The Long, Long Story: “Principled Realism”, Trump and Afghanistan
The story continues with dispiriting relentlessness. The remark by Samuel Beckett in The Unnamable comes to mind: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” With […]
Articles by Dr Binoy Kampmark
Target Finding for the Empire: The NSA and the Pine Gap Facility
“The tasking we get at Pine Gap is look for this particular signal coming out of this particular location. If you find it, report it, […]
The Burka Comes to Parliament: Pauline Hanson’s Panto
In few environments could this work. A member of Parliament (barely breathing, but still a parliament) running within a Muslim minority country (a small minority, […]
A Plague on Parliament: Australia’s Citizenship Crisis
“You know, when you nominate for Parliament, there is actually a question, you’ve got to address that section 44 question.” (Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby […]
Money Laundering in Chief: Scandal at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The Australian banker is a smug species, arguably more than his international peers. Caught off guard by the financial disasters of the late 1980s and […]
Backward Steps: The Australian Recycling Sham
The green conscience received a setback last week with revelations that the Australian recycling industry is not what it seems. The middle-class sensibility here is […]
Believing in Deterrence: Responding to North Korea
The chit-chatterati on the international relations circuit have been humming with each ballistic missile test and next provocation over how best to cope with the […]
Promises of Incineration: The Nuclear Playground Gets Busy
“I don’t know what he’s saying and I’ve long ago given up trying to interpret what he says” (Senator John McCain on President Donald J. […]
Memories of Futility: The Passchendaele Method of War
“So fruitless in its results, so depressing in its direction was the 1917 offensive, that ‘Passchendaele’ has come to be synonym for military failure, a […]
Apple’s China Surrender
“This is very dangerous precedent which can lead to same moves in countries like UAE etc where government control access to internet” (Star VPN, Twitter, […]
Boris Johnson in Australia
“We [Australians and Britons] can talk to each other as we can with no one else, but you can’t revert to a world that’s now […]
Fanciful Terrors: Bomb Plots and Australian Airport Security
In the classroom of international security, Australia remains an infant wanting attention before the older hands. During the Paris Peace talks, Prime Minister William Morris […]
The Pine Gap Anniversary Party
It all happened without much fuss, since fuss was bound to be the enemy. Dignitaries, guests and various partners lined up for a gathering at […]
Hydropolitics Down Under: The Failure of the Murray Darling Basin Plan
Water is gold to survival, the indispensable, the vast feeder for human civilization. Its absence entails certain death; its decline brings out the prospect that […]
The Cardinal, The Church and Legal Theatre
“The world is watching.” Cathy Kezelman, Blue Knot Foundation president, The Washington Post, Jul 25, 2017. The show on Wednesday was grim, busy, crowded. Cardinal […]