So now we know. Saddam Hussein didn’t present an imminent threat. He could have been contained. He didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. And the consequences of the invasion were profoundly underestimated…
- Adjunct Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney
People all over the world are overthrowing oppressive and unrepresentative bureaucracies. Old orders are collapsing and new ones are bursting forth to take their place in an unstoppable surge of people…
Sometimes cliches and hyperbole are inescapable. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union really is momentous; it really will reshape Europe’s political landscape; things really will never be quite…
Rolling reaction from the US, Russia, France, Poland, Greece, Australia and Belgium to the UK’s decision.
Discussion of foreign policy remains conspicuous by its absence in Australia’s remarkably dull and insular election campaign. One might have thought given the turbulence in international affairs that the…
There is so much going on in the world these days it’s sometimes possible to focus on the ephemeral and the inconsequential rather than the long-term structural changes that are likely to shape the international…
Australians are not unique in being rather uninterested in foreign affairs, but one might have thought this time things would be different.
I am frequently told off by The Conversation’s very informed and sometimes opinionated readership for writing about things that are outside my supposed area of expertise. But on the topic of TC’s innovative…
Richard Di Natale’s address to the Lowy Institute was something of a landmark in the evolution of the Australian Greens’ policy agenda.
Fifty years ago on May 16 the Cultural Revolution began. Don’t expect this event to be given much attention in China itself, though. The reality is that despite Mao Zedong’s continuing iconic status, his…
Just when you might have thought the Philippines was on the mend, morbid symptoms of untreated problems re-emerge. It really shouldn’t be this way. It may seem hard to believe in retrospect, but in the…
A brisk ten-minute walk from where I currently live gets me to Place de la République. Before you get there these days you will see large numbers of gendarmes in riot gear, hear the sounds of a largish…
Geography matters. Whether countries are rich or poor or safe or vulnerable still has more to do with physical geography than we usually acknowledge. Even in age that is routinely described as “global…
It’s not every day we get to see a country seemingly intent on committing political suicide. And yet, despite the pleas of concerned friends and independent evidence about its potential political and economic…
The principal consequence of Australia’s inevitable but little-debated decision to acquire submarines is to contribute to a rapidly escalating regional arms race.
Before European imperialism fatally undermined China’s own dynastic system, it was customary for China’s neighbours to acknowledge its dominance by sending tribute missions to the imperial court. While…
Some things never change, it seems. For my entire life people have been protesting about the madness of nuclear weapons. Policymakers have been studiously ignoring such protests for just as long. Not only…
For anyone who has been following Malcolm Turnbull’s progress as prime minister, his much-anticipated speech to the Lowy Institute contained few real surprises, other that the fact that it was inevitably…
What goes on in the mind of a suicide bomber? What motivates someone to spend their last day on the planet blowing up complete strangers? Bad enough, perhaps, if the strangers in question are soldiers…
There’s an old joke about Brazil that suggests that it’s the country of the future – and it always will be. For a while this looked to be an anachronistic, possibly racist stereotype that had been decisively…
One of Oscar Wilde’s more memorable and inspiring aphorisms claimed that a map of the world without utopia on it is not worth looking at. While many might agree with the sentiment, the theory – let alone…
Is it time to think the unthinkable? Could Donald Trump actually become the next president of the United States? He already looks a certainty to become the Republican nominee – something not many pundits…
To say the defence white paper was “much anticipated” would be an understatement. Was it worth the wait in the end? That rather depends on who you are and what your assessment of the risks Australia faces…
It didn’t take long for the political honeymoon to end. Malcolm Turnbull may still be far more popular than the man he removed, but he is now being accused of Abbottesque failings. He can’t sell difficult…
US President Barack Obama is about to play host to the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). While this motley collection of autocrats, kleptocrats, and even some democrats will…
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