Category Archives: Foreign policy

Governed by the gutless?

Alan Beattie’s new book­let “Who’s in Charge Here” (Ama­zon) is an amus­ing, accu­rate, acces­si­ble account of the cur­rent mess in global finan­cial and trade “gov­er­nance.” Well worth the $3 price. But he draws a “les­son” from his lit­tle his­tory of the crises of 2008–2011 that I find un-satisfying. Who’s in Charge Here is a valu­able …

March 14, 2012 – 2:07 pm | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Ideas, Trade | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

No spring for shiite Syria

Robert Fisk’s unsen­ti­men­tal analy­sis of Assad’s strengths As long as Syria can trade with Iraq, it can trade with Iran and, of course, it can trade with Lebanon. The Shia of Iran and the Shia major­ity in Iraq and the Shia lead­er­ship (though not major­ity) in Syria and the Shia (the largest com­mu­nity, but not …

February 7, 2012 – 8:05 pm | By pwg | Posted in Countries, Foreign policy | Tagged | Comments (0)

Irresitsible engines

Glen Steven’s ques­tions, in his inau­gural War­ren Hogan lec­ture, about the expec­ta­tion of emerg­ing Asia — that they will assume a promi­nent role shap­ing and direct­ing the global finan­cial sys­tem — and about the readi­ness of the West to cede that role to them have been tested in the WTO. So far, they remain unan­swered there… …

December 9, 2011 – 7:37 am | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Trade | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

The unanswered question about 9–11

Robert Fisk is such a reward­ing his­to­rian of inter­na­tional pol­icy because his con­tacts are so broad and his expe­ri­ence is so long and because he writes so clearly, pas­sion­ately and thought­fully about the per­sis­tent fail­ures of West­ern policy—and humanity—in the Mid­dle East. There, the UK, France and the United States directly or through their occa­sional …

September 4, 2011 – 8:55 am | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Ideas | Tagged , | Comments (0)

That High Court decision

The Prime Min­is­ter is “deeply dis­ap­pointed” with the deci­sion on the plan to send Christ­mas Island arrivals to Malaysia. Under­stand­able; it’s not a good look for her gov­ern­ment. But is Paul Kelly in the Aus­tralian right to argue that the deci­sion was ill-made and an “unjus­ti­fied” inter­fer­ence in for­eign pol­icy? This is cer­tainly an “intru­sive” …

September 2, 2011 – 9:39 am | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy, Public policy | Tagged , | Comments (0)

The foreign buck stops here

Why does the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment cre­ate invest­ment hur­dles at the “bor­der” for for­eign­ers who want to put their money into the growth of our econ­omy? It’s mad­ness, when you look at where the money goes: The work we have done inter­nally says that, over the past decade, for every dol­lar of extra rev­enue we have got …

August 29, 2011 – 8:36 am | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Strategic stupidity in Afghanistan

I ask myself, what the real motive of our mil­i­tary adven­ture in Afghanistan could be, because noth­ing in the wretched his­tory of U.S. (“West­ern”) mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion, nor cen­turies of Afghan his­tory, nor obser­va­tion, much less com­mon sense gives any sup­port to these claims of impend­ing “vic­tory”: Aus­tralian Defence Force Joint Oper­a­tions Com­mand head Lieu­tenant Gen­eral …

August 27, 2011 – 3:57 pm | By pwg | Posted in Foreign policy | Tagged , | Comments (1)