risks obscuring the authorising environment in which they operate.

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The Nationhood Power: a senior public servant’s radical and disturbing view on Executive government in Australia

4 February 2019 Mike Scrafton Australian focus

We should pay close attention when Michael Pezzullo connects together a dubious ‘social contract’, some muddled history, superficial legal references, and an almost mystical connection between the Executive and the ‘common good’ with some as yet poorly understood ‘nationhood power.’

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Mike Pezzullo: from hobbit to Hobbes

25 October 2017 Mike Scrafton Australian focus, From the archive

According to Mike Pezzullo, Australians are like ‘comfortable hobbits’ – blissfully unaware of the grave dangers that exist beyond their borders and ill-prepared for the ‘emerging … “dark universe”’ of globalised ‘terror, crime, and indeed evil’. Pezzullo’s proposed response is radical and revolutionary and alarming.

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Featured

Pseudo-science, race and the US National Security Strategy 2025

19 December 2025

Threads of former dark episodes in America’s past are woven through its 2025 National Security Strategy. Unmistakable echoes of anti-democratic elitism, race theories, and eugenics. America’s allies should be alarmed at the vision promised to be imposed by strength and direct interference.

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You may have missed

A requiem for the Indo-Pacific Strategy: Trump’s Arctic pivot

13 March 2025

Don’t expect to hear Trump going on about the Indo-Pacific. His designs on Canada and Greenland signal a shift in prime strategic focus to access to mineral and other resources in the Arctic. And with it a willingness to collude with strong players to divide up the resources.

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Three compelling reasons to exit ANZUS

15 May 2024

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, but the impetus will have to come from voters.

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About Mike Scrafton

Mike Scrafton is a regularly-published writer on Australian and international affairs. A former government senior executive, ministerial adviser and consultant, Mike now combines travelling, research and writing – with a particular focus on current issues in defence and strategic policy, and responses to climate change. Read more about Mike here.

Most viewed posts

  • Are we paying enough attention to Trump’s Gleichschaltung-like ‘Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership’? 27 September 2023
  • Could Australia find the courage to end its alliance with America? 23 June 2023
  • Republicans push for Mexican-American war: Don’t rule it out 30 August 2023
  • Ethics-free realism explains, but shouldn’t justify, Western responses to Gaza 28 January 2024
  • Trump and Vance’s theocratic republic of America 3 August 2024
  • An American theocracy: the advance of Christian nationalism 26 January 2021
  • Trump’s quick deal with Putin could reshape the global order 19 September 2024
  • Postwar Ukraine will pose the hardest problems 13 March 2023
  • Australia’s foreign policy: Resurgent realism or the survival of multilateralism? 5 July 2020
  • Western leaders must acknowledge Israel’s rights are not untrammelled 17 November 2023

Disclaimer

Mike is an independent writer and derives no income from his writing. He has no current association with any commercial or profit-making organisation, and does not endorse the products or services of any business entity.

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