Peacebuilding, Defence and Military
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Australia-China relations: A question of trust
By Jocelyn Chey Let’s restore the trust in China that we once enjoyed. This was the key message I presented to an online forum titled Does China Threaten Australia’s Peace and Security hosted by the Australian Peace and Security Forum on 18 March. Following is a condensed version of my talk. In December 1960, the…
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Webinar talk by Major Gen Mike Smith (ret’d), ‘Will AUKUS make us safer? In a word: “NO” ‘ 11 February 2025
Greetings from Ngunnawal country in Canberra. I add my respects to the traditional custodians of our lands, seas and waterways. I must say that the latest statistics on ‘closing-the-gap’ are shameful. Our nation will not be complete unless and until we build this bridge. So, will AUKUS make us safer? In a word: “NO” –…
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Time to talk peace: War memorial must think of kids
Tens of thousands of school students visit the Australian War Memorial every year – more than 95,000 in 2022-23 alone. For students in Years 4-12, a visit to the Memorial is mandatory for the school to receive federal funding for a visit to Canberra. The Memorial therefore plays a role in shaping what young Australians…
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The real meaning of security
José Ramos-Horta – Published in The Saturday Paper, October 19 – 25, 2024 Language is a truly fascinating phenomenon – it is fluid and constantly evolving. We are barely aware that, as we are shaping its evolution, language is shaping us – individually and collectively. This is what makes it such a potent political tool. Language can be…
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World Court faces ‘unprecedented’ number of cases
21 October 2024 During a visit to UN Headquarters in New York, where he is due to brief the Security Council Tuesday, Mr. Gautier told UN News’s Julia Foxen that this global divide requires the UN’s principal judicial organ – commonly known as the world court – to maintain its autonomous and independent role “without…
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A plea for peace in the Middle East — Louise Adler and Nasser Mashni. ABC Radio National Big Ideas
Wed 16 Oct 2024 at 6:00pm – Link here Two Australians who are intimately connected to the conflict in the Middle East, one Jewish, one Palestinian, make their pleas for peace, and share their deeply personal stories of how it has affected them. The 13th annual UN International Day of Peace Brisbane lecture was recorded…
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Independence too big a price for AUKUS fantasy
And those who accept the reality of our loss of sovereign agency but actually applaud it as a price worth paying for our protection – such as Beazley, Dibb and Pezzullo – seem to have lost not only any sense of national pride, but of Australia’s national interest.
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Time for Australia to end support for nuclear weapons
Dr Sue Wareham OAM. President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), and a former board member of ICAN Australia, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2 September, 2024. Introduction Nuclear weapons remain an existential threat to civilisation. Australia’s ongoing support for a role for these weapons in our “defence”, and our…
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Security Through Sustainable Peace: Australian International Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding
There is a globalised imperative towards security through increasing efforts to prevent violent conflicts and support positive peace; and recognition that this is achieved through political rather than military means. It is well established that violent conflict is one of the most serious impediments to human, social and …
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Nuclear deterrence is the existential threat, not the nuclear ban treaty
Hughes et al. Nuclear deterrence is a myth. Nuclear deterrence involves a nation state maintaining a believable threat of retaliation to deter an adversary’s attack.
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The Australia Peacebuilding Network, 2024, Peacebuilding in Australian Foreign Policy: a Summary of Views and Conclusions from the Australia Peacebuilding Network Roundtable.
Currently there is limited attention to peacebuilding in Australian foreign policy; the Government’s focus being on reactive military options, leaving little place for peacebuilding to be part of the discussion.