President Obama was a good ally. His agreement to take up to 1250 refugees placed by us in the Pacific was as extraordinary as it was helpful. As Ambassador in Washington I found a degree …
Articles by: "Kim Beazley"
In its dying moments the 114th Congress passed a bill, the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, and then, for the only time in Barack Obama’s presidency, overrode his veto. The legislation negates the international …
I was permitted a point of pride late last year when reports came in that Australia’s decoy rocket, Nulka, diverted a missile attack on the American warship USS Mason off the coast of Yemen. As …
As a number of commentators have observed the phone call between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US President-elect Donald Trump has set a cat among the pigeons. It has breached a practice in place since …
Donald Trump spoke to Malcolm Turnbull within 24 hours of his election. The event produced a quaint response in commentary redolent of an older era in the character of allied relationships. On the one hand, …
Des Ball was one of Australia’s greatest strategic thinkers and analysts; an unassuming patriot. His thoughts and analysis pervaded Australian political debate and consideration of our national security interests for decades. His output and his …
At this point in the US Presidential campaign, the momentum is with Donald Trump. Were the trend to continue, he’d be elected. Outside the US his serial deceits and appallingly bombastic narcissism is redolent of …
This is an era of intense political news management by governments. It’s an extraordinary thing that one of the governments that has been most effective at it, the Howard Government, put in place an organisation …
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter told the world at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue, that ‘the US-Australia alliance is more and more a global one. As our two nations work together to uphold the freedom of …
This piece is drawn from Agenda for Change 2016: strategic choices for the next government. The 2016 Defence White Paper didn’t end the contemporary defence debate, it began it. Our strategic environment is full of …
‘If the world is increasingly divided between fire fighters and arsonists then Britain has, for centuries been a fire fighter. This is no time for Britain to join the ranks of the arsonists and there …
While I was Ambassador to the US, I visited Electric Boat’s yard in Groton, Connecticut, where the US Navy’s latest Virginia class nuclear submarines are under construction. This wasn’t an indulgence. Part of my job …