Tag Archive for: "DFAT"
Finding Australia’s soft power

Last week, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop launched Australia’s first-ever review of soft power. It’s a bold move, flagging a new reality that Australia must engage more strategically through official and public diplomacy if it is …

The power of soft power

While Heisenberg proclaims the uncertainty principle, a public service inquiry operates on the certainty principle. Not for government, Heisenberg’s quantum insight about the impossibility of simultaneously measuring position and momentum; nor the observer effect—that to …

Australia’s foreign policy: burying the myth

The Turnbull government’s foreign-policy white paper is due any day, and it’s a fair bet it will not recommend what is fashionably called an ‘independent foreign policy’. That is bound to upset many intellectuals, former …

Beyond (Hugh) White papers

If Australian politicians are certain about one thing regarding the future, it’s that ‘we do not have to choose’ between the US and China. This panglossian optimism is easily mocked, though a small industry of …