Australian foreign policy is characterised by the perpetual dilemma of grand strategy: aligning lofty aspirations (shaping the Indo-Pacific) with limited resources (a population of 26 million and relative economic decline). If Australia is to meet …
Tag Archive for: "foreign affairs"
A retired secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs is fulminating that the department is in a deplorable ‘crisis’. ‘The quality and conduct of Australia’s foreign relations are suffering’, he writes. The government doesn’t love …
At least five things prompt me to write this piece. First, as the defence adviser at the Indian high commission in Canberra from 2005 to 2008, I was initially impressed by the single Department of …
Tim Fischer belongs to a unique generation of Australian political leaders we are farewelling fast, including Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke. Whether you agreed with their ideology or not, you could not but …
Australia was grasping for soft power long before the term ‘soft power’ was invented. Here’s an official example from 32 years ago: Countries still achieve their international objectives by threat, bribe or persuasion. Australia has …