Indonesia shapes Australia’s regional dreams and darkens its strategic nightmares. The only constant of the Indonesia effect is the constant shape-shifting of a roller-coaster relationship. A vivid version of the wild ride is the period …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
The autocrat sits at his hu-u-u-u-u-u-uge table. Vladimir imagines power and pomp. But the picture the world sees is Putin isolated and unable to hear. If the man wasn’t a war criminal brandishing nukes, the …
A pundit’s privilege at year’s end is to pronounce on the progress of presidents and princes and point the paths of power. Wield a broad-brush broadsword to dub the winners and smite the losers. The …
Here’s the ‘darkening’ security outlook for the Indo-Pacific for 2023. The US worries, ‘Will China let us have peace?’ Japan finds itself at the security crossroads due to ‘the resurgence of great power competition’. Canada …
A riot in a South Pacific city is a political act as well as a spree of violence and looting. The urban riot is an extreme expression of political and economic failure in the islands. …
A new Labor government takes office, threatened by a global recession, seeking a new start with China, and worried by war in a ‘time of entrenched geopolitical competition and stark divisions’. A tough menu confronted …
The Labor government has given a ‘firm’ view to the parliamentary inquiry on war powers: don’t disturb the executive’s prerogative for sending Australia to war. But the reference letter to the committee says there’s room …
To examine how Australia goes to war, parliament must examine itself. How much can parliament touch the war prerogative of the prime minister and cabinet? What say should parliament have, if any, in the most …
The Covid-19 pandemic marks the end of the great era of globalisation. Now the troubled times of decoupling arrive. We are at a Matthew Arnold moment: Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless …
Australia’s quasi-alliance with Japan becomes less quasi and more alliance. The Australia–Japan partnership now uses language sourced from the 70-year-old ANZUS treaty, as the shared alliance with the US is emphasised. In Perth on 22 …
When straddling a barbed-wire fence, shifting your feet risks a wound ranging from hurt to horrendous. Shift carefully, not carelessly or inadvertently. For two decades, Australia has been doing a delicate straddle between Papua New …
When Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901, it was at war in South Africa and China. The six Australian colonies had sent militia and bushmen contingents to the Boer War (1899–1902) and dispatched …