text:
By Katherine Marshall
One of the world's longest running and nastiest wars, in Sri Lanka, may be near an end. Sri Lankan government troops have cornered remnants of a force called terrorists by some, nationalist guerrillas by others: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE. Over 70,000 people have died in a conflict that has raged, off and on, since 1983. Peace would indeed be a blessing.
But there are warnings of a "dark victory" and "a slaughter waiting to happen." The long-term prospects for peace are uncertain.
The immediate problem is that about 100,000 civilians are trapped in the area of the confrontation, human shields of the rebels. Humanitarian groups cannot reach them or ship supplies, both because of fighting and because the government will not allow free access. The United Nations estimates that 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed between January 20 and May 7 this year; doctors in the area say at least another 1,000 have been killed since then. Hundreds, if not thousands, of combatants have also reportedly died, though neither side releases casualty figures.
These numbers exceed the casualty tolls this year for the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Gaza combined. The fate of the trapped civilians is the current crisis.
The civilian catastrophe has led to fervent appeals for international action. The United Nations Security Council called for action last week, invoking the "Responsibility to Protect" or R2P; in 2005, world leaders agreed that states have a primary responsibility to protect their own populations and that the international community has a responsibility to act when these governments fail to do so. President Obama made an appeal along these lines on May 13. Yet the calls to protect civilians seem to fall on deaf ears.
The diplomats are hard at work but their frustration is obvious. Few governments seem interested in punishing a country they believe is justifiably trying to crush a stubborn insurgency, however much sympathy they may have for the Tamil cause. Remember that LTTE is notorious for brutal terrorist attacks and assassinations that include India's president Rajiv Gandhi, Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa, a long list of politicians, and religious leaders. Also, the levers of influence are weak. Fueled in part by its military spending, Sri Lanka's government faces a looming financial crisis, and seeks a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. This offers one pawn to prod the government into greater concern for the humanitarian crisis but it is a feeble one.
Stories of what is happening now and what has happened in the past are deeply worrying. Sri Lanka's generals are not known as humanitarian paragons, and they want to end the war by any means. Human rights groups believe the horror stories coming from the war zone because the government's campaign has been marked by gross disregard for the rule of law, especially as it applies to Tamils. But international criticism has sparked a backlash among many Sri Lankans, who see it as the work of rebel sympathizers in foreign capitals.
The immediate crisis is only part of the story. If, indeed, the guns are silenced this week, the real challenges begin. That's why so many are concerned about the brutal end game. A conventional victory will hardly address the root causes of the conflict. A pro-rebel website quotes a senior Tamil Tigers leader warning that the Colombo Government's effort to "finish the war in 48 hours through a carnage and bloodbath of civilians will never resolve a conflict of decades… On the contrary it will only escalate the crisis to unforeseen heights." Opinion among the millions of Tamils around the world, especially those in southern India, is dangerously radicalized by images and stories of intense civilian suffering.
Religion is very much "part of the problem" and can and must be "part of the solution". The Sri Lankan conflict is ferociously complex (the International Crisis Group has an excellent summary though it largely ignores the religious elements). Religion is part of the problem because the war draws heavily on ethnic and religious histories and narratives, with the government dominated by the Singhalist, mostly Buddhist population, the rebels mostly Hindu and Tamil, with significant Christian and Muslim minorities also involved.
That explains in part why some of the world's leading peacemakers are hard at work in Sri Lanka. Religions for Peace, the global interfaith institution, has long been active, in public and behind the scenes. The Sri Lankan National Peace Council (NPC) works both to bring the warring parties together and to build community networks dedicated to peace. They call for international intervention and support. The Community of Sant'Egidio, renowned for its thoughtful and skilled peace making work in many corners of the world, is involved in confidential discussions on next steps. The Catholic Order the Oblates of Mary Immaculate is actively lobbying the US government and the United Nations to intervene.
If this war ends with a government victory, as now seems likely, it will be urgent to find ways for the two warring communities to live together in a pluralist society. This work must obviously be grounded in Sri Lanka, but international support, both active and as a neutral party, seems essential. The interfaith groups can be critical actors. Among those who also might be part of the solution is the Sarvodaya movement; an organization grounded in philosophical tenets drawn from Buddhism and Gandhian thought. Sarvodaya's community work after the 2004 tsunami won worldwide admiration. Christian groups, though they are viewed with some suspicion, have an asset: Christianity is the only religion with both Tamils and Singhalese. The faith-inspired Non-violent Peace Force has made Sri Lanka one of its leading sites as it works to bring a Peace Corps like group of neutral international peace makers into action.
In the words of Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, long involved in Sri Lanka, with Religions for Peace and the Norwegian government, "in the aftermath of the present Armageddon, religious leaders can play an important role to bring together the various parties in the conflict."
Katherine Marshall is a senior fellow at Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, a Visiting Professor, and a senior advisor for the World Bank.
By Katherine Marshall |
May 18, 2009; 12:03 AM ET
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Search the collections
Where is it from?
- A Place & Date Depicted Waroona, Australia
- A Other Association (See Comments) Waroona, Australia
Similar items over time
Negative - Waroona Drakesbrook, Western Australia, circa 1900 Reg. No: MM 5810
- Description Of Content:
- Horse teams with jinkers delivering logs to loading landing for loading onto the tramway to Drake's Brook Sawmill, Waroona District, Western Australia. The mill was built by Joseph McDowell and was operating in the 1890s.
- Acquisition Information:
- Copied from Peter Collins, 1988
- Acknowledgement:
- The Biggest Family Album of Australia, Museum Victoria
More information
|Tagged with:
|logging, railway lines, sawmills, timber, timber workers
|Themes this item is part of:
|Images & Image Making Collection, Transport Collection, The Biggest Family Album in Australia Collection
|Primary Classification:
|Secondary Classification:
|Forestry & Sawmilling
|Tertiary Classification:
|People Depicted:
|Collins, James Sullivan
|Organisations Depicted:
|Drakess Brook Mill; Joseph Macdowell
|Negative: Black & White; 35 mm
|Place & Date Depicted:
|Drakesbrook Mill, Drakesbrook, via Waroona, Western Australia, Australia, circa 1900
|Rembrandt Photo Co, circa 1900
|Other Association (See Comments):
|Joseph Macdowell, Drakesbrook, via Waroona, Western Australia, Australia, circa 1890
Builder and original operator of mill
Nick McKinnon Posted on 20 Jul 2011 10:04 PM
Hi were there any sawmills operating east of Perth in connection with the railway and the goldfields between 1900 and 1915 or the beginning of the 20th century? Thanks.Nick.
Discovery Centre Posted on 02 Mar 2012 12:02 PM
Hi Nick, apologies that we missed replying to this comment a while ago. We've just heard back from our curator who thinks that you would be best to contact the Western Australian Museum with your query. They also have a Discovery Centre (not affiliated with us) and can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com
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subset: commoncrawl


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Monday, July 01, 2013
9 comments
Well, I gained some of my weight back. I am starting at 110 pounds.
I was down to 104 BUT I didn't exercise like I should or eat right so I gained weight and am so mad at myself for being lazy.
Today I am back to Yoga and some strength trai... Read more
Thursday, June 20, 2013
19 comments
Grandpa was always talking about the good old days,and the lower cost of living, in particular......
"When I was a kid, my mom could send me to the store, and I'd get a salami, two pints of milk, 6 oranges, two loaves o' bread, and a magazi... Read more
Sunday, June 16, 2013
14 comments
Juan comes up to the Mexican border on his bicycle. He has 2 large bags over his shoulders. The guard stops him and says, "What's in the bags?" "Sand" he says.
The guard says, "we'll just see about that. Get off the bike." The guard takes t... Read more
Saturday, June 01, 2013
10 comments
I had my second English Riding lesson today. It went well. I am at the beginner level.
She said I am doing good,I can balance so that's good. I tried an English saddle on Bella today for size and it seemed to small looking.
The girth she mig... Read more
Saturday, May 25, 2013
11 comments
Today at 9:30 am I am going to take my first English riding lesson. I am very nervous as I heard she is a very good instructor, but tough.
I am going in at a beginner level (which I am) so I am praying I can do this as well as the 10 year ol... Read more
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
17 comments
An 80 year old man is having his annual checkup at his doctor's office. He says to the doctor, "I've never felt better in my whole life. In fact, I have a 20 year old bride who's pregnant and having my child. What do you think of that!!
The... Read more
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
18 comments
Celibacy can be a choice in life, or a condition imposed by circumstances.
While attending a Marriage Weekend, Frank and his wife Ann listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are impo... Read more
Monday, April 01, 2013
14 comments
Well, I made it 40 days no chips or fries but I gained weight BECAUSE I didn't exercise like I should have and ate too much junk.
I replaced junk for the stuff I gave up (which they were no good for me anyway) but I believe my biggest temptati... Read more
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
10 comments
Hi, just a quick blog since I am confused.
Just now, I went to give someone anEaster basket goodie and I wrote my message and click to send and nothing happened so I clicked it again and nothing happened so I clicked refresh and the Easter ba... Read more
Saturday, March 09, 2013
10 comments
I still haven't had any fries or chips (22 days I think). I missed Yoga last night but am back on track today.
It was a bit warmer today and we we had some runing around to do.
I did 9138 steps, 3.57 miles and burned 1347 calories....But I w... Read more
Monday, March 04, 2013
8 comments
I did 10152 steps,4.58 miles( I did the 5 mile walk but Fitbit only registered 4.5)1250 calories burned.
I am going to do my yoga nowand then probably get ready for bed.
I think it's 19 days no chips or fries.
I ate pretty good today and h... Read more
Friday, March 01, 2013
10 comments
I ate too much today (pizza)
I did do 60 minutes of Yoga,15 minutes of core
I did 4090 steps,1.60 miles,1051 calories burned.
I actually feel nauseous. I think it's because of the too much pizza. I believe the yoga and bad food are in a po... Read more
Friday, March 01, 2013
8 comments
A new month to start fresh (again) but not only to weight loss and healthy habits but to looking forward to SPRING. Renew like the new growth of everything else.
I am looking "forward" to a new begining.
Read more
Thursday, February 21, 2013
9 comments
I did p90x disc 3 for arms.
I burned 1093 calories,5127 steps and2.02 miles.
I know I actually do more steps that I record since I don't put my Fitbit on sometimes until I leave the house so I am always happy if I do 5000 or more.
I ate g... Read more
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
9 comments
I did p90x #2 video for the 60 minutes. It was pretty tough.
I walked 6408 steps,2.50 miles and 1155 calories burned.
I ate a big salad for lunch, another day of no fries or chips but I did have some chocolate.
I am done for the day, a bi... Read more


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Inspect details on Hector Vasquez by scanning through PeopleFinders.com. We have created several easy ways to find people in our huge database of public records that includes known relatives, prior addresses, aliases, and more. Hector Vasquez is located in Redwood City, CA. Their relatives are Jesse Vasquez, Jose Jesse Vasquez, Alejandro Vasquez.
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Home > Archives
Tuesday November 27, 2012
By TERENCE TOH email@example.com
An 18-year-old author's debut novel is making waves
with its unique combination of mystery, fantasy
and steampunk adventure.
WHAT would you do if you had the services of a powerful faery at your command, capable of catering to your every whim? Some men would ask for power, some for glory, love, or riches. Swiss author Stefan Bachmann, however, is content with having it help him get organised.
"If it wasn't frightening like the one in my book, I would ask it to keep track of things for me," Bachmann quipped in an e-mail interview. "I'm constantly losing pens and glasses and tickets."
While the young author may not actually own a real faery (or so we think), writing about them has certainly brought him acclaim. Bachmann is the author of The Peculiar, a fantasy novel described as part murder mystery, part gothic fantasy and part steampunk adventure.
His novel is making waves in the American publishing scene, receiving rave reviews from both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Named one of the big children's books of BookExpo America 2012, the novel has received praise from luminaries such as Christopher Paolini (author of Eragon) and Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson And The Olympians).
What is even more impressive, however, is that Bachmann starting writing the novel two years ago, when he was16, an age when many people have problems fully reading a novel, let alone writing one!
"I read crazy amounts of books growing up, and I think there just came a point when I wanted things to go differently than the way the authors were writing them," Bachmann said.
"Some big influences were Beatrix Potter, Frances Hodgson Burnett, JRR Tolkien, and Susanna Clarke. I love prose and stories that are a little bit old-fashioned and a little bit magical, even if they have no fantasy at all in them. If they do have magic, it just makes them that much cooler."
The Peculiar takes place in an alternate Victorian London, where faeries have become second-class citizens after losing a war to humanity. Its setting is dark and mesmerising, with wolves pulling taxicabs, church bells chiming every five minutes (it keeps the faeries at bay!) and messages being sent by clockwork birds.
The novel tells the story of two changelings, or Peculiars (the offspring of faeries and humans): young Bartholomew Kettle, and his sister, Hettie, who has twigs growing on her head instead of hair. Shunned by the rest of society, the lives of the two siblings are thrown into turmoil with the arrival of a mysterious lady at the alley they live in.
The two soon end up in a sinister turn of events involving kidnappings and dark rituals as they catch the attention of some very powerful faeries, such as the murderous Jack Box, and the devious politician Mr Lickspittle. Traversing exotic locales such as a goblin market and a steam-powered airship, the only hope for the two comes in the form of the well-meaning but bumbling Arthur Jelliby, a young politician desperate to do the right thing.
Bachmann was born in Colorado in the United States, and later moved to Zurich, where he now lives with his family. He is currently attending the Zurich Conservatory, and dreams of becoming a film composer. The talented 18-year old even composed a few pieces of music for his novel, which he dubbed Peculiar Pieces.
"I wanted to write a few short pieces that encapsulated the mood of three or four scenes from the book: Jelliby chasing a clockwork bird, a sad little waltz for two characters I won't name, and a scene where the faeries come out of a great doorway.
"Obviously, and unfortunately, it's all played by an electronic orchestra, but it was a lot of fun to write, and I'm glad my publisher let me," said Bachmann, who is a fan of the soundtracks for the films The Village and Atonement.
Bachmann said it had taken him six to seven months to write the first draft of The Peculiar, which was then followed by a long process of polishing it up.
The inspiration for the book, he said, came from a Disney movie.
"How sophisticated, I know," Bachmann joked. "It's called The Great Mouse Detective and it's about mice and rats in a gloomy 19th century England, with clockwork and creepy toys."
Much of his storytelling style had come from fairy tales, he added, naming George MacDonald, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm as influences.
"European fairy tales tend to be very vague about the magical elements and specific characteristics of their goblins and trolls," Bachmann said. "So I had a lot of room to come up with my own details. Most of my research ended up being on Victorian customs and English maps from the 1850s."
The Peculiar also features elements of "steampunk", a science fiction subgenre typically featuring steam-powered machinery, anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions.
"I like how steampunk looks, and I wanted to incorporate it and contrast it with the wild and naturalistic faeries," he said. "I'm very intrigued by the concept of machine versus magic. I love that."
Bachmann said the second and concluding book in the Peculiar duology would be called The Whatnot, due out next year.
He added that he would then stop writing about faeries and steampunk, as he wanted to try his hand at other things.
He did, however, leave us with this tantalising glimpse into the second book:
"Unlike the first book, a large part of the second one takes place in the faery world, and we get to see quite a bit of it. I loved writing that. It's a very sinister place, where literally anything can happen and there are no laws that can't be broken.
"In The Whatnot, there's much wandering under lonely black trees, an expedition on a boat, a prolonged visit to the castle of a faery aristocrat, and the riding of some strange sorts of horses. None of it is quite as pleasant as it sounds."
Neighbours heard cries of children being beaten
RM1mil reward offer for information on Dr M's alleged misdeeds
Body of child found buried in kitchen
'Wild' party ends for 51 at popular mall
Money down the drain
Man killed after car smashes into toll booth barrier
Copyright © 1995-2015 Star Media Group Berhad (ROC 10894D)(Formerly known as Star Publications (Malaysia) Berhad)


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ODT /directory
Scientists working in the dense jungles of Indonesia have
"rediscovered" a large grey monkey so rare it was believed by
many to be extinct.
The former Haitian dictator known as "Baby Doc" has been
summoned to court to be scolded for violating the terms of
his house arrest by venturing outside the capital, a judge
A search is continuing today for a man swept away while
swimming in the Whanganui River.
While here in the South we may be enjoying a hot summer,
winter is making itself felt in other places, as these images
A man accused of spraying gasoline on a 73-year-old woman and
setting her ablaze in an elevator has been charged with
murder and arson, appearing in court with the left side of
his face blistered and burned, his upper lip swollen.
Officials say 23 people have died after drinking bootleg
liquor that sickened another 112 in a village in eastern
Police are awaiting further forensic results before drawing a
conclusion as to the circumstances surrounding the death of a
46-year-old Dunedin man at his home on Friday night.
Samoan first five Tusi Pisi headlines the new-look Hurricanes
side named today for the 2012 Super 15 season.
Fiji plans to advertise for a new national rugby coach,
likely making Sam Domoni the first head coach to lose his job
over his team's performance at the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
All Black mania lifted a notch as final preparations began
yesterday for the biggest game in New Zealand rugby
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Originally written on That NBA Lottery Pick | Last updated 11/18/14
It's always funny to see somebody else fall down and during game two of Monday's Los Angeles Clippers/Memphis Grizzlies game, referee David Guthrie had a nice trip in the third quarter of play. Keep an eye on Memphis guard Tony Allen laying on the ground nursing an injury and watch as Guthrie's attempt to walk behind him which goes pretty awry: *** NBA ref falls down [SB Nation]
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This good-looking fanless hybrid works as a slim Windows tablet or an ultra-portable laptop, but still suffers from the same awkward marriage of base and screen as many hybrids.
The N3 is definitely an upgrade to the N1, but its unadventurous body means you'll really only want this for the innovative camera.
While it will begin to cede its position to the PS4 in 2015, the PlayStation 3 still delivers impressively strong value for gaming and video entertainment.
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Michael Guenther
Michael Guenther, Falls Church man charged with setting firesComment
Investigators have charged a Falls Church man with intentionally setting fires during a period of weeks.
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4 posts tagged with dreams and anxiety.
Displaying 1 through 4 of 4. Subscribe:
why am i having these stressful dreams!?
For the past few weeks, I've been having extremely stressful dreams. Why? What will make them stop? [more inside]
Staggering Insomnia Almost Seems Preferable
Please hope me get control of my bad dreams until I can resolve their real-world roots. [more inside]
Overactive imagination. Disorder?
Overactive imagination. Disorder? [more inside]
Why haven't I ever had a good dream?
In my entire life, I have never had a good dream (that I can remember). What can I do about this? Every morning I awake feeling like I've just endured an extremely intense work out. These nightmares terrify me and are incredibly vivid. It feels like I am dreaming all night long, without ascending and descending through all of the stages of sleep. Is it possible to get too much REM sleep? If so, what causes this? Any sort of suggestion, outside of recommending therapy (done that), would be helpful. [more inside]
Page: 1


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Nicki Minaj Dresses Totally Normal For Once
Floyd Mayweather Sued for $20 Million By Ex-Girlfriend He Abused
12 Celebrities Who Are Kind of Gross
Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie: When is it Time to Seek Help?
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Is Meri Brown Quitting Sister Wives and Leaving Kody Brown?
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Inside Kim and Kanye's $20 Million Mega Mansion
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Swiss Legend Watches
Women's Yellow Neptune Watch
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- Round yellow silicone-wrapped stainless steel case with yellow dial and date window at 4 o'clock
- Yellow silicone strap with buckle closure
- Swiss quartz movement
- Water resistance tested at 100M
- Case measures 40mm (1.57 inches) wide
- Strap measures 20mm (0.79 inches) wide
- 5 year limited manufacturer warranty
Material: Stainless steel and silicone
Brand: Swiss Legend Watches
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Education News Archive - June 23, 2008
By Barbara Hollenbaugh Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus will present a series of summer programs for children ages 6 to 12 and for teenagers.
By Terri Cullen My husband, Gerry, and I are in our early 40s, so this June, we've been deluged with invitations to high-school graduation parties as our friends prepare to send their teenagers off to college.
By Jennifer Smith Richards, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Jun. 22--Mohamed Moallin stands at the chalkboard and, in a thick accent, says words such as phenotypes and heterozygous to a roomful of students who are still learning to speak English.
The head of The Ellis School in Shadyside has announced plans to retire at the end of the 2008-09 school year. The all girls private K-12 school has an enrollment of 470. Mary Grant, who has held the position at Ellis since 2002, previously worked for 11 years at Springside School in Philadelphia.
By Tim Puko Kristin Olejar is one of the best students at Sto-Rox High School, but she thinks she needs a little more than that to compete. She'll spend her summer studying molecular biology at Duquesne University through a program called Project SEED.
THE mission to provide a high standard of education is the priority of University of Strathclyde Business School. Its associate dean and international director Professor Colin Eden said: "We do not produce programmes such as the MBA to make money.
THERE has been an upward spiral in the number of juveniles caught by the police for criminal offences. In Kuala Lumpur alone last year, 86 schoolchildren, some as young as 12, committed violent crimes, revealed the city police chief on Thursday.
JOHOR BARU: The Newspaper-in-Education (NIE) unit of the New Straits Times Sdn Bhd will conduct NiEXUS workshops for students at 34 schools nationwide from June until August.
By Mark Hofmann A Uniontown Summer Reading Camp is in its fourth year of bringing children up to speed with their reading and writing skills.
The University of Pittsburgh will play host to 25 educators from across the country at its Voices Across Time Summer Institute from July 7 to Aug. 8.
- A hairdresser.


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County colonias need solutions
Thousands of Nueces County residents live in areas where their health is endangered by water not fit to drink or bathe in. Those residents live in homes that are in danger of being flooded by just about any heavy rainstorm. The roads that serve them are usually impassable after a bad rain, and barely tolerable even in dry conditions. If city voters were forced to live under these near-Third World conditions, every City Hall politician would be scrambling to find an answer.
But you won't find many candidates in this year's primary races talking about finding a solution to the festering and shameful conditions in colonias, scores of which dot rural Nueces County. Colonias are communities in unincorporated areas of the county that lack running water, sewer lines or adequate drainage. The poor and low-income Hispanic families who live in these subdivisions purchased their homes there because the land was cheap and because contracts for deed are easy on meager budgets. Never mind that such contracts, unlike conventional methods of homeownership, offer no equity, no loan value and amount to rent-to-own contracts. The families who live in colonias believed this was the American dream of homeownership.
Most of the area has dried out from the Jan. 15-16 rainstorms that hit South Texas. But that's not true in many of the colonias spread around Nueces County.
Lionel Lopez of the South Texas Colonia Initiative says many colonia residents are still dealing with flooded properties and muddy real estate. But flooding of colonias and the resulting unsanitary conditions are an old and recurring story in the county. Maybe that's why the public outrage that should follow when we know that our neighbors live in such conditions just isn't there.
That's why candidates can campaign for county commissioner and county judge while hardly mentioning colonias. Most of the votes in those races are within the City of Corpus Christi, not in the rural areas. But Lopez believes much more could be done to help colonia residents if the unincorporated communities were a top priority on the Commissioners Court.
There have been efforts, notably by Precinct 2 Commissioner Betty Jean Longoria, to help colonias. Longoria has been waging a long-running battle to deliver water service to Rose Acres, a colonia in that precinct. But more could be done by the commissioners. And it has to be done at the Commissioners Court table because the court has the power to prod the county bureaucracy to seek grants, do investigations and offer the government protections that other property owners enjoy.
The first step is to accept the fact that Nueces County has colonias. State surveys say that the county has some 38 colonias, but Lopez believes the number is much higher, perhaps more than 100. He is hoping that an accurate census, a key to seeking grants to build water and sewer lines, will demonstrate the true population of the county living in colonias. He believes that the colonia population is as high as 50,000.
Most readers might associate colonias only with counties along the Mexican border. So do many lawmakers, unfortunately. Colonia legislation has focused on those border counties. There's no doubt that the colonia problem is critical in those border areas, but colonias have spread and grown to tiers of counties beyond the border. Still, counties with colonias within 50 miles of the border are treated differently than those that are 150 miles from the border, as in Nueces County.
Political contests at the county level usually turn out to be beauty contests. It's unusual for such elections to turn on policy issues, other than pledges to lower taxes. It would be a shocker if a candidate campaigned on a platform to alleviate the situation of colonia residents. Colonias are not a constituency that wins elections. Yet finding solutions to the problems of colonias is not about politics, but about protecting and advocating for the powerless. That is what government is supposed to do.
Nick Jimenez is the emeritus editorial page editor of the Caller-Times and a member of the editorial board.
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It's always good to leave a job while you're still enjoying it. After almost eight years, today is my last day as director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute.
I am proud to have contributed a substantial part of my working life to the Institute's development as a force to be reckoned with in foreign and security policy debates, whether in Australia, its Indo-Pacific region or globally. In turn, I am grateful for the privilege of having been part of a powerhouse of ideas, dialogue and policy entrepreneurship.
From next week, my foremost professional loyalty will be elsewhere, as I take up the post of Head of the National Security College at the Australian National University. My new mission will be very much about helping shape an inclusive and contemporary approach to Australia's security and foreign policy challenges.
I will remain affiliated with Lowy as a nonresident fellow, and I won't forget where I came from. A certain sandstone building on Bligh St in Sydney will always seem to me the forge where I finished a long apprenticeship – across diplomacy, intelligence analysis, journalism and academia. It has played a formative role in my vision of what a policy think tank can and should be.
It's impossible now to imagine the Australian foreign and security policy scene without the Lowy Institute. But the Institute is just 11 years old, and it wasn't always thus.
Lowy has played, and will continue to play, an exceptional bridging role between the realms of politics, official policymaking, media and academia. For too long, these were parallel domains in Australia, often characterised by a lack of understanding or even of respect for one another's way of making sense of a confusing world. For a country of Australia's size, and a democracy, this was never a sustainable or constructive state of affairs.
In 2015, as Australia comes to terms with a world of increasing uncertainty, complexity and strategic risk, the need for policy communication and innovative thinking across the old boundaries of politics, bureaucracy, scholarship and journalism is greater than ever. Lowy, the National Security College and others in Australia's healthily expanding think tank scene will all have their parts to play.
The unique vantage point of the Lowy Institute – offering insights into business, media and wider community attitudes – has sharpened my sense of Australia's national interests and how they need to be protected and advanced.
My time at Lowy also leaves me with a rich trove of memories – illuminating dialogues with foreign counterparts, energetic debates on tough strategic problems (including on this excellent blog), fascinating research excursions, times when governments listened and times when they did not, rewarding moments of insight, and frustrating illustrations of the obstacles to good policy.
In particular, I have benefited from having such a strong platform to help advance Australia's understanding of its fast-changing Indo-Pacific region, and to encourage a sensible constellation of strategic relations with India, China, Japan, Indonesia and other regional powers as well as a revitalised and properly-explained alliance with the US.
In all of this, I am especially fortunate to have collaborated with and learned from so many talented colleagues. They range from wise veterans of the craft through to a successor generation of Australian strategic analysts, whose skills and interest I have been proud to encourage and cultivate. I thank them all.
The Sydney hostage siege is over and three people — the lone gunman and tragically two of the innocent people he had held captive — are dead.
The people of Sydney and Australia are still coming to terms with what has happened. How Australians respond in the next few days will matter greatly to whether this horrific incident will change this country in any way for the worse. A few things are becoming increasingly clear:
I have spent most of today at a loss for words about the hostage situation, described as 'consistent with a terrorist attack', taking place just a few blocks from my Sydney office. Sometimes the smaller the amount of instant and semi-informed coverage an incident generates, the better. This is one of those times.
Frankly, there is not a lot that is meaningful to say about what is occurring. Even if the situation is resolved peacefully, what has happened is plainly a cruel and criminal act: keeping innocent people detained at gunpoint and in fear for their lives. And at the time of writing, it is not over.
The rest of the story has been largely guesswork. The hostage-taker has used — or, to put it more accurately, abused — an Islamic flag. Understandably, there has been plenty of speculation that his agenda is broadly supportive of Islamic State or other violent extremists. But at time of writing, there has been no public expression of a specific affiliation or a demand being made to negotiators. Australian authorities have been cautious about using the 'terrorist' label, even if some media have been quick to do so.
None of this is to say that the authorities are over-reacting. Most of what we have seen shows calm, coordination and professionalism. Crisis-response mechanisms and capabilities, long in the making, have swung into action. It is commendable that authority figures, from the Prime Minister down, have emphasised the need for calm and normality. Tony Abbott has called the perpetrator nothing more glorious than 'an armed person claiming political motivation'. That is the right approach.
And nor, from what I have seen today, has the Australian public lost its nerve. In peak Christmas shopping season, much of Sydney's central business district continued to function with relative normality for at least the first few hours after the incident began, and then began to wind down gradually, not in panic. Not far from the siege zone, faces were perhaps a little anxious at my favourite café, but it was still busy, still a determined attempt at business as usual.
It is also impressive that the incident has led to immediate calls for tolerance, understanding and cohesion across multicultural Australia. Muslim community figures have spoken out against the crime, and sensible voices have emphasised the need to avoid any backlash against Muslim Australians.
So it is wrong to claim that this was the day Australia changed forever. Innocent people's lives are being threatened. People are being traumatised. But by all accounts, this seems the work of a lone criminal.
That fact should not of itself be cause for comfort. It is deeply disturbing that the work of one dangerous person has drawn such blanket attention in the national and global media. If terrorism thrives on the oxygen of publicity, then the Australian and international media has generally played to the script. Several journalists I have spoken with today are privately aware of this problem.
Still, it is hard to see who benefits from saturation media coverage of an event like this other than the criminal himself and those violent extremists whose agenda has been associated with his actions. The more attention a one-man outrage like this generates, the greater may be the incentive for someone else to try something similar.
Let's not pretend that the rest of us are not complicit. Social media has helped magnify and at times distort the picture. Early on, for instance, I saw one irresponsible tweet claiming the attacker had planted devices all over the city. Meanwhile, those random members of the public who had nothing better to do but stand at police cordons waiting and watching can only have complicated things needlessly for the security forces.
Some social media users – and mainstream media – were transmitting real-time images of police positions or otherwise reporting on police movements. The Mumbai siege in 2008 proved the impact of social media in terrorist situations: there, the attackers and their handlers were reportedly using all forms of media to keep track of the Indian security forces, which may well have added to the duration and lethality of those attacks. It is a lesson that must not be forgotten. Perhaps today in Sydney the hostage-taker did not have media-monitoring accomplices, but none of us can know for sure.
I have not responded to most calls from the media today because at this stage I have little useful to say. And now I've said it.
Media coverage will probably be quick to recognise that Xi Jinping's latest speech on Chinese foreign policy is a big deal. But the headline writers are missing the story if they focus on his pledge to uphold China's claims in maritime disputes.
As someone who has done more than his share of professional worrying about the strategic implications of China's rise, I've surprised myself by reading this speech quite differently. Yes, it is a challenge to the world order we know, but not a confrontational or a jarring one. It's subtle and, other countries should be relieved, cautious.
Xi Jinping with Prime Minister John Key during Xi's recent New Zealand visit. (REUTERS/Nigel Marple.)
The good news is that Xi's speech is much more about diplomacy than raw power. It follows a season of statesmanship in hosting APEC and President Obama, advancing Chinese interests in a non-confrontational manner at the East Asia Summit and the G20, and successful visits to reassure Australia and New Zealand about China's intentions.
One way to read this speech is that it knits together China's ambitious diplomatic initiatives to change the Asian and global order, from a new infrastructure bank to new security conferences. Therefore it affirms China's intent to challenge that order, albeit carefully.
It underscores China's determination to defend and advance its maritime claims and interests, develop a 'maritime silk road' of economic, diplomatic and security links across China's version of the Indo-Pacific, and develop the capabilities to protect its growing overseas presence.
But the speech is also important for its notes of prudence and restraint, with an emphasis on better communicating China's 'soft power' message. It places weight on building regional institutions and a global network of partners. It contains reminders about the non-use of force and even respect for international law.
Given such continuing Chinese activities as island-building in disputed parts of the South China Sea, these words will naturally be greeted with some scepticism.
But they could be taken as signals that Xi wants to channel China's deep currents of nationalism away from excessive risk-taking and adventurism. After two years of risky encounters in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, Xi has lately emphasised a need for crisis-management and 'confidence-building' measures with foreign navies. He has signed an agreement with Obama on this issue, and endorsed new efforts at military risk-reduction with Japan.
Whether they liked it or not, the PLA brass found themselves repeatedly endorsing the concept of CBMs at their Xiangshan Forum, the Chinese military's answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue, which I attended in Beijing not long ago.
Until this year, a confusing credo of Chinese maritime military diplomacy seemed to be that there was no point developing incidents-at-sea rules and crisis-management mechanisms with other countries until strategic trust – that is, the removal of disputes – had been somehow brought into existence. I always found this a fiction to permit Chinese tactical risk-taking for strategic advantage. It is a logic now consigned to the memory hole. My 2011 assessment Crisis and Confidence thankfully needs a major update.
At least since his in-principle support of military CBMs at the Sunnylands summit last year, it seems Xi Jinping has wanted to put some sensible political constraints on military risk-taking. Now he is making some progress, although it is still far from clear that the PLA is willing to develop comprehensive protocols, let alone implement them. Still, one positive dimension of Xi's speech is that it would be consistent with continuing efforts to exert control over the PLA to ensure its short-term actions do not jeopardize peaceful relations and China's long-term interests.
Until just recently, China's charm diplomacy in Asia had been foundering. In the past 12 months, China managed to alienate Japan, the US, Australia and others with its Air Defence Identification Zone, to unsettle Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia with its unprovoked oil-rig deployment in the South China Sea, and to spoil a chance to woo India's new leader by mixing provocative PLA forays with sensible economic diplomacy. The net effect of these premature powerplays – combined with the strategic anxiety, coalition-building and deterrence response they have prompted — has been to inflict needless self-harm on China's interests.
In the past few months, Chinese diplomacy has worked variously to sidestep, repair or move beyond that damage. Xi's speech can be read in part as the capstone of this new campaign.
China experts often point out how little outsiders really know of the hows or whys of Chinese foreign policy. But foreign governments and the analysts that advise them have no choice but to make judgments to guide their own policy responses. So my working assumption is this: Xi's speech is informed, above all, by a tension between two things. One is an awareness (however overstated) of the long-term trends conducive to China's relative influence and prosperity. The other is an appreciation of the short-term risks, miscalculations and missteps that could yet prevent the China Dream from coming true.
Xi's speech will not bring great comfort to friends of the US-led global order, and should compel them to play a smarter game. But being at least as much about diplomacy as about power, it is better than the alternatives.
America's commitment to security, dignity and prosperity in Asia, facing up to global challenges, and some strong words on climate change – President Obama's just-concluded speech in Brisbane was a hybrid package.
President Barack Obama addressing students at the University of Queensland, 15 November 2015.
I imagine other contributors will add context to his applause-evoking remarks on setting targets to reduce climate change, and they may well be perceived as a fairly blunt intervention into Australian politics. I'll confine my observations to the topic that had been touted in advance as the main theme of the speech: Asian geopolitics and America's rebalance to the region.
The speech was given at the University of Queensland, my alma mater, and I recall all too well that November is end-of-year exam time there. So it's only right to attempt a grading. On Asia, this speech scores a credit – solid and respectable, but not spectacular.
It won't go down in history as the speech that categorically revitalized the rebalance. But at least it held the line. It consolidated most of the messages that will likely keep the pivot alive for the next administration, and that's a start.
The speech emphasised the value of allies, Australia especially, and underscored an 'ironclad' American guarantee to their sovereignty and security. It stressed the need to resist an outdated international politics based on spheres of influence, bullying and coercion, and instead reasserted American support for peaceful management of disputes based on norms and the rule of law – like a Code of Conduct on the contested South China Sea.
It reinforced US support for effective Asian regional institutions like the East Asia Summit and acknowledged recent progress in dialogue and military communications between the US and China, to help ensure incidents at sea do not escalate to conflict.
And Obama reminded us of the progress being made in maintaining and modernising alliances and partnerships, such as the Marines rotation to Darwin, new defence guidelines with Japan, missile defence with South Korea, wide-ranging alliance renewal with the Philippines and help with improved maritime patrol capabilities in Vietnam. He welcomed India's emergence as a power and partner in the Asia-Pacific and encouraged US partners and allies to cooperate more among themselves. He noted plans for the US to ensure that by 2020, more than half of its air and naval power will be in the Pacific.
For allies and partners, that is all well and good, even if it's nothing they haven't heard before.
Where Obama could have done better is in trying to reconcile his promised effort on Asia – 'the Asia-Pacific will always be a focus of our foreign policy' – with the reality of continued or even deepened US security attention this year to strife in Europe and the Middle East. Rather unconvincingly, he suggested that the involvement of the US and its Asia-Pacific allies like Australia in those situations somehow reinforced – rather than detracted from – the US rebalance to Asia.
The one way I can see a certain truth to this point is to say that American credibility anywhere is good for American credibility everywhere. And in Asia, despite all the handwringing about China's military modernisation (or Russia's peculiar new adventures), America's military edge is still such that the real question is not about the balance of power but the balance of uncertainty and resolve.
Which brings us to China. Sensibly, Obama's speech today did not directly challenge the legitimacy of the Chinese political system, in the way that his strong words in Canberra did just three years ago ('prosperity without freedom is just another kind of poverty').
Still, he did not resile from upholding values of democracy, freedom and human rights – linking them with themes of opportunity, innovation and youth - and pointedly included a reference to Hong Kong alongside Asia's democracies.
In these times when a rules-based liberal global order is under challenge from forces variously of destabilization, disorder, authoritarianism and sheer barbarism, Obama's Brisbane speech may not prove historic, but it has at least held the line. With clarity and conviction about the staying power of democracies, British Prime Minister David Cameron did at least as much in addressing the Australian Parliament yesterday.
With major public addresses in the days ahead by German Chancellor Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, it is an open question how much more history is to be made in this week that Australia was all the world's stage.
Photo courtesy of Reuters/Kevin Lamarque.
In Australia and much of the world, 11 November, Remembrance Day, is a day to think of those who have fallen in war – and not only the First World War, which ended in an armistice on this date.
For me, there's a complicated additional resonance or two. Like many Australians, my family tree includes soldiers who fought for this country in the First World War. What's different about mine is that one of them was German.
Karl Wilhelm Albert Wengatz was born in the Pomeranian town of Pasewalk in 1882 and settled in Australia around 1906. Some time later he changed his name to a more Anglicised (if repetitive) Charles William Albert Williams (pictured), joined the Royal Australian Artillery and was promoted to sergeant in charge of a machine-gun section on Thursday Island in Torres Strait.
Who knows what conflicted thoughts went through his mind when Australia joined Britain in declaring war on his former homeland in 1914. What is known is that he fought against his former countrymen with the Australian 1st Siege Artillery Brigade on the Western Front from 1915 until 1918, when he was wounded in a mustard gas barrage. Family lore holds that it was friendly fire – a New Zealand bombardment that fell short. Whatever the cause, Lt Williams returned to Australia with stricken health, developed tuberculosis and died in 1929, not much older than I am now.
It gets stranger. Karl's brother – my great-grandfather, Erich Wengatz – followed him to Australia, and in 1910 married an Anglo-Australian and settled in the Hunter Valley farming district of New South Wales. It was there, a hundred years ago precisely to this day, that he was killed with a single bullet to the head. A coronial inquiry concluded it was an accident while on a kangaroo hunt. Other than my instinct for a good story, I have no strong reason to believe otherwise.
Whatever the case, Erich did not live to experience the internment and harassment of Australia's 100,000-strong German community — suddenly transformed from pillars of society to the enemy within — that intensified as the war dragged on.
Why recall their stories now? One reason is because the centenary of a world war is absolutely the right time to draw meaning and lessons from diplomatic failure and catastrophe, especially when the international system is struggling with dangerous new currents of disorder.
But in Australia, there's special relevance to the realisation that the celebrated ANZACs were a diverse lot – as stories such as this one also remind us. As my colleague James Brown has so eloquently noted in this book, the so-called centenary of ANZAC will soon move into full swing. It's important that these commemorations are inclusive of the wider Australian community and its modern, multicultural texture. The message should be about citizenship, duty, and the national interest, qualities that stand quite apart from heritage.
As Australian forces engage again in military operations in the Middle East, as risks accumulate in our region of Indo-Pacific Asia, and as migration from both these regions adds new political complexity to the character of Australian society, the need to build an inclusive vision of this country's approach to security and defence is more important than ever.
The inauguration speech of Indonesia's 7th President, Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, was powerful despite its brevity, or perhaps because of it. It contained a striking blend of personal humility, national pride and an ethos of unremitting work. But as an analyst of Asian geopolitics, I was most struck by its message about Indonesia's rightful aspirations as a seagoing Indo-Pacific power; an archipelagic country connecting two oceans.
Midway through the speech, these few sentences stand out as a vision of Indonesia's potential as a maritime power:
We have to work really hard to return Indonesia's status as a maritime nation. Oceans, seas, straits, and gulfs are the future of our civilization. We have been showing our backs too long to these seas, to these oceans, to these straits, and gulfs.
This is the time for us to return them all, therefore Jalesveva Jayamahe, it is at the sea we are glorious, as the motto of our ancestors, may ring once more.
We have to work really hard to return Indonesia's status as a maritime nation. Oceans, seas, straits, and gulfs are the future of our civilization. We have been showing our backs too long to these seas, to these oceans, to these straits, and gulfs.
This is the time for us to return them all, therefore Jalesveva Jayamahe, it is at the sea we are glorious, as the motto of our ancestors, may ring once more.
The nautical theme continues throughout. Towards the end of his remarks, the President also invokes the words of Sukarno: that to build a great Indonesia 'we have to possess the soul of cakrawati samudera, the soul of a brave sailor going through the rough and rolling waves'. The sea also lends him his concluding metaphor of leadership, teamwork and success in the face of hardship: 'As a captain, trusted by the people, I invite all people of this nation to get on board this Ship of the Republic of Indonesia and sail together to the Great Indonesia. We will be in full sail. We will face all storms and waves with our own strength.'
This is not just evocative rhetoric. There is a practical policy edge.
For instance, as others have observed, the high-sounding words Jalesveva Jayamahe (also translated as 'at the sea we will triumph') happen to be the motto of the Indonesian Navy. The speech suggests Jokowi is serious about wanting to advance and deepen the efforts of his predecessor to make Indonesia a more active and capable maritime player in the region. This will require not only building up the Indonesian Navy – which has recently begun to modernise after long having little ocean-going capability to speak of – but also making Indonesia more effective at managing its archipelagic waters which include critical international sea lanes. This in turn will require better surveillance, patrolling, cooperation with partners on transnational and interstate maritime security challenges, and active diplomacy on contentious issues, notably the situation in the South China Sea.
It may very well be, as my colleague and Indonesia specialist Aaron Connelly has recently argued, that Jokowi leaves foreign (and defence) policy largely to his advisers. But on maritime issues at least – which in Indonesia connect external and domestic policy — he seems to be getting good advice.
Of course it is premature to assume that these aspirations will translate into sustained, effective action. Still, the initial signal is good news for Australia and the diverse other countries that want to engage Indonesia as a pragmatic, capable maritime security partner in this Indo-Pacific era.
Note: The author is grateful to Matthew Hanzel for an elegant and timely English translation of the speech, as quoted here. Another unofficial English-language translation can be found here. The original Indonesian-language text can be found here.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Yulian Hendriyana.
The news that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the Australian Parliament next month is a welcome sign of how far relations between Australia and India have advanced. As the Australia-India Roundtable concluded earlier this year, and as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently declared, ties between these two democracies have reached a new maturity.
It is fitting in every way that Mr Modi should speak to the Australian Parliament. He is, after all, the politician with the biggest democratic mandate in the world, given the scale of his victory in this year's Indian election. His worthwhile agenda to improve Indian governance, economic performance, science, education, development and strategic influence is in step with what Australia wants to offer India as a partner – as Indian public opinion broadly recognises, according to this poll. Hu Jintao, Shinzo Abe, and Indonesia's SBY, not to mention Barack Obama and George W Bush, have all had their moment to speak directly to Australia's elected representatives. In addition to China, Japan, Indonesia and the US, India is Australia's key Indo-Pacific partner.
And it would do no harm if Modi gave his address in Hindi. He is a brilliant orator in that language, and it would be a nice reminder to Australians that this is one of the fastest-growing languages in this country – and that the English language has no monopoly on democracy.
For all that, there is one aspect of Greg Sheridan's story breaking the news of Modi's parliamentary address that warrants correcting. The story emphasises the role of differences over nuclear issues in explaining why it has taken an outrageous 28 years for an Indian Prime Minister to get around to visiting Australia.
In recent years, Australia's now-abandoned reluctance to consider uranium exports to India may well have slowed down relations – and does help explain Manmohan Singh's failure to show up at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011. But it is bending history to suggest that that Australia's condemnation of India's 1998 nuclear weapons tests was the reason Singh's predecessor, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, pulled out of a 2002 visit for an earlier CHOGM, at Coolum in Queensland.
As a diplomat in Delhi at the time, I well recall the effort on both sides that went into planning that visit, and the frustration when it was called off. There was just one reason for its 11th-hour cancellation – the violent riots in Gujarat, a state then led by Mr Modi as chief minister, and the need for Vajpayee to manage the domestic political controversy that followed.
There is a curious circularity, then, to the fact that Mr Modi will now take the journey that Vajpayee never made. But it is still very good that he is making it.
Photo by Flickr user Tony Abbott.
Australian, US and Chinese troops at the opening ceremony of EX Kowari, Darwin. (Photo: Defence.)
Right now a good news story in Australia's strategic relations is unfolding in the country's vast Northern Territory. Australian, American and – most significantly – Chinese soldiers are training together, with indigenous Australians showing them a thing or two about survival.
Among other things, this exercise challenges the simplistic notion that the closer Australia gets to its US ally, or indeed to Japan, the more strained and mistrustful becomes its relationship with China. It also undercuts the nonsensical view, bandied about this year by former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, that the alliance diminishes Australia's chances of doing constructive things with Asian partners.
I've long argued that US forces rotating through Darwin were more likely to find themselves training or even deploying alongside the People's Liberation Army than fighting it. Even while tensions persist in the South and East China seas, the US and China recognise the need for their forces to learn to operate safely and cooperatively in close proximity – thus China's participation, for the first time, in this year's RIMPAC exercise.
And Australia, given its central Indo-Pacific geography, its enviably large training areas and its web of mature defence relationships (including with China) is ideally placed as a hub for cooperation among capable military powers. Sometimes these minilateral activities will include China and sometimes not. Sometimes, as with the recent Kakadu naval drills, they will not even include the US.
A small number of specialist soldiers doing survival training in northern Australia's harsh conditions is perhaps more redolent of The Hunger Games (minus the nasty bits) than some new Great Game of incessant major-power rivalry. On a day-to-day basis, Australia needs to work with China and other Asian powers as providers of security and order in the global commons – even while, deep down, sharpening its own capabilities and tightening select partnerships to guard against a possible breakdown in the peace.
Australia's national interests are enmeshed with international order, and daily we see grim reminders that armed force still matters in the contemporary world. Australian forces are reportedly close to going into combat against violent extremists in the Middle East. War has returned to Europe and a dreadful act, the downing of MH17, has taken Australian lives. Militaries are modernising in maritime Asia, a region where strategic competition and signs of instability have a major bearing on Australian interests. And there remain underlying expectations on Australia as the security provider of first resort in its South Pacific neighbourhood.
2015 Defence White Paper Update, Canberra (Australian Department of Defence/Lauren Larking)
The Abbott Government, elected just over a year ago, has committed to increasing defence spending to 2% of GDP within a decade. A new Defence White Paper is being prepared, to guide long-term defence policy settings and capability. As a member of the external panel providing independent advice on that document, I have recently been involved in public consultations to gauge community views on what a meaningful and effective Australian defence policy should look like.
That process is still underway, and amounts to an important opportunity for interested Australians from all backgrounds – and not just narrowly-defined defence experts – to have a say on the way the government spends their defence dollars. Written submissions are being invited, with a deadline of 29 October. These can address any topic: for instance, what are the main risks to Australia's security? What kind of military options might a future Australian government want to have? What foreign partnerships will matter most to our security? What should be the role of industry in Australia's defence effort? And how can the defence force best reflect and relate to Australian society?
Submissions can focus on today's security concerns, or look to longer horizons – after all, the 2015 Defence White Paper is intended to look to 2035, and an issues paper has been released to help frame some of the many challenges that policymakers need to consider in looking that far. The obvious complexities and uncertainties of the world ahead are no excuse for a country to avoid the hard work of thinking about how best to prepare for the risks it faces. And defence capabilities selected and developed in the years ahead will be in place – and cost money - for decades.
Opinion surveys such as the Lowy poll can give a broad sense of public concerns about security issues, and professional defence analysts always have plenty to say, but there is also a wealth of considered insight among individuals in the wider community. Any defence policy in a democracy will rightly have its share of critics as well as its supporters. It is in the national interest for them to articulate their ideas before policy is made, not after it.
On this day in 1945, the first nuclear weapon was used in conflict, with devastating consequences for the people of Hiroshima. In Asia today, nuclear weapons remain part of the strategic reality, for better or worse.
But calculations about nuclear armaments in the region may be changing, notably with the introduction of Chinese and Indian submarine-launched nuclear weapons. This could have profound implications for whether nuclear weapons continue to help keep the peace or become instruments of instability and catastrophic escalation.
Often, strategic analysts and policymakers consider nuclear deterrence as somewhat separate from broader strategic and economic change. This has been all too apparent in the grand maritime region of Indo-Pacific Asia, where economic growth has been accompanied by tensions at sea, military modernisation and growing strategic differences among the powers.
Now, changes in the region are beginning to challenge traditional deterrence dynamics. Throughout the next decade, sea-based nuclear-weapon delivery platforms are set to proliferate in the Indo-Pacific, with China reportedly due to conduct its first at-sea nuclear deterrence patrol sometime this year, India readying for sea-trials of its first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, and even potential Pakistani interest in putting nuclear arms to sea.
Advocates of sea-based nuclear weapons see these fleets as providing stability because of their relative invulnerability to surprise attack. This is meant to provide a secure 'second strike' capability, ensuring that nuclear deterrence is credible and thus successful at preventing war.
But the picture is murky.
The implications of new sea-based nuclear weapons for deterrence, stability or instability will not be determined by those weapons systems alone. Investment in other capabilities like ballistic missile defences, anti-submarine warfare (including nuclear-powered attack submarines) and hypersonic missiles could complicate the picture. And much will depend on doctrines, the professionalism of personnel, and matters of perception and communication.
The nexus between new platforms, the factors driving their introduction and broader strategic realities raises the critical question of strategic stability. Will these new platforms, on balance, add to long-term stability in the region, greatly reducing the incentives for war or escalation, or will they contribute to the risks of crisis, arms races and coercion?
Will the deployment of an assured second-strike capability by India and China in the coming years lead to recognition of mutual vulnerability between them and also between China and the US? Or will sea-based nuclear weapon delivery platforms add to already heightened maritime tensions and risk? How will the shifting dynamics of nuclear deterrence interact with conventional force postures in the region? Are there stability-enhancing lessons to learn from the Cold War experience of the established sea-based nuclear powers?
In the weeks ahead, The Interpreter will host an international online debate to help answer these critically important questions. To open the debate, we have invited contributions from four leading scholars of strategy, maritime security and nuclear deterrence: Bruno Tertrais of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, Ravi N Ganesh of Asia Centre Bangalore, Wu Riqiang of Renmin University of China and Peter Dombrowski of the US Naval War College.
These initial posts will be followed by contributions from a range of security scholars and practitioners, and there will also be opportunity for the original contributors to reply and expand upon their arguments. Interpreter readers are also invited to join the conversation through the comments section, with the best comments to be featured in special posts. I hope the discussion, like our debate some years ago on extended nuclear deterrence, will prove lively, informative and of genuine value to policymakers.
Most of all, I hope it will help illuminate the way to measures that might minimise the risk that nuclear weapons will ever be used again.
The Lowy Institute gratefully acknowledges support from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation for this Interpreter debate, which is part of a broader research, dialogue and outreach project on strategic stability in Indo-Pacific Asia.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
A hundred years since the beginning of World War I, the guns of August 1914 are still echoing. Right now it's useful sport among strategic analysts and historians to pick the similarities and differences between the world today and on the eve of the First World War. The worrying state of global geopolitics is leading many to ponder: could it happen again? Is devastating war between powerful states really a thing of the past?
Here are a few thoughts from my own checklist of what to watch for when we consider the possibility of interstate war in today's world. It's hard to improve on this thoughtful recent piece by Graham Allison, but my assessment differs in a few places, notably on the roles of technology, alliances, diplomacy and sheer folly. On balance, though, I tend to reach the same conclusion: 'just because war is irrational, does not make it unthinkable'.
This issue has been done rather to death, and this essay by Oriana Mastro reminds us why economic and financial enmeshment across today's Indo-Pacific Asia need not mean automatic peace, just as the mutually reinforcing aspects of Anglo-German prosperity failed to stop catastrophe in 1914. The markets did not see that one coming, so why (as Niall Ferguson reminds us) should they be any more enlightened now?
In 1914, a few supremely unlucky gunshots by a troubled Serbian youth began the cascade to catastrophic war. The much greater interdependence and complexity of today's joined-up world means that a disruptive event – such as an assassination or annexation — could have consequences even harder to predict and manage, no matter how good our real-time information.
Improvements in the methods of interstate relations have not kept pace with the speed or complexity of today's international environment. Sure, as Graham Allison suggests, things are better now because 'intelligence systems provide near real-time information' to help make decisions in a crisis. Moreover, leaders 'can talk directly to one another' by phone or videoconference. In 1914, on the other hand, he notes that governments 'sent cables to ambassadors who transmitted messages to foreign offices, increasing the chances of miscommunication'.
The sad secret of 21st century diplomacy, however, is that a lot of the time it still works likes that, even during crises. Consider the lack of operational hotlines between, say, China and Japan or even China and the US; or the potential for mischief or miscommunication. A telephone call can only help avert crisis if both sides are willing at least to talk. And while crisis and disaster can strike suddenly, even the most urgent and accomplished multilateral diplomacy – like the recent UN Security Council resolution on flight MH17 – takes precious days.
Alliances are easy to blame for the 'chain-gang' effect that drew so many countries into what began as a Balkan war. But a focus on the entangling potential of alliances in 1914 can overlook their stabilising value in 2014. It's hard to see how a Japan allied to the US would be a more volatile actor in the Asian strategic order than one anxiously alone.
Plenty has been made of the role of propaganda in fanning misinformation, hate and nationalism before and during World War I. But it is worth pausing before we assume that rapid access to information is somehow breaking down barriers by raising awareness of how much we all have to lose from conflict. Social media is proving a prime vehicle for dangerous forms of nationalism and confrontation-mongering in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. And if you've seen Moscow's glitzy RT channel lately, you will (hopefully) know that state-sponsored propaganda is proliferating in shameless new forms.
While diplomacy still often moves at a 20th or even 19th century pace, military technology has streaked ahead, dramatically compressing the time for sensible decision-making during a crisis. An incident at sea or in the air over contested Asian waters would be over in minutes, perhaps seconds. Frontline commanders and political leaders would have scant time to weigh the risks of striking first against those of restraint. By today's measures, the fateful month following the assassination in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 was a leisurely slide to disaster. In a present-day contingency, the first hours would be crucial, not least for shaping the clash of narratives.
A centenary is a neat frame of reference, but an artificial one: there is no intrinsic reason why 1914 should be a better guide to the future of conflict-management than, say, 1939, 1962, or even 1814. In an Asian context, where China's strategic decision-making remains difficult for outsiders to comprehend, perhaps 1941 rather than 1914 may be the historical analogy most worth studying. That was the year that the deeply dysfunctional decision-making of the Japanese military and cabinet led to Japan's attack on the US and the madness of a war that key Japanese players privately believed they could not win.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The Chinese rhetorical fireworks over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last weekend have been so widely reported that we are at risk of losing a sense of what Mr Abe actually said.
As Interpreter readers will recall, the speech was denounced by the senior Chinese military delegate at the conference, Lt Gen Wang, as nothing short of 'unacceptable' and 'unimaginable'. Wang attacked it in the same breath as his rejection of US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's remarks; both, he claimed, were full of provocation, intimidation and threat against China.
Abe is a controversial figure at home as well as abroad, but what exactly did he say on this occasion that was so objectionable?
In my view, Chinese warnings about a supposed return of Japanese militarism and fascism are far removed from Abe's carefully-worded policy speech which focused on Japan's willingness to help other countries build their own security capacities, Japan's readiness as a normalising military power to work more with allies and partners to discourage Chinese maritime coercion, and Japan's record as a peaceful nation. If you want to form your own judgement, here is the full text.
The onus should be on Abe's and Japan's critics to say precisely what is unreasonable about a Japan that can protect its interests and help its partners. That point applies not only to Chinese generals but also to a former Australian prime minister.
Malcolm Fraser has become an outspoken critic of the Australia-US alliance and US policy in Asia. Now Abe's Japan is also in his sights. On Saturday, he fired off a tweet about Abe's Singapore address, describing it as an 'aggressive speech, pro war'. (The original tweet is no longer in Mr Fraser's prolific twitter stream, but it can still be found on his Facebook page.)
When I asked Mr Fraser what precisely was pro-war about the Japanese leader's remarks, he replied that the meaning behind the words was most relevant – the context, the things unsaid. He went on to list some of the Abe policies he finds troubling.
I respect Mr Fraser's readiness to contribute to Australia's contemporary foreign policy debate, and look forward to bringing an open mind to his book calling for an end to the US alliance, as well as hearing him speak about it next month. But I would also be interested to know exactly how he thinks Japan, Vietnam and other states experiencing frictions with China should change their policies to protect their interests in ways that are, in his view, pro-peace.
Although Abe expressed remorse in Singapore, Japan remains vulnerable over its brutal history, which included the prolonged occupation of Korea and much of China and ended with the suicidal conflagration of the 1941-1945 Pacific War. Abe has made matters worse through his apparent indifference to the widely-accepted international record of much of this history, particularly on the issue of so-called 'comfort women'.
Unless Mr Abe reaches out to repair damage to ties with South Korea, and stays away from Yasukuni Shrine for the rest of his time as prime minister, he risks undermining his own policy achievements in making Japan a more effective defender of its interests in a changing Asia.
Photo by Flickr user IISS.
Amid tensions in the South China Sea and new alarm about a China-Russia alignment, President Obama's speech at West Point sends some confusing signals to the countries of Indo-Pacific Asia.
To be fair, the speech was not meant to be principally about Asia. It was intended to draw a final line under the US military commitments to Afghanistan and Iraq. It perhaps was also meant to help clarify some of Obama's recent off-the-cuff remarks, including the ones during this media conference last month in Japan, about the limits of US reliance on military force in solving global security problems.
Yet a broader reading is unavoidable. In the continued absence of a long-promised National Security Strategy from Washington, the speech will be studied closely at home and internationally for its formulations about US policy more generally. Some observers have already gone so far as to see in it the contours of a new foreign policy doctrine based on the limits of US power.
And the view from Asia? There is little in this lengthy pronouncement that will ease misgivings among regional partners and some allies about the US commitment to the region's security.
The speech sits uneasily with the idea of a rebalance to Asia. For a start, it could be read as giving terrorism and human rights issues a higher priority than maintaining peace and stability in the very region that Obama himself has claimed to be central to the world's future.
It also sends out mixed messages to China and other Asian countries about what really constitutes an American core interest. On the one hand, President Obama says America will fight only for its core interests and defines the security of allies as being one of those interests.
Yet the speech fails to refer to deterrence against intimidation or aggression. And it says almost nothing about specific Asian security challenges like North Korea, Chinese assertiveness or the risk of armed miscalculation between China and other maritime states. It is also not clear regarding how much support countries that are not US treaty allies, such as Vietnam, can expect when they find themselves under extreme pressure from powerful neighbours.
The speech suggests that the US would be willing to fight for its treaty allies, such as Japan. But America would be much more reluctant to threaten war over issues that 'push the world in a more dangerous direction but do not directly threaten us'. In this kind of situation, which happens to be a neat description of what is happening in the South China Sea, the US would seek to mobilise allies and partners to take action together, with force as a last resort and only then wielded multilaterally.
Obama's main points on the South China Sea come across as somewhat contradictory, and almost admissions of US weakness. Obama's speech makes clear that any solution to maritime territorial disputes must be based on norms and rules. Thus he highlights that the US is supporting Southeast Asian nations as they 'negotiate a code of conduct with China'.
This does not mean much. Every honest diplomat in Asia privately knows that the code is an ever-receding mirage and has been for the past 12 years: China will keep delaying agreement while it gets on with unilaterally changing facts in the water.
At the same time, Obama points out that America's failure to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea means the US 'can't try to resolve problems in the South China Sea'. This, however, is more a lament than a useful basis for policy. After all, the President knows that this situation won't change, since the roadblock lies with Republican senators he has no hope of budging.
So having just emphasised the limits of US military power, the President highlights (and arguably exaggerates) the limits of its diplomatic and moral influence too. I am not sure how such a confession is meant to reassure anyone, let alone Vietnam, the Philippines or China's other smaller rival claimants.
Of course, much of the West Point speech was about sending honourable signals to American audiences: bringing closure to a decade of foreign wars, bloody and un-won, and prudently sheathing military power in a scabbard of diplomacy, values and economic renewal.
But the low priority it seems to place on Asia and this region's core strategic problems will needlessly sustain doubts about US commitment to the rebalance, announced so confidently in Canberra just a few years ago.
Image courtesy of the White House.
Prime Minister Abbott poses with the leaders of the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean military efforts searching for MH370 at RAAF Base Pearce.
Tony Abbott is about to depart on the most important international visit of his prime ministership thus far. Over the next week he will visit Japan, South Korea and China, three of Australia's top trading partners and key powers in Australia's strategic future.
Canberra's preference will be for trade and economic opportunity to dominate these talks: Mr Abbott will be accompanied by a large business delegation and – in a welcome sign of federal-state cooperation – several state premiers. A priority will be to move free trade agreement negotiations with Japan and China closer to conclusion.
But the most delicate diplomatic challenges of the tour may well be about security. Australia's greatest foreign and strategic policy problem in recent months has been the pressure to choose between China and Japan.
As I noted in a recent article, Australia has been caught up in a propaganda war between the two rivals, with their very different views on maritime disputes and the wartime atrocities of a lifetime ago. Instability has become the new normal in relations between the two wealthiest, most consequential powers in Asia.
Much has been made of Mr Abbott's fresh focus on Japan as a security partner, not quite an ally but seemingly not far from it. This at a time when Japan, under Shinzo Abe, is taking steps to 'normalise' its defence policies, including in allowing defence exports, expanding scope for military cooperation with others and slightly increasing defence spending.
Some commentators are warning that Prime Minister Abbott could let his judgment be swayed by sentiment rather than diplomatic reason. After all, he has called Japan Australia's 'closest friend in Asia'. (Mind you, one of those commentators, Hugh White, has previously called Japan something not entirely dissimilar, Australia's 'most successful relationship' in Asia.)
Contrary to some perceptions, Australia has not taken sides on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands maritime dispute between China and Japan.
Australia is right not to recognise one country's territorial claims over another's. But Australia is also right to support the principle that differences should be settled by means other than force. That, in my view, was the underlying reason for the Abbott Government's decisions in late 2013 to state its opposition to coercive efforts to change the status quo in the East China Sea and, in particular, China's new air defence identification zone.
That said, there is no question China has been seriously unhappy with Australia's stance on these issues. So the forthcoming visit to Bejing is a vital opportunity to signal that Australia's foreign and security policies towards the Asian powers are based on principles, interests and mutual respect.
An Australian prime minister has nothing to gain from delivering grand pronouncements or surprises while in Beijing, as Kevin Rudd discovered. Much has been made of the reference in Mr Abbott's recent Canberra Press Club speech to possible future Chinese domestic 'liberalisation', with the implication that this would be a condition for closer Australia-China relations. It is unlikely, however, that Mr Abbott will go beyond such ambiguous and carefully-worded statements while in Beijing. His 2012 speech there as Opposition leader was not especially provocative (indeed, I suspect he said nothing that the then Labor Government did not privately think) and it is difficult to imagine him going further as head of government.
Instead, on the security front, Mr Abbott has an exceptional opportunity to underscore Australia's determination to work with the major Asian powers against common challenges. Australia's coordination of the international search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 – working closely with Chinese, Japanese and South Korean assets — is a reminder of this country's potential as a convener for security cooperation on transnational problems like humanitarian assistance, stabilisation missions, counter-piracy and search-and-rescue. Australia can and should become a partner of choice for China in legitimate security efforts to help its nationals abroad.
Tragedy has here provided Australia with a chance for sensible security diplomacy. Likewise, the predictable unpredictability of North Korea – amid recent artillery barrages and rumours of a fourth nuclear test – offers a moment for Mr Abbott to emphasise the need for Australia to work with the other North Asian powers to manage a common danger.
On that note, Mr Abbott could usefully send a signal to the US too. With President Obama due to visit Tokyo and Seoul later this month, Australia has a chance to help shape a shared message by America's three key Asian allies – Australia, Japan and South Korea — about the need for a credible US rebalance to this region.
Photo by REUTERS/Jason Reed.
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UCLA's Undie Run Yet Another (A)rousing Success
Near the completion of every academic quarter, the studious students of the University of California at Los Angeles try to shake off the stress of their studies by participating in a mass midnight jog around their Westwood campus. Such a traditional trot is known as the UCLA Undie Run.
Luckily, LAIST has compiled a photo essay of the semi-nude saunter. And we've gone one better by offering some of the hotter highlights of the risque run. Further pics that will pique your interest are after the jump.