Articles by: "Allan Behm"
A return to diplomacy could save China from itself

Zhou Enlai, China’s first premier, was arguably one of the best diplomats of the 20th century. Maintaining connections between the outside world and a revolutionary government that had thrown out the baby, the bathwater and …

Where to with China?

The ramshackle character of public policy is most clearly on show when senior ministers go freelancing. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s leap into the China fray might have felt good to a frustrated former policeman, …

How to defend Australia: can the circle be squared?

Hugh White’s book How to defend Australia tries to square the circle that has become the global community’s critical security problem: reconciling China’s growing strategic power with the dramatic loss of US strategic authority. China …

When the going gets tough…

…the tough get going—trite, perhaps, but appropriate in our current circumstances. 2016 ends in a much darker place than it started. The sense of reluctant resignation with which the year began has morphed into doubt …

Trumped by the Joker?

If Heath Ledger could comment on the outcome of the US Presidential contest, he might suggest that, in politics and human commerce more generally, life imitates art. His portrayal of anarchy and disruption in The …

It’s time for a transformational foreign policy

Australia needs a forward-looking foreign policy to guide the efforts of our hardworking diplomats. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s intention, as reported recently, to commission a Foreign Policy White Paper is timely. As Graeme Dobell’s post …