This year will mark 25 years since then Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans delivered a landmark address (PDF) to an Australia–Indonesia business group in Bali, in which he first raised the importance of ‘building ballast’ into …
Tag Archive for: "foreign policy"
There is reason to be pleased with the defence outcomes of the 2 plus 2 meeting just concluded in Jakarta. For once delivered without hype, the meeting’s communiqué points to solid progress in building a …
The Australian public service has two modes for offering its famed frank and fearless advice to ministers. One method is ‘stand ready’. The much rarer, high risk approach is ‘cop this’. In stand ready mode, …
If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain from examining its lousy performance in the processes that took Australia to war in Vietnam and Iraq. For Australia, …
Graeme Dobell makes some contentious arguments about Australia’s decision-making processes when determining our involvement in the American-led Iraq war of ten years ago. They are contentious because many of Canberra’s mandarins remain in place, people …