{"id":36427,"date":"2017-12-18T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-17T19:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=36427"},"modified":"2017-12-20T11:43:24","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T00:43:24","slug":"old-dobells-almanac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/old-dobells-almanac\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Dobell\u2019s almanac"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"498\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-36428 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/5416490581_c9137d861b_z.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/5416490581_c9137d861b_z.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/5416490581_c9137d861b_z-205x160.jpg 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>As 2017 limps out and 2018 edges in, here\u2019s Old Dobell\u2019s almanac of the times, trends and twists of history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Trump-eting:<\/strong> The US system is working, but it\u2019s been a stress test from hell. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/letter-from-america-with-an-oz-accent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">America\u2019s system will stand<\/a>, but America\u2019s international standing will suffer huge damage. The Donald breaks with 70 years of US history in Asia.<\/p>\n<p>Accept his inauguration speech as a true statement of intent, based on Trumpian instincts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">America first\u2014the line from the inauguration that\u2019ll be remembered is \u2018the American carnage stops right here\u2019<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">protectionist and mercantilist\u2014the global economy is a zero-sum version of the Hunger Games<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">alliance rejectionist\u2014America wastes trillions to defend others<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">values\u2014deals, not democracy. Strongmen and dictators, apply here.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/letter-from-america-the-donald-as-a-two-term-president\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">My tip: he\u2019ll get re-elected.<\/a> We\u2019ve got seven more years, unless Trumps gives himself a heart attack from too much dessert. Dating the superpower presidency from FDR, history says America re-elects its presidents.<\/p>\n<p>Forget impeachment. The Republican Party has more to fear from the base than from Trump. A Republican Congress isn\u2019t going to impeach its own voters.<\/p>\n<p>America\u2019s recovery is in its ninth year. The economy hums. Unemployment is 4%. Median earnings are rising and economists predict a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/09\/19\/business\/economy\/labor-shortage.html?partner=IFTTT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u2018new golden age\u2019<\/a> for American workers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China chomps: <\/strong>The Oz <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fpwhitepaper.gov.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">foreign policy white paper<\/a> got it into one sentence in its third paragraph: \u2018Today, China is challenging America\u2019s position.\u2019 Even fiendishly complex trends and twists can be simply stated.<\/p>\n<p>Next year, Trump will have to choose his Asia war. He can have trade war with China. Or he can do cold war with North Korea, with China\u2019s acquiescence.<\/p>\n<p>China trade war or Korea cold war: he can\u2019t have both.<\/p>\n<p>Some almanac cheer: The cold war with the Soviet Union was an ideological contest\u2014a European religious war, largely fought in Asia. Today there\u2019s zero ideology between China and America; this is just dollars and power. Donald the deal-maker suits China, and Xi Jinping plays him well.<\/p>\n<p>More cheer: China isn\u2019t a revisionist power like the Soviet Union. China is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowyinstitute.org\/the-interpreter\/china-status-quo-tidal-power\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">status quo tidal power<\/a>. Beijing loves the status quo. And Beijing knows the tide is moving its way. It wants more of both, on terms that serve the elite (aka the Communist Party) and service a quiescent people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The nature of Oz: <\/strong>Australia is now a Eurasian country. As George Megalogenis records in the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.australianforeignaffairs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Australian Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/a>, this is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/oz-foreign-affairs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">epic transformation, from Anglo-European to Eurasian<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The shift has gone into hyperdrive this century, fuelled (and peopled) by migration from China and India. Two and a half million of our population were born in Asia. The 2016 census says the languages spoken at home in Oz are, in order, English, Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese and Vietnamese. Hindi and Tagalog are just outside in the top 10. Country of birth for Australians: China is number four, India number five.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What will history mark as the biggest single change John Howard made to Australia?<\/p>\n<p>A: Migration.<\/p>\n<p>The scale and content of migration since 2001\u2014emphasising skills, lifting numbers\u2014remade the face of Australia. Howard created a Eurasian country in double-quick time. The man who said we didn\u2019t need to choose between history and geography has shifted our history by embracing our geography. The law of unintended consequences has a wicked sense of humour.<\/p>\n<p>Date the Eurasia project from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lowyinstitute.org\/the-interpreter\/great-asia-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1972, the point Howard uses in his memoirs<\/a> for the shift from excluding Asia to engagement. The early decades of the project involved openings, collaboration and what Bob Hawke called enmeshment.<\/p>\n<p>The new stage\u2014as we comprehend our Eurasian achievement\u2014is Australia being changed by Asia. Such internal forces alter a nation\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oz\u2013Eurasian foreign policy:<\/strong> Canberra\u2019s international approach mixes Western language, US alliance and ASEAN flavour. We\u2019re louder than ASEAN, but our positions increasingly match.<\/p>\n<p>Australia does the ASEAN dance on Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis, on dealing with a murderous president in the Philippines and, as ever, on the central place of Indonesia in our future and our neighbourhood. Oz policy on the South China Sea is ASEAN\u2019s policy with the volume turned up.<\/p>\n<p>We share ASEAN\u2019s dreams and nightmares on China. Like ASEAN, China is a presence in our people as well as in our policy. Ask Sam Dastyari or Andrew Robb how that works.<\/p>\n<p>In March, the first Australia\u2013ASEAN summit on Australian soil happens in Sydney. The foreign policy white paper is almost lyrical, as it should be:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Southeast Asia frames Australia\u2019s northern approaches and is of profound significance for our future. ASEAN\u2019s success has helped support regional security and prosperity for 50 years &#8230; Southeast Asia is the nexus of strategic competition, testing the region\u2019s cohesion and ASEAN\u2019s central role.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This almanac proclaims the Sydney summit the start of the march to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/50-years-asean-australian-membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Australian membership of ASEAN<\/a> in 2024, the 50th anniversary of Australia becoming ASEAN\u2019s first dialogue partner.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Uncertain era: <\/strong>The tyranny of the present reigns if we moan about uniquely uncertain times. Such anguish says more about Canberra than it does about the state of the world. We\u2019ve lived through vastly more dangerous eras. Australia\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/liberal-internationalism-hard-days-hazy-daze\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">conceptual framework is being shaken<\/a>, our long-term relative decline as a power and an economy in Asia proceeds as it has for decades, and the new fear is our feckless great and powerful friend. The simple response to the hand-wringing is that we\u2019re born to uncertainty and live it all our days.<\/p>\n<p>The wonderful Simon Leys, in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blackincbooks.com.au\/books\/other-people%E2%80%99s-thoughts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">collection of <em>bon mots<\/em><\/a>, offers these:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Pedro Calderon: \u2018The worst is not always certain.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Nietzsche: \u2018It\u2019s certainty, not doubt, that causes madness.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let us fret less. And head to Christmas intoning a thought attributed to Benjamin Franklin: \u2018Beer, beer, beer &#8230; beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As 2017 limps out and 2018 edges in, here\u2019s Old Dobell\u2019s almanac of the times, trends and twists of history. Trump-eting: The US system is working, but it\u2019s been a stress test from hell. America\u2019s &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":36428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,52,1428,285,492],"class_list":["post-36427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asean","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-policy","tag-immigration"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Old Dobell\u2019s almanac | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/old-dobells-almanac\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Old Dobell\u2019s almanac | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As 2017 limps out and 2018 edges in, here\u2019s Old Dobell\u2019s almanac of the times, trends and twists of history. 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