Best way to avoid war is to arm Taiwan

September 8, 2022

Our Taiwan debate has been marred by two misperceptions and one fallacy.The first misperception is that war over Taiwan is improbable. This proposition is harder to sustain as Beijing continues to ratchet up pressure on Taipei.

Flying drones over small islands controlled by Taiwan is the latest in a long line of Chinese provocations and another step on the ladder of escalation that significantlyincreases the risk of military conflict.

Taipei has been remarkably restrained until now. But the administration of Tsai Ing-wen couldn’t allow the drones to fly uncontested over its territory without challenge. Its four-step response protocols have been measured: fire warning flares,report the incursion, expel the drone and shoot it down only as a last resort.
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A Foreign Affair: Radio National

August 6, 2022

After decades of peace, how ready are defence forces in the developed world for war? Australia’s defence minister has announced the most comprehensive strategic review of our defence force in 35 years. This week we dive deep into the challenges that militaries like ours are facing as security threats ramp up. What needs to be done and can it be done quickly?

Guests:
Alan Dupont, veteran defence analyst
Allan Behm, Director of the International and Security Affairs Program, The Australia Institute
Melissa Conley-Tyler, Program Lead, the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue.
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China can already control most of our region

July 1, 2022

NATO’s game-changing commitment to boost high-readiness ­forces will transform the European balance of power. The opposite is occurring here.

NATO’s new strategic roadmap is a game changer. Once a strategic partner, Russia is now considered the main threat to the expanding alliance. Equally important is the belated recognition of China as a strategic challenge to the alliance’s “interests, security and values”. The commitment to boost military spending and bolster its high-readiness forces from 40,000 to “well over 300,000” will tilt the European balance of power in favour of democracies. But the opposite is occurring in our strategic neighbourhood, where maritime power will be decisive.
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China’s Pacific roadshow our biggest test since Japan in WWII

June 2, 2022

Despite the rejection of his ambitious trade and security deal by Pacific Islands leaders, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s diplomatic road show underlines the strategic nature of Beijing’s unprecedented investment in the South Pacific and the extent of the challenge to our economic and security interests.
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The second age of globalisation is beginning to buckle

May 7, 2022

The ripple effects of the Russo-Ukrainian war are spreading and intensifying. Deglobalisation will jeopardise the prosperity and welfare of millions.

The ripple effects of the Russo-Ukrainian war are spreading and intensifying. Their impact is being felt in almost every corner of the globe, revealing an international system under duress.

The US-led rules-based order has survived and prospered for 77 years through numerous regional conflicts, terrorist outrages and economic shocks. But this time it’s different. Although not the sole cause, the Ukraine conflict is driving a once-in-a-century redesign of the world’s economic and geopolitical plumbing.
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Why Xi may well regret Beijing’s alliance with Putin

March 25, 2022

If an ‘unthinkable’ war can occur in Europe driven by one man’s delusions of grandeur, what is the likelihood of another’s igniting an even more destructive conflict in Asia?

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a seismic geopolitical event. It’s shaping to be more destabilising and consequential than anything the world has seen this century, overshadowing Covid, the global financial crisis and the rise of al-Qa’ida. It has shattered Europe’s long peace; raised the spectre of a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia; widened the divide between the West and Eurasia’s autocratic states; and almost certainly ended Russia’s quest to be a Eurasian great power.
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Time for West to take off the gloves

March 16, 2022

In his vainglorious march to conquest, Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to bomb Ukraine back to the Stone Age. He is deliberately and criminally targeting civilians with vacuum, cluster and phosphorus munitions to break
Ukrainian morale in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. Chemical and biological weapons may be next. They are weapons of mass destruction.

Putin’s war of liberation is turning into a war of obliteration. It must be stopped to save lives, maintain Ukraine’s sovereignty, uphold democracy, and prevent eastern Europe and the Baltic States from disappearing behind another iron curtain.
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West must inflict a hammer blow to Russia’s economy

February 28, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered three stultifying illusions and delivered a rude wake-up call to a complacent and self-obsessed West. Vladimir Putin’s game-changing aggression will lead to a hardening of the systemic divide between democracies and autocracies; increased geopolitical risk; higher defence spending; less globalisation; greater financial market volatility; rising inflation driven by surging energy and commodity prices; and a significant push by Europe to diversify its energy supplies away from Russia.
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