The world is a more dangerous place. Global conflicts have doubled over the past five years, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (Acled). In 2024 alone, one person in eight across the world was exposed to conflict: political violence increased by a quarter, by factors worse in countries that held elections. Australian political leaders of all stripes couch it in shared aphorism: the most “challenging strategic circumstances since WWII”. Violence, of course, never went away. It ebbed in some periods, but the myth of the triumph of liberal…
Tag: Aukus
Australia plans for a ‘less certain’ future in Asia — one where the US may not remain the dominant force
Australia’s defence overhaul has accelerated some projects and cut others and has already prompted a plea from China to abandon a “cold war mentality”. But as the dust settles on a plan to increase overall military spending, the Albanese government has also sent some significant signals on how it sees the future of the Indo-Pacific region – and these aren’t exactly how Australia’s top security ally, the US, might see things. The defence minister, Richard Marles, also has a new answer to a persistent question about claims from some western…
Australia politics live: Brandis says Rudd must have bipartisan support as ambassador despite Trump comments; Joyce says Rudd is ‘cooked’
From 23m ago Brandis says Rudd must have bipartisan support as ambassador despite Trump’s ‘wild’ comments The former UK ambassador and Coalition minister George Brandis is speaking to ABC radio and he is being very critical of his former colleagues over the Kevin Rudd mini storm, sparked by Donald Trump’s comments. Brandis says the resulting storm has all been a bit much: I think this has been rather overinterpreted. Donald Trump is infamous for making rather wild and off-the-cuff claims that don’t in the end amount to very much, so…
Prominent Australians urge Albanese government to adopt activist middle power role to head off war between US and China
Australia must step up diplomatic efforts to “avert the horror of great power conflict” and reduce the risk of being dragged into a war between the US and China, according to 50 prominent Australians. The group, which includes the former foreign ministers Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, is urging the Albanese government to play an “activist middle power” role to reduce tensions between Australia’s top security ally and its biggest trading partner. In a statement published on Wednesday, the prominent Australians said they were “apprehensive these tensions may lead to…
Australia says AI will be used to help track Chinese submarines under new Aukus plan
Artificial intelligence, drones, and deep space radar are among the technologies that will be used by Australia and its Aukus allies to counter China’s aggression in the Pacific. Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, met with his counterparts from the United States and United Kingdom – Lloyd J Austin and Grant Shapps – in California on Saturday to announce the second “pillar” of the Aukus deal. It came after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, last month accused a Chinese naval ship of “dangerous, unsafe and unprofessional” behaviour after Australian naval divers…
White House meeting: key takeaways from Anthony Albanese’s visit to Washington
Anthony Albanese is in the final stages of an official visit to Washington. He wanted to engage the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on a range of policy fronts during the four-day trip. Here are the key takeaways from the visit. Trouble with nuclear submarines When the prime minister arrived in Washington, dysfunction in the legislature was on full display. The House of Representatives had been paralysed for three weeks because there was no speaker. This chaos affects the biggest defence project in Australia’s history. The Biden administration…
Aukus will ‘get done’ despite jitters in Congress, Biden tells Albanese at White House meeting
Joe Biden has played down congressional jitters over the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal and has revealed he assured Xi Jinping that the countries involved are not aiming to “surround China”. The US president welcomed the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to the White House and insisted he was “confident that we’re going to be able to get the money for Aukus because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest”. “So the question is not if, but when,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Albanese in the rose garden on Wednesday…
Aukus could weaken China deterrence,
Doubts about Australia’s willingness to join forces with the US in a war against China are being cited by congressional researchers as a potential obstacle to the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal. A new research paper looks at the US plan to sell Australia between three and five Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s but suggests the idea “could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression”. That stage of the deal aims to help Canberra bridge a “capability gap” before Australian-built nuclear-powered submarines begin to enter into service in the 2040s. The paper,…
The Camp David summit signals a new cold war – this time with China | Observer editorial
If it sounds like a new cold war and looks like a new cold war, then it probably is a new cold war. For what other interpretation is to be placed on US president Joe Biden’s latest ramping up of diplomatic, economic and military pressure on China? Western officials tend to avoid the term, recalling as it does decades of hair-trigger confrontation with the former Soviet Union. They talk instead about enhanced security and defence cooperation and the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. But such bland generalisations…
Three in four Australians think China will be military threat to country within 20 years, survey finds
Three-quarters of Australians believe it is likely China will become a military threat to Australia in the next two decades, but a majority say Australia should remain neutral in the event of a conflict between China and the United States, a new poll has found. The 2023 Lowy Institute poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 Australians in March on a range of issues, also found 44% of Australians see China as “more of an economic partner” while 52% see the country as “more of a security threat” – a drop…