The urge to throw more money at defence budgets across a number of countries has become infectious. It was bound to happen with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, given his previous insistence that US allies do more to fatten their own armies rather than rely on the largesse of […]
Author: Binoy KAMPMARK
Macron’s Offer: France And The Delusions Of Nuclear Deterrence
The singular antics of US President Donald Trump, notably towards supposed allies, has stirred the pot regarding national security in various capitals. From Canberra to Brussels, there is concern that such assumed, if unverifiable notions as extended nuclear deterrence from Washington are valid anymore. America First interests certainly bring that […]
Zelensky: Victim Of Colosseum Politics
There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave […]
Righteous, Confused And Unwilling: Europe’s Ukrainian Predicament
There is something deeply moving about the ignorance and scatty nature of politicians. At points, it can even be endearing. In the apparently wide wake left by the mauling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the press at the Oval Office on February 28, backers of Kyiv’s war […]
Ho Hum At Sea: Anti-China Hysteria Down Under
The conduct of live-fire exercises by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Surface Force (the Chinese “communists”, as they are called by the analytically strained) has recently caused much murmur and consternation in Australia. It’s the season for federal elections, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, thinks he’s in with more […]
Fiendish Experiments: Trump’s Guantánamo Bay Migrant Detentions
Guantánamo Bay has been a fiendish experiment in US law for decades. The fiendishness lies in the subversion. Operating as a naval base in Cuba, this contentious facility has been the site and location for the cruelties of paranoia and empire, a place where such laws as due process are […]
Israel’s Annexation Drive: The West Bank And Expelling Palestinian Refugees
It has the feeling of a ghastly ending, one pushed along by desperation and eagerness. First, levelling Gaza and turning it to an uninhabitable moonscape, with the promise of a territory free of Palestinians. Then, displacing and destroying the already precarious holdings of Palestinian residents in the West Bank, all […]
Gloominess And Magical Thinking: The Comical, Frightening Mike Burgess
Never allow intelligence chiefs to speak publicly. Their prerogative lies in lying, their reassurance, cool deception. While the attractions of transparency are powerful, the result of a garrulous spook is always going to be unreliable. In Australia, a comically looking individual by the name of Mike Burgess terrorises and terrifies […]
Cowardice And Cancellation: Creative Australia And The Venice Biennale
Cowardice is the milk that runs in the veins of many event organisers, especially when it comes to those occasions that might provoke the unmanaged unexpected. The same organisers will claim to be open minded, accommodating to stirring debate, and open to what is trendily termed in artistic lingo as […]
Far From Benign: The US Aid Industrial Complex
The US aid program began in earnest in the early stages of the Cold War, with an intention to beat off the contenders from the Soviet bloc in the postcolonial world. President Harry S. Truman proposed, in his 1949 inaugural address, “a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific […]
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