US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is proving himself quite the provocateur. He has given speeches advocating increased funding for US soft power, he has criticised the US Air Force for being old fashioned, and now he says elements of the US military are prone to what he calls 'Next-War-itis', which he defines as: Read more »
The new federal budget tells two international stories. One story is of the US economy falling over. The Treasury Budget Outlook at first uses the phrase 'a sharp slowdown in the US economy.' But Treasury then twice states its expectation of 'a mild recession' in the US. The word 'mild' is the Treasury hope, while the word 'recession' is the looming fact. The headline views of the US, then, brings those phrases together: 'sharp slowdown' and 'recession'. Read more »
Yesterday, The Economist's blog, Free Exchange, led me to this Financial Times article on India's camel boom: Read more »
Chris responds to my post of yesterday: Read more »
In the pages of coverage of the first Australian Labor Government budget in 12 years, one small tax increase has largely been overlooked, and yet it seems to contradict the rhetoric of the new government more than most and exacerbate Australian insularity by adding to our 'tyranny of distance.' Read more »
It is impossible to look at this morning’s media coverage of Burma — even the few skerricks of news to have made it through the wall of secrecy erected by one of the world’s most appalling regimes — and not feel profound anger. Just look at the photograph in this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald to see what I mean. And disease and malnutrition in the wake of the cyclone could make for an even greater humanitarian disaster. Read more »
Chris responds to my post of yesterday: Read more »
In the Weekend Australian, Greg Sheridan wrote:
The China obsession of the Rudd Government, and especially of the PM himself, has alarmed leaders in India, Japan and Southeast Asia, who fear Australia is reorienting its foreign policy to an unbalanced stress on China. Read more »
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