Comments on the Iraq war, from 2003 onwards

 For many years I had a web hosting site with many different domain names for projects in many places. 

I am pasting here one page begun after the beginning of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Many of the old links will now not work. Thus disappears history. 

There are links to letters and speeches of mine regarding the Iraq war. The links in the text do not work.  The texts have been resurrected here. 

FORMERLY AT APLACEOF.INFO/PEACE

Responsibility for all comment here is taken by me, Dennis Argall formerly Australian Ambassador to Chin ........ This page contains a body of writing I placed here in 2003-2004 criticising the commitment to the war in Iraq. Tragically every aspect of the Iraq situation has continued to deteriorate. Resort to violence has not worked. It is not what we say we believe in but how we behave from day to day that shapes the world.  'WAR ON TERROR', WAR IN IRAQ Australian commitment to this war represents the single greatest error of strategic judgment in the history of Australian government. Nowra rally speech, Palm Sunday 2003 ...we believe that what has been done in our names is morally, politically and strategically wrong Wollongong rally speech, 3 July 2004 pdf format here In commenting on a joint statement critical of Australia's participation in the invasion of Iraq made on 8 August 2004 by 43 former senior defence force members and public servants, a National Party member of the Australian Parliament De-Anne Kelly said to the media: I think we have to ask the question, these doddering daiquiri diplomats, would they have done any different?... The world has changed too from the comfort zone they lived in. We're now post-Bali, post-September 11, frankly they should keep their opinions to themselves. Mr Warren Entsch, another National Party MP, said: There's a lot of disgruntled old men there that would have certainly had an axe to grind against this Government and the Prime Minister in particular. Prime Minister Howard said his critics must understand that the world has changed since the World Trade Centre attacks. "Every single person who signed that statement had retired from service well before the 11th of September, 2001." Mr Howard says [media reported] many of the signatories are long-standing critics of the Government and what they are saying is not new. Long ago, Martin Luther King said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. More recently, Norman Mailer said: Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it. On 17 February 2003, in reply to the letter in which the PM sent us all fridge magnets with the national security hotline number, I had written to Prime Minister Howard saying: "... the single clearest thing evident to me is that an attack on Iraq won’t work." On Palm Sunday, 13 April 2003, I said in a speech that: It has been suggested by some that, because we are in a place with a significant number of service families, we should from loyalty fall in behind this commitment to war... However as citizens in a democratic country we have not just a RIGHT but an OBLIGATION to be vigilant - VIGILANT that the use of force - the sending of members of our armed forces to fight - only occur: FIRSTLY - on the basis of wise judgment SECOND - as a very last resort  THIRDLY - to advance international security and reduce armed conflict, and FOURTHLY – all that must be consistent with broad Australian national interests. I put it to you that our going to war in Iraq has FAILED ALL FOUR of those tests. I went on to say that: "Australian commitment to the Iraq war represents the single greatest error of strategic judgment in the history of Australian government" [13 April 2003 speech] On 7 September 2003 I wrote to Foreign Minister Downer saying: I have found no reason to alter that judgment [as to the single greatest error] ... I have become increasingly of the view... that it is in the nature of modern war that it tends, more than anything else - certainly it does not tend to ‘victory’ - to import into the righteous invading countries the problems you seek to eliminate by invading... Your assertion of effectiveness of violence in international policy drifts down to validate the use of violence by non-states in international affairs, and increasingly by individuals in national and sub-national affairs, and indeed, I suggest, in domestic life. We are dealing not just with a narrow national security issue but a large ethical dimension. The August 2004 statement by the Gang of 43 was to state that "it is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people." The way in which the Prime Minister has distorted the issues was clear in a speech he gave on 19 May 2004. I commented on this in a letter to the Prime Minister next day. Throughout the development of this writing in 2003-4 I had made comparison of the response to 9/11 with the outbreak of World War I, in 1914. I set this out more extensively in a speech in July 2004. I went on in that speech to make a number of proposals for a more constructive international policy. All that relates to the Iraq war and the impossible 'War on Terror'. We have other sideshows, notably North Korea, which has become a justification for the Howard Government committing Australia to support the US strategic missile defence system. I commented on this on 28 February 2004. So who listens? Here is the Prime Minister, on ABC Radio, 18 August 2004, regarding the matter of what a former defence officer told him about the 'children overboard': "He can have any public servant he likes. I know who spoke to me and I know what they said when I spoke to them. "    Because the Iraq war is a tragedy without prospect of any early end and because we will continue to be confronted in the media by the costs in mainly young lives in the American forces and of those foreigners taken hostage, I draw your attention to this counter of deaths as a result of the war, a database established and maintained by a group in Britain: the basis of their calculations is there for study. Data for civilian deaths in Afghanistan are elusive. They do not seem part of the NATO repertoire. NATO and allied defence force deaths are terrible numbers. Regarding civilian numbers, try this search for recent information, and see links here, here and here. The bitter shadows of all this killing, entangled with problems in the world economy, will last for generations.   UPDATE JUNE 2013 At the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Iraq earlier this year, none of those who led us down that stupid, stupid street apologised. Perhaps we did not demand it. This decade has seen extraordinary change in technology that wraps around and absorbs people; very hard to get people out of self-preoccupation. National insecurity and, I suggest, national pessimism and propensity to turn against democracy, suburban rage and resort to violence all seem to me to be causally related to decisions of our government and others to whack people because they know they are right and it is their right: which pretty adequately also defines gang warfare and domestic violence, on a big rise since 2003. And more boneheads seem to want a wider war, or same war on new front in Syria. Israel's strategic desire to see moslem against moslem is working, more and more weapons will fall into unpredictable hands. UPDATE, 6 December 2012: Jitters now and who knows what just ahead: here comes the US Government's 'fiscal cliff'. Also this current link. In 2013, the race of the allies to get out of Afghanistan without too many more casualties and evolution of clever explanations of a situation likely to implode, politically, ethnically, economically and in institutions proudly set up as symbols of a new Afghanistan. We leave behind destitution, bitterness, corpses, corruption and upheaval postponed. War does not work, but we live in a strange world of continued genuflection to US military power, while the US economy and US government budget sink through crisis after crisis. Among the major factors in US government financial crisis is the cost of wars, so we display this information from costofwar.com. Cost of War in Iraq $826,437,031,420 See more counters at https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/ Cost of War in Afghanistan $975,321,316,798 See more counters at https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/ The costs displayed are those to the US alone, not total of NATO, Australia, etc. References to community are to communities in the United States. See bottom of left column for war costs in deaths. The mayhem in the global economy, the overwhelming problems financing the US economy and the poison from the killing and destruction in these masterful wars will poison human progress for generations. Do read some of the thoughts of Craig Murray former British ambassador. And delve into the minutiae of how a corporation like Halliburton has guzzled money from war and will cease to do so... I suppose you move on, perhaps not least to coal seam gas wars. UPDATE 2011: The end of American intervention. From the Huffington Post 18 December 2011, thus from mainstream despair... but why was it not evident a decade ago: Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup This week, the Pentagon marked the official end to the war in Iraq with a brief ceremony in a secure part of the Baghdad airport -- helicopters hovering protectively overhead. Although Defense Secretary Leon Panetta later declared that the cost paid by America was "worth it," a look at the price tag offers a more sobering assessment: 4,487 U.S. military personnel killed, over 2,000 U.S. government contractors killed, over 40,000 American troops wounded, over 100,000 Iraqis killed, at least 2 million Iraqis displaced from their homes, and a final tab that could ultimately reach $4 trillion doled out by U.S. taxpayers (a far cry from the $50 billion to $80 billion the Defense Department originally predicted it would cost). And beyond the cost in lives and treasure are the less quantifiable costs we'll be paying for years to come, including the strengthening of Iran and the weakening of America's moral standing in the world. The same issue of the Huffington Post linked to a New York Times report about young veterans facing 30% unemployment. As I look back at Australia over this decade, there is more to despair about... a decade of increased casual acceptance of violence not just in foreign policy perspective but also in daily life and in too many instances, domestic life. A shift to faith from thoughtfulness, faith in the virtue of personal belief, the cornerstone of irrational resort to violence. Watching the 2012 presidential campaign in the US shows the mayhem consequences to the extreme. This is a good place to follow it all. We are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan ungovernable, Australia becomes less governable also... and the silence now of people before vocal, who should be very concerned about the decision to base US Marines in Darwin, is disturbing. Whatever the notional merits of that decision, where is the debate? The decision seems to derange some: an intelligent retired non-commissioned officer of the defence force asserted vehemently to me this week that the policy of this Labor government is to cut defence spending by opening all the bases in Western Australia to occupation by US forces. —————————————————————   2010: Compare the cost of war with borrowing, note China's contribution, on same scale as cost of war. See this article on China pulling the plug. See how the Tea Party would close the tap. Compare that cash flow to war with the G8 commitments to implement the Millenium Development Goals at Gleneagles 2005. (I've had to change the link - the UK government page no longer exists, like the commitments). Don't hold your breath on implementation of all that... Read some of the writing of Stephen Lewis. Don't give up on Africa, don't give up seeking sane national policy. Out there are many people like you and I who are searching for the right to restore a vocabulary of national interest and global decency not based on fear and hatred and wild generalisations about good guys and bad guys and fighting evil. Talk to each other. Start at home.   2009 COMMENT ON AFGHANISTAN The new conventional wisdom is that we have to put Iraq behind and concentrate on Afghanistan because we should have done Afghanistan properly instead of Iraq. Thus speaks some new kind of virtue, really restatement of a 2003-2004 argument, never really convincing, needing fresh coherent review. Instead it seems sort of an excuse for American withdrawal from Iraq (we may leave Iraq but don't doubt, we still can biff!) This is inadequate in any kind of reasoning and flies in the face of the realities of history, the nature of anti-insurgent war and the regional political realities. The imperial dream of conquest in Afghanistan is not new, the British began to fail in 1839. It has been a well known principle in anti-insurgent warfare that the numbers of anti-insurgents have to be many times more than the insurgents, well ah, what the number is certainly was not clarified by Vietnam. And there is the key point that the ones you seek to kill may be much nicer people than those who replace them, something the Israelis don't get, but has been argued here regarding Afghanistan (well that's not the original link but relevant). The now not accessible article argued that command strategy in Afghanistan looks unlikely to work. There is no reason, in my view, why it should. It is a fool's errand, in a place foolish to invade, it is the wrong place to be most seriously concerned. Pakistan's survival by non-military means, is the real issue. See here, here and here for opinions on why the new American Afghanistan strategy is not helpful for Pakistan. How inspiring it is to know that one international cricket star (first of those three 'here' links) can think about real matters. Thank you Imran, though the wikipedia contributors do not love you... Well, those links on Pakistan are old, the devastation of Pakistan is now well down the track, and not to be understood through crappy conventional western mentality blurts from dark suited security wanks wonks.

 

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Update, raggedly.

 Much to say in a proper update if I could. Unfortunately all I can say, raggedly, is that you can find some more of my writing in recent weeks here:

https://johnmenadue.com/author/dennis-argall/

 I scribbled this for John Menadue's blog this morning. 

A feast of new reading 3. 

We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride in 2023.

In 2022 I offered a “feast of new reading” in two parts, here and here. 

With changes in the world the media landscape changes, with shifts in particular outlets and new outlets. 

I decided to write this having received the daily email this morning 4 January from Asia Times, headlining this essay from David Goldman:

https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/israel-government-is-new-normal-in-the-middle-east/

David P Goldman is an astonishing modern Renaissance man. My understanding is that having made a fortune as a merchant banking shark before the 2008 crash, he retreated to Hong Kong and eventually bought out the Asia Times with an associate and in some contrition embarked on contrarian news. 

This new item, link also above, blows through many conventional and also critical, negative thinking about Israel. I do not agree with it all but it is essential reading on power variables in the Middle East. At the main page you will see the spread of interests and currently a half price (USD49 p.a.) subscription to the half of their writing which is not free. Above all else, watching Asia Times over recent years is watching the evolution of sensible thinking as seen from Hong Kong.

The South China Morning Post, to which I also subscribe, is the leading English language newspaper of Hong Kong. It is also a way to follow Hong Kong minds, seeing China from the minds of people in Hong Kong. It writes especially for expat and elite English speaking readership. I used to say scathingly that people in Hong Kong knew a lot about… Hong Kong, rather than China. I apply my social anthropologist sniffer dog approach to writing out of Hong Kong.

Recent in my radar is Asia Financial, a British-owned Hong Kong business providing astonishingly interesting daily news. I’ve never received an invitation to subscribe. A lot of it is, like financial news everywhere, full of minor particulars, but it provides a important real money perspectives, contrasting with the simplicities and ignorance of much reporting in Australia on the region. 

From inside China, my mainstays have become the Global Times, fairly widely known as a somewhat tabloid strident (Murdoch on Yangtze, but fact-based) voice of the party. Very valuable, for example as relayed recently in the Menadue blog... and the most valuable China resource, which I access on my iPad, the app of the State Council, also available on the web. The State Council is the cabinet. So the app and website has a main page of current news, click sideways for the state council’s business schedule and decisions, sideways again for the premier (prime minister), then sideways for more news, policy areas, services (especially for foreigners dealing with China. In the seas of media muck about China and hysterias about governments in Australia, I can just say… It would be really nice to have a fact-based access to government in Australia, in so coherent a format. 

In the reordering of the world that is underway, Multipolarista is important, with a base in Latin America. Please note that there is a link top right of that English language page for Espanol, which in fact reveals a different domain name and series of articles.

https://multipolarista.com/

and

https://geopoliticaeconomica.com/

Chrome browser will offer an English translation. 

There are large and important changes occurring in Latin America, notably with the election of President Lula in Brazil. Prospects too, for evolution of formal structures between reforming countries in Latin America, including UNASUR.  But relatively small changes that add up. I recall in Beijing our astonishment in 1984, suddenly to be able to buy fresh bananas, multiplied astonishment to hear that this happened because the foreign minister of Ecuador had quietly lamented to the Foreign Minister of China that there was a trade imbalance. And now, as if it were out of the blue, the American Tiger as the Chinese once called them, wakes up and discovers that there will be a free trade agreement between Ecuador and China, just one of several in the region. 

This is not one hegemon trying to replace another, it is multipolarity. See this thoughtful piece today in Asia Times:

https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/the-road-to-the-end-of-history-runs-through-asia/

There continue to be US supported or directed projects to overthrow any government in Latin America not wedded to US business first. 

I surf YouTube for new voices. There are now more radical news sources out of India, some of which really deserve the Bill Hayden expression, the ‘basilisk eye’, often triumphant in declarations about international headline subjects that venture ahead of fact… but to see the playground of speculative writing is good. 

Others, such as Hindustan Times, generously, for my tired old eyes, read through articles from European media that I might not see elsewhere. (The print editions of the Hindustan Times have a total circulation of about one million, New York Times about a third of that.) The ferocious interest in the real world is far beyond the small-townerie of the ABC and the seemingly perpetual summer silly season of The Guardian Australia.

The most valuable voice I have found on YouTube is of the Singapore financial advisor Sean Foo. Serious stuff, for example this on European desire to confiscate Russian assets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk86RQtaKUQ&t=121s

apart from the content quality, there’s no mucking about, it’s straight in… 

And so I will leave you with enough to go on with, wishing you an exciting new year. We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride.

Just to bring you up to date

 World news as seen by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at this moment.

Sigh…

More movement in the Middle East.

 In the middle of 2022 President Biden went to Saudi Arabia with some demands or petitions among which notably that Saudi Arabia increase oil production. Several months later, OPEC+, the 1970s oil producers plus Russia, decided on a cut in oil production. Then Chinese President Xi visited Saudi Arabia, receiving panoply welcome not given to Biden, and joined a summit meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

 And Saudi Arabia seems keen to join BRICS. But President Lula is not President Bolsonaro. Non interference in other countries, tolerance of other countries, will be tested. See the character of President Lula’s inauguration. 

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/31/everything-to-know-about-lulas-inauguration/

Meanwhile there is a rapid shift in the situation between Turkey and Syria, overseen by Russia. This is valuable background 

https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-consolidates-in-east-mediterranean/

Bhadrakumar is a retired Indian ambassador.  More than that he is from Kerala, the most tolerant Indian state, with the highest literacy rate and women’s literacy rate in India, where they don’t vote for Modi’s party. 

At his blog see also this on the development of Russia-Iran relations and transport systems  

https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-iran-open-a-trade-route-heralding-a-bloc/

Iran wants to join the SCO and BRICS.  The world is changing … but don’t expect Saudi Arabia to be happy about such warming relations with Iran. The Saudis may want to turn away from the dollar but divisions from Iran are both strategic and religious.  With Trump and his son in law and the Abraham Accords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords  the Saudis traded off a lot in giving space for Israel among Arabs  … and for this to happen, after they have softened their support for Palestine. 

https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/12/chris-hedges-israel-and-the-rise-of-jewish-fascism/

On Palestine see the Electronic Intifada  https://electronicintifada.net/

For the history of intifada start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada

A useful analysis of the US defence budget

 https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/27/high-cost-of-blowing-up-world-ukraine-and-2023-ndaa/

There is a wrinkle in understanding US budget passage through the system. First there is an authorisation bill and then an appropriation bill. I think, I think, the authorisation bill was passed months ago, the appropriation bill just now. But when people refer to the NDAA and it’s appropriation or authorisation, in my depth of acronym management, I just say, it’s done, it will sadly, be done, and the money will be borrowed or printed. And fundamental social needs neglected. 

I mention in that context that China continues to sell US treasury paper, down 10% in the past year, approximately, from a trillion to nine hundred billion. They need the money at home but are also mindful of pressures on the dollar and of Russia’s experience of the fate of its funds in the US. And Afghanistan’s. Confiscated. 

China is also now involved in a bigger game. Sean Foo in Singapore is worth listening to:

https://youtu.be/dPb_7Pc_mJc

We don’t think about west Africa much, but Australian mining countries are quietly there.

 Here is a view from the other side, the Russian side..

https://beeley.substack.com/p/nato-will-confront-russia-in-west?utm_medium=reader2

My essay remains popular

 Still standing as of this morning among the five most read articles at John Menadue’s blog is this of mine published a week ago. 

https://johnmenadue.com/the-breakdown-of-us-hegemony-is-the-defining-feature-of-our-strategic-environment/

And in the maelstrom of news and opinion, it’s good to go back a whole week and see that I wrote something that makes sense  

Two big explanations: on AUKUSmadness and woke

 This paper by Richard Tanter is the most important paper in a generation on Australia’s strategic dilemma, in its presentation of facts about Australia’s embedment in US defence systems for war. Recommend it to your offsprung. But keep in mind the deeply flawed American inspired blindness, in castigating Putin going to war, to the illegal, horrendous and wicked war conduct of Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden in the Middle East … and Australian participation in all that. Also, he’s over the top on Russia and Ukraine, fed on a Washington diet  

https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-and-the-threat-of-war-with-china/

Second, the word woke crept up on me like a cliché from the deepest crevices down the page in the Guardian app.  Caitlin sorts it out. 

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/21/identity-politics-anti-wokeism-serve-the-same-interests/

And one more important link, from sensible Laura Tingle: The future is now, and dire predictions are coming true

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/2022-bad-news-cycle-climate-ukraine-cost-of-living-politics/101798714

Fifty years of relations with Beijing.

 Nice to share the top of the page at John Menadue's blog this morning with an excellent editorial from Global Times. My essay is here.

an end of year wander into international understanding and music

 Having been preoccupied by international politics this year, I have always in the back of my mind: "what was it, how was it easy, where did it go" — the broad, possible communications between people who are different.

Terrorism and the politics and wars of antiterrorism have shriveled our hearts. pandemic closed our doors, minds, horizons. Edginess now rules in the hunt for beauty. 

From a time in the night, recent hours, I have been diverted into music. Not sure how. Much of this is new to me. It's a mind-wander into the question of connections between people in a time of havoc. There is no other way forward.

I found something special in Yoyo Ma's Silk Road projects. In this introduction to the documentary The Music of Strangers Yoyo Ma says in his modest way "I'm always wondering how I fit in the world... which is something I share with several billion people."

Twenty years ago Smithsonian Magazine wrote about early years of Yoyo Ma's fascination with the Silk Road, historical connection not just for goods but also art and music, before the European renaissance, before Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus and the wonders and tyrannies made possible by ships.

In 2018 Ma undertook a global tour of performances of Bach suites, to explore from his personal perspective how culture connects us. A glimpse:

The history of the Bach suites for cello is also about rediscovery of lost culture. 

Some may prefer Yoyo Ma with James Taylor and George Harrison's Here Comes the Sun.

Receiving a Christmas email from Debbie and Doug Townsend, Doug a friend for sixty years and former Australian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, I then stumble across the Silk Road Ensemble and this love song sung across the Kazakh-China border.

Wandering through the YouTube offerings of the Silk Road Ensemble I come upon a performance of a Japanese song Omoide by Rhiannon Giddons, also someone new to me.

This is a very familiar tune being the intro tune to Netflix's Midnight Diner, an addiction for us.  So then I find this Australian blogger Peter's glorious background to Omoide. Deep down on that page find his discover that the origins of Omoide seem to be in Ireland...  A Pretty Girl Milking her Cow sung in a movie Judy Garland, brought into English by Thomas Moore. It's all at Peter's page, with more. This is Peter's blog, about life in international understanding.

It's 7am, day dawns. Time to address the immediacies, exit my expensive wonderful recliner, struggle to my electric wheelchair, go and deal with my incontinence in the toilet with indispensable Japanese bidet. Be respectable for family.

But I wanted first to share these 4am discoveries with you. 

My point is that, not least amid political shouting and spear shaking, the future belongs to shared culture, mind, loss of fear of difference, between people. It should not be as hard as it has become, we have to find the mindspace.

When I presented my credentials as ambassador to China to President Li Xiannian in 1984, I startled him a little by telling him that in Hong Kong, before travelling to Beijing, we had been guests at dinner with a Chinese family, Hong Kong residents, all Australian citizens except the affable patriarch at the top of the table who was a member of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee. And I said to him that the future of our relations as two countries depended on the connections between our peoples. This remains so.

Chris Hedges: teaching Solzhenitsyn to prisoner students

This is an astonishing (though that's not unusual) piece of Sunday writing by Chris Hedges. It could be a Sunday sermon, he is, as well as being a former war correspondent, a Presbyterian minister. 

It is a reflection on his experience teaching students in the New Jersey prison system, and their reactions to The Gulag Archipelago. But there's nothing remote in his reflection, it relates to this last week, please read right to the end. 

Please use the internet to search for human decency. It's out there. 

Photo, bio from wikipedia.

Caitlin Johnstone, views of the future

Caitlin Johnstone has recently written (yet another) essay of great importance, ending with this profound observation:

The humanity of the not-too-distant future operates very differently from the humanity of today, either because it learned to work in cooperation with itself and with its ecosystem or because it’s an extinct species, yet most visions for our future imagine we’ll remain the same. We need to abandon the notion that the humanity of the future will move and operate in more or less the same way as the humanity of today, just with better technology. That is the very least likely of all possible outcomes.

It is so normal for the world just to ignore major realities because they are too big to comprehend. I commend to you the rest of her essay. 

Photo is a still I've taken from a youtube interview. 

 

New writing

There is so much happening in the world and so much of it is being discussed in mental silos. It really hurts the brain to deal with many variables at once. I am indebted to John Menadue for publishing several essays of mine recently. Adding to the collection here.

I will try to write more in the blog as ideas develop. 

Italy, the rise of the right wing. Perspectives.

 I have offered a comment on an essay on the Meloni Government published at Consortium News. This was my comment, with a little tidying: 

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My insights are from living in Italy fifty years ago, following the news, visiting Italy three times for a total of five months in the last decade, away from  tourismcentral, talking to Italians in Italian, subscribing now to an Italian daily paper.

Italy has been poisoned by Berlusconi's TV dominance. In one casual conversation a few years ago someone said "Can we send you Berlusconi [to Australia]?"  I said ok, we'll send you Murdoch, to which the reply, oh, no you can't, we already have Murdoch with Sky. So to a large extent the poisoning of human existence in Italy is much as by the White Man's Media in the English speaking world.

The Centre-Left in Italy, for which many had great hopes, with former communists included from the 1990s, simply failed to deliver and faction dominated. To hear intelligent Italians in spontaneous conversation speak damningly of this was tragic. 

First the non-party Five Star Movement [M5S] sprang from Genoa to rescue but has been unsuccessful. In Genoa in 2018 a small shopkeeper woman said no, not them, La Lega, the right wing League led by Matteo Salvini, that was where she put her hopes. Her children were a mirror of the economic situation, two employed, one unemployed (over 30% of adults under 30 unemployed), the latter bouncing between employers getting short term wage subsidies. Another female shopkeeper in a more glamorous situation in Rome offered us a tirade on the theme of work for young people only being available if you have family who can offer work. An elderly woman (almost my age) in a village in 2018, as we waited for a bus, spoke of how her home town was beautiful but being ruined by the arrival of globalizzazione.

While Meloni has expressed fealty to Biden and the EU on Ukraine, she has slapped back at attempts by von der Leyen and Macron to sneer at Italy one way or another. As also she has reprimanded both her coalition partners, Berlusconi and Salvini, for their demands and rudeness in the weeks of forming the government. She's tough. The jobs are tough. 

Hitherto Italy has been bullied by France and Germany on Eurozone matters. Now the strong northern countries are feeling the pinch. Italy has perhaps a little more room to manoeuvre and as a Mediterranean power for millennia may head in new directions. This recent essay by Romano Prodi demonstrates capacity to think in non-military directions. 

We need to be thinking in fresh ways about the world, over a longer time frame. I invite you to read just the first paragraph of this writing by historian Giuseppe Felloni, to put the world now in historical perspective.

Prime Minister Albanese: dangerous notions of the world

 As published in John Menadue's blog 7 November. Some minor drafting errors from rushed preparation yesterday afternoon 

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The Australian on 5 November carried an extensive report by Greg Sheridan on a conversation he was granted with the Prime Minister. Text at end below.

This amounts to the most substantial account of the strategic perspectives of the Albanese Government. 

It is puzzling that the Prime Minister would choose to make this presentation to the arch conservative writer of the Murdoch stable. It feels uncomfortable to speculate on why this channel has been taken rather than some comfortable gathering of the Labor faithful or even, indeed, the Australian Parliament. Sheridan was a great advocate of commitment to invasion of Iraq. And similarly an enthusiast for big bold global perspectives and conflict. 

The Prime Minister has presented ideas about defence acquisitions, shifting from land war capabilities to long range weapons, with China as the target. There are a number of tragedies in this. A deep misunderstanding of international law and how the UN Charter at its very beginning declares that going to war is illegal. By what willy willy of thinking has the prime minister shifted from thinking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illegal but preparing for war with China is not. 

It is difficult to understand how the prime minister has been suckered by the great Americans with whom he has met into thinking China is an enemy of Australia; that China has shifted to a posture of aggression towards us and Taiwan province. Does he not understand that the Taiwan Strait is narrower than Bass Strait. Has he not noted that in these ‘democracy’ events in Taipei nobody has bothered to talk to the elected parliamentary opposition in Taiwan, which favours reunification with the mainland. Did nobody brief him on the limited public support for the right wing government in Japan; that the Korean president with whom he has met very recently replaced a president whose domestic policies were close to his own, that that president, Moon, was elected with passionate support , for his limited single term. He has probably seen CIA and other reports on the dastardly aggressive missile and artillery firing by the DPRK; I expect there was no explanation that the phases of that followed phases of aggressive exercises by ROK and US forces. 

Prime Minister Albanese has walked out into the middle of fighting and given a press briefing which can in no way be based on understanding of regional issues.

China is not an enemy. China was deeply offended by the conduct of the US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor at a meeting in March 2021; not only by their discourtesy but also by aggressive things said. As the senior Chinese representative said in that conversation, which is on public record, he was obliged to put aside his prepared notes and respond bluntly. Thus do the Americans say the Chinese are blunt. The single core issue the offends the United States is China’s success in peaceful development. China will no longer accept American assertion of unipolar primacy. Good advisors would explain that China is not America’s enemy. 

Nor is Australia’s enemy. China has done nothing hostile towards Australia. If we are to take offence at China’s efforts to inform itself then we should on that basis declare our restored virginity, withdraw from the Five Eyes where our entry ticket has been spying on China and Indonesia… and just smile and hold hands with New Zealand. 

There is so much ill informed and naive, dangerously naive, in the Prime Minister’s revealed thoughts.

I will take up one key matter, relating to the Prime Minister’s next international foray, to the G20 Summit in Bali. 

Greg Sheridan reports from his discussion with the prime minister that “[a]t the G20 summit Albanese believes there will be the chance for economic policy co-ordination among all the major economies.” 

The summit is in Indonesia on 16 November. The priority issues listed on the G20 website are “global health architecture, digital transformation, and sustainable energy transition”. 

The notion of “all the major economies” requires consideration. Membership of the G20 is based on status as a major economy; they are all major economies, mostly more major than Australia.

There are in fact two groups of major economies evolving in the G20.

The first group is historically economically dominant, plus acolytes, alphabetically: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, UK, US, EU.

A larger group, coalescing rapidly in the past year: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye.

Prime Minister Albanese’s entry into the world of international relations, rushing from domestic focus, was with the Quad in Tokyo, NATO in Madrid, Zelenskyy in Kyiv. 

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni enters international relations with an visit to the EU (not quite international: financial matters, to assist with power and heating bills to March); next Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for COP27; then Bali for the G20. While Meloni has battered her coalition partners to express adherence to the EU line on Ukraine, and has spoken to President Biden to express fealty, it will be important to observe Italy’s approach on broader issues. The third biggest EU economy, historically pushed to the edge of the Eurozone table by Germany and France, but things are changing with the energy crisis. Italy burdened by the flow of migrants via Libya (Libya disgoverned by a war for democracy), EU partners not taking their share of migrant flow which they will not oppose. Italy needing new doors to knock and enter. Italy for millennia a Mediterranean power. See this global view, from a Genoese historian of banking, just the first bit, on the birth of Europe.

The larger group is built around the BRICS group: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. There are candidate members and possible members but the existing members produce more than 30% of Gross Global Product in Purchasing Power Equivalent (PPE). A list of countries by PPE is here. In that ranking China leads with $30 trillion, USA follows with $25 trillion. This is a discussion of the merits of considering “purchasing power parity”.

The candidates/possibles for membership of the BRICS group, at different rates and by different processes are: Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. 

This “BRICSalon” let me call it has shared interests in enhanced trade and especially in transactions away from the USD. There is a lot of American fury directed at Saudi Arabia, India and Türkiye because of this. 

Despite the largely self-inflicted misery of our political relationship with China, China accounts for one third of Australia’s trade with the world. It is our primary obligation in our international relations to have good relations with Beijing. This we did from 1972 to 2017, when some madness was injected with propaganda from ASPI whipped up by the right of the Republican Party in the US Congress, making up tasty nasty things to poison US policy, to be grabbed at by Biden to try to be reelected. Thus do we approach commitment to an unnecessary and indecent war project led by a US president wanting to be reelected, who is even older than I am and clearly showing cognitive problems. 

This is, frankly, obscene, and the suckering of an Australian prime minister into it is absurd. The plans to divert money to defence to such a project, of shonky Great Oz getting his bills paid by Little Oz is madness. We have abundant need to commit money to make this country worth defending. There are many projects within the priorities worked out in preparation for this G20 summit that need our support.

We cannot afford to sit in a corner with the US and Co and claim we are working things out with the major economic powers, without insulting the elephants in the room. We cannot imagine that Mr Albanese’s spray of strategic perspective will not cause offence in an array of countries, all the way to China. 

There will be an array of double talk and walking around issues in Bali, as there may also be some new directions suggested, new doors opening. Only a fool would sit in the corner with the Americans and sulk and insult and be dismissive.

Indonesia was host to the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement, at Bandung in 1955. This meeting of the G20 may give rise to a similar process of non-alignment. We played an ignorant and unconstructive role in the 1950s and 1960s in Asia, focused in SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, an inept element in the Americans’ containment of China last time. Our going against US sanctions of China from the early 1960s, selling wheat to China saved the lives of millions in China and produced long term gratitude towards us. 

The bereft American foreign policy now, focused on wars and starvation of the poor via sanctions, is in many ways contrary to international law and human rights law, once you step away from the barrage of American loudspeaker mind-shaping. Albanese and Marles have run towards the shiny Easter Egg wrappers, containing a bit of chocolate and air. 

Albanese seems to like projects running far beyond sensible prediction. When he was Rudd’s transport minister he said we would have a very fast train by the 2050s. One of his first bills before this parliament is to give half a billion as start-up for an eventual very fast train from Sydney to Newcastle. Is there some Japanese shinkansen glitter in the eye? …but between Tokyo and Osaka in peak hours there are up to seventeen trains an hour, with seats for 1300. Compare with the population of Newcastle, 450,000. You only have to look at the timetable to see that traffic is from hinterlands to the two ends of the line, not predominantly through. You only have to look at an atlas to see half the trip is difficult geography, the other impossibly expensive real estate. Can I have my consultant fee of $500,000,000 now or did I not offer the preferred response? Why do they let him indulge in these things? The submarine project is comparably fantabulous, also robbing the poor of say $100 billion better spent elsewhere. One of the first lessons in the study of economics is the ‘multiplier effect’. Give a dollar to some person of whatever quality of judgement and it will flow through the economy; give a hundred million to submarines and its multiplier effect is far less valuable to the economy.

Greg Sheridan said Albanese based his remarks on the interim report of the Defence Strategic Review, a report submitted before submissions considered, how discourteous. Can that interim report be released in some form, or have we slipped swiftly into secret government. 

Albanese considers that our strategic perspective was set in concrete in 1941. At that time, Australia was chest deep in the White Australia Policy and among our cherished exports was apples  from Tasmania to Britain. Whatever happened to the major strategic shift in 1972-3 when the Whitlam government recognised realities in Asia, shifting recognition as the government of China from the authorities in Taipei to the authorities in Beijing. And the Whitlam Government chucked out the White Australia Policy, not just as some domestic attitude and immigration matter but in stating that we are one with Asia, we will deal equally with Asia. Has all that been chucked out? Are Asian friends being told that we are (sensibly) abandoning focus on land war, planning to have long range missiles… to target whom, to fly over whose air space to attack whom? Why has the history shaped by Labor fifty years ago been put aside. 

The problem with these defence strategic reviews remains that they are not based on international strategic thinking but whackamole thinking… who’s out there to bash and how? 

Dear Secret Government, can you please brief us all, all of us not just the Noddy parliamentary committee. 

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Read the article below:

Greg Sheridan. Published in The Australian on 5 November.

AMBITIONS OF A FOREIGN POLICY PM

Anthony Albanese may look and sound a mild man, and that is one of his strengths. But he has an ambition that no Australian leader has had for decades. He wants to create a military force capable of defending Australia.

To do this, he plans to change the structure of the Australian Defence Force and increase the defence budget. He is determined to do this – fully explicit in his commitment on money – even in the face of a budgetary tourniquet screwing ever tighter.

“Yes, yes! We will do what is necessary to achieve it,” he insists in an exclusive interview. “We’ve made that very clear. We’ve been really upfront, and we’ll do what is necessary. This is not optional, it’s necessary.”

He has a lot of other foreign policy ambitions as well: greater alliance intimacy with the US; a much closer mutual security relationship with Japan; developing the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (he will host the Quad summit next year); deeper engagement with the South Pacific and Southeast Asia; a bigger aid budget; resisting Chinese coer­cion; and ambitious action on climate change.

It’s an enormous agenda for a prime minister and a government that once might have been expected to focus almost exclusively on domestic priorities.

Albanese was thrust into the role of international statesman in his first week as Prime Minister. The Quad summit was scheduled for two days after the federal election. Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong flew to Tokyo the Monday after Saturday’s election. They took senior Defence and national security officials with them and had hours of briefings on the plane.

I met Albanese on Wednesday, just a day or two after former foreign minister Stephen Smith and former Defence Force chief Angus Houston handed to government the interim report of their force structure review. The final report arrives in February and the government will announce its response in March. Albanese, in the most substantial and wide-ranging foreign policy interview of his prime ministership, gives plenty of indication there will be big changes.

First, will we actually see increased Australian military capabilities over the next five years as a result of this process? “Yes, that’s the whole idea of the strategic review.” Before the election, Albanese announced a Labor government would undertake a force posture review: “We changed that to a defence strategic review, not just about where to place our assets but what are the (defence) assets Australia needs to defend ourselves, but also to project (force).”

Albanese mentions specifically missiles, missile defence capabilities and drones. This is explicit and clear. He also offers a compelling rationale for changing the force structure the ADF has had in the past.

“In general we need more weaponry that can actually make a difference,” he says. “What are the assets we need so that every dollar improves our national security? Are we going to be involved in a land war, in central Queensland? If so, you need some assets for that. But is that likely? Well, no. A lot of the expenditure was based on where Australia’s recent military experience had been, in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you’re engaged in a ground war in Iraq and Afghanistan you need some assets there.

“But now the question is: how does Australia defend ourselves? Where are our missile capabilities? It means drones. It means different assets. In today’s world cyber security is very important. What are the right assets for this now? You need to be prepared to make these decisions.”

As well as the Smith-Houston review, the government has another study running to decide what kind of nuclear-propelled submarine we will acquire under the AUKUS arrangements with the US and Britain.

Albanese reveals that he and his cabinet have been intimately involved with both these processes on an ongoing basis: “The national security committee of cabinet meets almost weekly, sometimes more often. We have received reports (from the two reviews) on the way through. It’s not as if you go away and do an inquiry in isolation. We’ll get the report in the first quarter of next year and that will be very important.”

Albanese is critical of the way the Morrison government talked about the urgency of the strategic environment but made no plans for substantial new defence capabilities within the next decade. For a long time, Australia luxuriated under a strategic doctrine that there would be a 10-year warning of any strategic threat. The 2020 Defence Strategic Update formally acknowledged that the 10-year warning time no longer applied. Threats could emerge much more quickly.

Albanese says: “The (threat) time frame changed from 10 years but there was no response to that. It was as if that was an anecdote, rather than something that needed to be responded to.” So we definitely get new capabilities in the next five years? “Correct. Correct.”

Albanese’s words will reverberate throughout the strategic community. It is difficult to see how the government could continue with $30bn of heavy armour for the army, as had been envisaged in previous government plans, in light of these remarks.

I spoke to Albanese on the day the media was reporting Chinese foreign ministry criticisms of plans for Australia to upgrade the Northern Territory’s RAAF Tindal base to accommodate six US B-52 strategic bombers rotating through Australia.

Is China right to protest this shocking Australian military build-up, I ask somewhat sarcastically. Albanese replies with his fundamental view of the US alliance: “We made our decision in 1941. That was the right decision then and the US is the right partnership now.” As to the B-52s: “Australia will make our own decisions. China is entitled of course to express a view.”

But Albanese is unimpressed with Beijing’s warnings or its behaviour in the region: “China clearly has changed its posture in the region and that’s something that, as a middle power in the region, we need to take account of. The strategic competi­tion in the region informs our view of our relationships with nations in the region, and the way the region conducts itself.”

You can see this in the growing strategic intimacy Albanese has pursued with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida. In five months as Prime Minister, Albanese has met Kishida four times. Albanese reveals that at all four meetings, and in various telephone conversations, the two leaders spoke about the historic joint security declaration they later signed in Perth last month. “This was driven from the top, by the prime ministers in both countries,” he says.

It must surely be the most intense five-month personal leader-to-leader engagement in the history of the Japan-Australia relationship. The two will get together again for one or more bilateral meetings in the forthcoming trio of summits both will attend this month: the G20 in Indonesia, the following East Asia Summit and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Southeast Asia.

The security declaration with Japan intentionally used language very similar to that contained in the ANZUS Treaty Australia has with the US. Albanese is not surprised it was noticed: “I saw it as a significant upgrade of a (security) relationship that has been implicit to one that is explicit. It was the cementing of a friendship, a public declaration of that.”

Albanese and Kishida share the view that it’s impossible to imagine Beijing joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement: “Our position is that in order to support accession to the TPP, countries would need to demonstrate their support for existing agreements. At the moment, China’s actions in placing sanctions against Australian products means that China is counting itself out.”

This does not mean that if Beijing lifted its sanctions against Australia Canberra would automatically support it joining the TPP: “There are a range of issues, but China is excluding itself. That (lifting sanctions) is a precondition.” But as Albanese says, even if and when Beijing lifts sanctions “there are a range of issues”.

The PM would like the US to reconsider joining the TPP: “Largely there the impediment to the US joining is domestic politics. I’d be hopeful they would consider a change in their position. Part of US engagement in the region is economic engagement and TPP membership would facilitate that.”

At the G20 summit Albanese believes there will be the chance for economic policy co-ordination among all the major economies. One controversy is over whether Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attend. Albanese declared very early that, regardless of Putin’s attendance, he was going to the G20: “This was an important signal early of the relationship we have with Indonesia and the respect we hold for them.

“The G20 meeting is particularly important for Indonesia. At a time of uncertainty and global unrest, with a land war in Europe, strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific and economic turbulence, this is a particularly important conference.”

The meeting will be an opportunity for leaders to sell the economic message of the times: “The fact of the gathering will be a reminder that you’re actually getting pretty uniform action from the central banks across the board, with uniform tightening of monetary policy the like of which we haven’t seen for decades.

“All the central banks are targeting inflation as the priority. I think what we saw in the UK (under Liz Truss) was the markets responding to measures that were seen as not consistent with the actions of the central bank.

“That was the context of our budget, too. We wanted to make sure that fiscal policy was working with monetary policy, that they were not contradicting each other.”

Asked whether Russia should be in the G20 at all, and whether Putin should be allowed to attend, Albanese responds: “Sometimes exclusion can make it easier for the excluded to hide behind that and not have to justify its actions. I think if Russia attends the G20 that is the opportunity the world will have to make very, very clear what they think about Russia’s actions.”

Albanese and his government could not have been stronger in solidarity with Ukraine and opposition to Russia’s invasion. Albanese visited Ukraine and his government has twice extended military aid packages to Kyiv.

Does he think there is a real danger of Moscow using some kind of tactical nuclear weapon, to the possibility of which Putin has alluded more than once: “I take Putin’s threats very seriously. It has reminded the world that the existence of nuclear weapons is a threat to global security and the norms we had come to take for granted.

“Putin threatening to use nuclear forces on Ukrainian forces or Ukrainian people – the consequences of that would be an absolute game changer in a very bad way.

“Post the Cold War there was a de-escalation. This is a significant escalation by someone who clearly miscalculated. There are a range of remarkable things that have happened.

“One is the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people, under the leadership of President Zelensky – they have fought for their national sovereignty. Another is the strength of the world’s efforts to support Ukraine. Australia has been part of this in a bipartisan way. And the third is that NATO is now stronger than it was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Putin was confident he’d roll over Ukraine very quickly. That certainly hasn’t happened. Now the call-up of 300,000 troops is causing, must be causing, some instability inside Russia.”

Next year Albanese will host the Quad summit. Labor had a troubled history with the Quad. Under Kevin Rudd, it did not support the Quad. Former prime minister Paul Keating is a trenchant opponent of the grouping, which brings together the US, India, Japan and Australia.

Albanese is unapologetic that the Quad serves the strategic interests of Australia and of the region: “I think the Quad is of central importance, if you look at it geographically, strategically, historically.

“India will be the third largest economy in the world (it is currently fifth). It is very important strategically and in its role in technological advancement, in IT. We have a lot in common with India.” Albanese will travel to India early next year.

“And Japan has been such an important economic partner. Australia’s role in fuelling the post-war growth in Japan has been critical. And the US remains our most important ally. The Quad brings together these four countries in a trusting relationship. I regard it as an incredible honour for me as PM, and for Australia, to be hosting the Quad summit. The Quad is important now but it will grow in importance.”

Albanese is proud of his relationship with Joe Biden. Two centre-left political leaders at different stages in their lives but with not wildly dissimilar political pedigrees. His government shares with the Biden administration a view of the central importance of action to combat climate change: “The price of admission, the price of credibility, in the international system is having effective action on climate change.”

Yet this US attitude could be significantly set back, if not reversed, at next week’s midterm US congressional elections.

Could Albanese work with a re-elected Donald Trump, something that is not beyond the realms of possibility in 2024: “I think the relationship between Australia and the US is much more important than individuals. It’s a relationship between nations.”

That must count as a qualified yes, and of course any Australian prime minister would be willing to work with any American president. Albanese sees all the dimensions of foreign, security and most domestic policy as intimately linked. He favours action, for example, to bolster Australia’s fuel reserves and re-create a merchant navy: “We remain vulnerable at the end of global supply chains. The idea that our fuel reserves are held in the Gulf of Mexico and that we don’t have the capacity to take goods around our own coast, as an island continent, is a national security issue. The rest of the world regards having a merchant navy as essential. It is absolutely essential that Australia have a merchant fleet.”

In a national emergency the government can commandeer Australian-flagged vessels for essential work. But there are only a tiny handful of Australian-flagged commercial vessels.

Albanese’s government has been exceptionally busy in national security and foreign policy. His Foreign Minister, Wong, has been a blur of motion around the South Pacific and is now travelling extensively in Southeast Asia. Defence Minister Richard Marles is focused on the big force structure decisions. Albanese has driven our interests in intense head of government diplomacy.

He has used soft power where possible, not only increasing aid budgets but also welcoming South Pacific leaders to Australia, giving some of them a lift to Shinzo Abe’s funeral and the like.

He has a thousand challenges ahead at every angle. His first moment of truth comes next March when we will see what defence capabilities he can produce and in what time frame. Australia’s security environment is even more threatening than its economic outlook. Albanese has established a clear, effective direction, mostly embodying basic strategic continuity, with new energy and focus.

Australia will need him to have all that and more, and even a touch of luck. For he has promises to keep, and miles to go before he sleeps.

Greg Sheridan. Published in The Australian on 5 November.