Finding peace is hard, but unending mutual destruction is in no one’s interest
Like most of the US allies, Australia is caught between a rock and a hard place.
August 2024
In picking Tim Walz as her running mate, Harris has redrawn the battlelines in the race for the Whitehouse
On Tuesday morning US time, US Vice President Kamala Harris called Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to ask him to be her running mate in her campaign for the presidency.
July 2024
Biden out, Harris in? Why this risky, unprecedented move could be the circuit breaker the Democrats needed
President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside as the Democratic nominee in this year’s presidential election certainly had a sense of inevitability about it. Yet, it is still unprecedented in the modern era for a sitting president to drop out of a presidential race this late in the process. We are really in uncharted waters for American
Two-thirds of Democrats want Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. It’s time he listened
The cracks beneath US President Joe Biden’s feet continue to widen. While the shock of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump seemed like it might relieve some of the pressure on Biden, the story of his viability as both president and candidate continues to feed on itself. Ever since his disastrous debate performance against Trump
A bloodied, defiant Trump could become the defining image of the US election
The shots fired at Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday are being investigated as an assassination attempt of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee. Assassination attempts on presidents and presidential nominees are littered throughout American history. What happened in Pennsylvania is horrifying, but sadly not surprising. I’ve been really struck by how
History shows American political violence is nothing new: Thomas Jefferson said ‘the blood of patriots’ is liberty’s ‘natural manure’
If you select “virtually any date in US history, it would be possible to find the same poisonous ingredients [… that] percolated violently to the surface on January 6th, 2021,” writes journalist and historian Nick Bryant in his new book, The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict with Itself. Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Thomas Jefferson,
June 2024
Muddled answers and outright lies: what the Biden-Trump debate says about the dire state of US politics
There are no parallels for the first debate of the 2024 US presidential election cycle.
Why the US government’s pursuit of Julian Assange was becoming both damaging and untenable
Today, in a surprise development likely weeks in the planning, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was able to leave the United Kingdom for the first time in more than a decade after reaching a plea deal with the US government.
What Donald Trump’s fiery reaction to his conviction says about this moment in US politics
In the week leading up to the conviction delivered in a Manhattan courtroom on Friday, right-wing media was focused on Donald Trump’s innocence.
May 2024
The Assange litmus test and the fight to shape a future Trump administration
Who would have thought that the legal and personal travails of Julian Assange, the Australian citizen whom US authorities are invested in prosecuting and jailing for the rest of his life without deep consideration of his fundamental rights, would become a lightning rod for former President Trump’s re-election hopes?
NDS needs reality, not imagination
The 2024 National Defence Strategy (NDS) looks more like the impactless pronouncements of consultants’ “decks” than a persuasive guide to the government’s security plans for the next decade or two.
April 2024
NZ started discussing AUKUS involvement in 2021, newly released details reveal
Details released by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under the Official Information Act reveal New Zealand officials have been considering involvement in AUKUS from the outset.
Project 2025, the policy substance behind Trump’s showmanship, reveals a radical plan to reshape the world
In April 2022, conservative American think tank the Heritage Foundation, working with a broad coalition of 50 conservative organisations, launched Project 2025: a plan for the next conservative president of the United States.
Could the Israel-Gaza war hurt Joe Biden’s chances of re-election? History might provide a guide
When big questions about American foreign policy collide with an election, it’s rarely good news for a sitting president.
The Cruelty Is The Point: Australia and the Politics of Empire
Watch Dr Emma Shortis’ address to ‘Night Falls In The Evening Lands: The Assange Epic’ at RMIT University, Melbourne, on 9th March 2024.
Who will Trump pick as his running mate? In 2024, the ‘Veepstakes’ are higher than usual
Being second in line for leadership of the most powerful country in the world is not an easy job.
March 2024
The Coalition’s nuclear power crusade is a futile distraction
Nuclear energy really is remarkable.
Who Pays the Piper…Universities Dance to the AUKUS Tune
When AUKUS was announced, the ANU was quick off the mark to cash in.
Fire extinguishers, not guns
The Australian Government should be using its unique position to leverage our close relationship with the United States over the ongoing conflict in Gaza, writes Dr Emma Shortis.
It’s a good thing if Trump doesn’t like us
Instead of worrying about whether Trump hates us, we should be thinking, together, about how to forge a world which remains free of his demagoguery, writes Dr Emma Shortis.
February 2024
Valentine’s Day, Indonesia style
Wednesday 14 February is a big day in Indonesia. The nation goes to the polls, and a new President will be elected. A popular and successful President will be succeeded by one of three candidates, none of whom is especially popular or generates much enthusiasm among voters.
January 2024
If Trump comes back, do we want him as our ally?
“Who in God’s name does he think he is?”
Weapons of mass obstruction hurt democracy
Be it administrative incompetence, secrecy and trickery, the failure of the Morrison government to hand over Cabinet documents about the Iraq War to the National Archives should trigger serious analysis of how Australia enters conflicts, writes Ebony Bennett.
If Trump returns to the White House, should we rethink the US alliance?
With a Trump resurgence looming, the Australian Government’s fixation on AUKUS should not come at the expense of what we are frequently assured is one of the core components of the US-Australia alliance: shared democratic values, writes Dr Emma Shortis.
Trump 2024 and America’s Democracy Problem
As the anniversary of the Jan 6 insurrection approaches, what are the implications of the crisis of American democracy, or a more successful coup attempt, for the rest of us? With a few important exceptions, there is startlingly little written – in Australia, internationally and even within the United States – on the “what if”
December 2023
Biden’s Burden: Four Percentage Points, a Struggling Economy and a Fragile Democracy
In the United States, one of the men vying for the presidency faces 91 criminal charges in four concurrent criminal cases.
November 2023
Who knew Queensland’s richest man is a foreign investor?
Clive Palmer’s controversial legal strategies challenge Australia’s trade agreements and environmental laws, and have profound implications for global climate action, writes Stephen Long.
Who cares about national security?
In parliament last week, responding to the temporary blocking of a legislative favour to Santos, Foreign Minister Penny Wong berated the opposition. The bill – which did eventually pass – is designed to facilitate massive expansion of the gas industry.
October 2023
With US trip, PM Albanese flies into the light
On election night in 2020, President-elect Biden reassured the American people that despite everything they had endured for the past four years, “I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe.”
McCarthy’s fall and the far-right influence on American foreign policy
Critical support for Ukraine’s war effort could be torpedoed by a small minority of US congressional extremists.
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