Trevor Cook on public relations, social media and politics

Category Archives: Foreign policy

Silly me, I thought Rudd was serious on defence

June 1, 2009 – 5:20 am

Last month, I was alarmed by the Rudd Government’s expressed intentions to arm us to the teeth at great expense in response to some supposed ‘China threat’. I wrote a stream of alarmed posts. Not only didn’t the Government’s position make much sense in strategic terms, but I just couldn’t see how we could afford [...]

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Rudd sticks with “Fortress Australia” among funding doubts

May 3, 2009 – 7:12 am

Kevin Rudd has rejected criticism of his deeply flawed defence build-up. In fact, he seems unwilling or unable to defend the logic of that disgraceful white paper. Just flicking reporters with an “I’m the PM and you’re not” response.
The BBC points out that the strategic hysteria underpinning the white paper and the crazy buildup are [...]

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Rudd’s war preparations will damage our key relationships

May 2, 2009 – 12:26 pm

It’s a Latham-like achievement, Rudd’s disgraceful Defence White Paper has succeeded only in damaging our two key strategic relationships; with the US and China. Brian Toohey has an excellent piece in the AFR today pointing out that we are now at odds strategically with the USA, which rates the likelihood of a war with China [...]

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Rudd’s horrible Defence mistake

May 2, 2009 – 6:46 am

In deciding on a massive arms buildup, Kevin Rudd has made one of the worst decisions of any ALP Prime Minister. The reasons are stark, and obvious:

Stupid strategy. The China-rising argument is fallacious. Thus the whole white paper is deeply flawed. The US, as the paper admits, will remain the dominant military power in the [...]

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The illusions of the American Century

April 30, 2009 – 8:11 pm

Farewell, the American Century. A very interesting perspective.

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More on the ‘focused force’

April 20, 2009 – 8:07 am

The Lowy Institute blogger has taken me to task in rather severe terms for my off the cuff remarks so I had bettter elaborate.
I don’t think the proposition of probable threat from China’s emergence is well-established at all.
Hugh White asserts that because China will become the world’s largest economy that this will lead automatically and [...]

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Planning for the next world war

April 18, 2009 – 7:04 am

The Lowy Institute’s excellent Interpreter blog is running a series in advance of the release of the Government’s white paper. So far there have been six contributions: one, two, three, four,  five, and six. The effect of much of this debate is to make you feel queasy. Most of these guys live in something akin to a parallel universe. Their [...]

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Indonesia’s foreign policy, a talk at the LSE by Pres. SBY

April 15, 2009 – 6:40 pm

It’s a thoughtful and interesting presentation given in late March while the Indonesian president was in London for the G20. Transcript, audio and video are available here.

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The yellow peril is back

March 31, 2009 – 11:37 am

Former AusAID manager, Mark Thomson writes:
The tiny coterie of regular readers of this blog will know I’m no fan of the ruling regime in China. I am a strident critic of China’s human rights record and its colonial repression of Tibet. However, the recent foray of senior Opposition politicians into the realms of fear and [...]

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