Julia Gillard’s approach to foreign policy must be set beside that of Kevin Rudd. Indeed, Gillard’s place in history will be inextricably intertwined with Rudd on almost every level. The vote on September 7 will …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
Julia Gillard defined herself early on in her leadership with the remark that foreign policy wasn’t her passion. A self-deprecating sense of humour isn’t always a political asset in a leader and this was the …
History will be kind to Julia Gillard. Take this is as a relative rather than a qualitative judgement. History will have to be kinder because it would be impossible to be as harsh as current …
I explained yesterday how the Chinese have thoroughly digested the Anglosphere’s Rules of the Road, and have steered themselves to prosperity in the process. The Anglosphere Ways of War are equally well understood. Indeed, China …
Consider this definition of the ‘Ways of War of the Anglosphere’ as the workings of a military and maritime mindset, powering a methodology that has fundamentally shaped the globe: The Anglosphere, the group of countries …
Australia’s referendum tick for the monarchy and constant opinion poll support for the US alliance suggest the voters are happy with both the traditional and treaty elements of the Anglosphere. The temperature of popular sentiment …
Tony Abbott has sworn off talking about the Anglosphere because the responses are too Pavlovian. Too late. The Liberal Leader is destined to wear the Anglosphere label with the same mixed results that John Howard …
The Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, made a telling mistake in Singapore recently when proclaiming the strategic openness displayed by the publication of Australia’s Defence White Paper. At the Shangri-La dialogue, Smith began his speech by …
To paraphrase Julia Gillard in her farewell press conference, the three categories of ‘maddy’, ‘straight’ and ‘fixer’ do not explain everything about political leaders, but nor do they explain nothing. As the previous column said, …
Politicians can be divided into ‘straights’, ‘fixers’ and ‘maddies’. This ‘simple but dazzling insight’ from the British politician Tony Benn is one of those lightning bolts that light up a vast landscape. And even explain …
As the curtain comes down on this series of posts surveying the Asian strategic landscape, the final scene sets us up a lot more drama to come. Southeast Asia’s great fear is that it faces …
For ASEAN, the Philippines has become the canary in the mine in testing how much more poisonous the atmosphere with China can become in the South China Sea. By taking China before the bar of …