With Donald Trump overturning assumptions about international order, we must re-examine the fundamentals of our foreign and defence policies. Former Senator and submariner Rex Patrick proposes four ideas to advance the debate.

At 9:30 this morning a number of Defence luminaries and experts will gather at the National Press Club for an invite only ‘Sovereignty and Security Forum’ organised by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to debate what needs to happen in response to Trump’s “America First” doctrine.

As a former Senator and recognised expert on Australian defence policy, especially submarine procurement, I’ve been invited to attend and will take the opportunity to advance four major ideas for discussion.

Trump says 'very angry' with Putin over Ukraine truce talks
Kieran Burke with dpa, Reuters
American broadcaster NBC reported Trump was "pissed off" with Putin over Ukraine and threatened to hit Moscow with secondary tariffs on Russian oil.

United States President Donald Trump on Sunday expressed anger with Russian President Vladimir Putin and threatened secondary tariffs on Russian oil should the two not reach a deal to stop fighting in Ukraine.

The EU will not fulfill Russia’s demand to lift sanctions on the country’s main agricultural bank as part of the Black Sea ceasefire initiative discussed between Moscow and Washington, European Commission Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Anitta Hipper has said.

During the talks between Russian and US experts in Riyadh on Monday, the sides agreed to move towards reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which, according to the Kremlin, should include the removal of Western restrictions against Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions involved in the international sale of food and fertilizers. The maritime ceasefire is seen by Moscow and Washington as a step towards settling the Ukraine conflict.

People like Dominic Cummings, chief advisor to former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have a habit of revealing things we’re not supposed to know about how government operates. They often expose the motives and acts of what many these days call the deep state.

 

The Deep State Revelations CERCLE

by IAIN DAVIS, INDEPENDENT MEDIA ALLIANCE, OFFGUARDIAN

 

One of the most reasonable definitions of the “deep state” was offered by US defence analyst-turned-writer Mike Lofgren in his 2014 essay “Anatomy of the Deep State“:

[T]here is another government concealed behind the one that is visible[.] [It is] a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out.

YOUNG AND OLD PEOPLE OUT THERE MAY NOT KNOW OR MAY NOT REMEMBER NATION REVIEW — A SHORT-LIVED MAGAZINE WITH A VERY IMPORTANT ROLE… ONE OF ITS EDITORS WAS JOHN HEPWORTH… 

HE HAD A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH ORIEL GRAY, A GREAT PLAY WRITER ON GENDER EQUALITY (WOMEN VS MEN, THEN...), ABORIGINES AND THE ENVIRONMENT. HEPWORTH WAS ALSO A GOOD FRIEND OF MICHAEL LEUNIG, THE WHIMSICAL CARTOONIST.

AS THE WAR IN THE MIDDLE-EAST FROM GAZA TO DAMASCUS IS RAGING, AND AS MORE THAN ONE MILLION UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED AND AROUND 60,000 RUSSIANS KILLED, ONE SHOULD SAMPLE SOME OF HEPWORTH’S GREAT WRITING ON WAR…

 

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest defiance of the courts — this time refusing to follow an appellate judge’s order to halt migrant deportations — has triggered another round of liberal outrage. Critics are calling it an authoritarian move, a blatant assault on the rule of law, and a warning sign that American democracy is on its last legs.

But if this is the end of democracy, it’s been ending for a long time. And not just at Trump’s hands.

 

Trump’s Rule by Fiat a Bipartisan Legacy

By Vinnie Rotondaro
Common Dreams

 

 

America’s librarians elected a Marxist to represent them and staked their reputation on providing explicitly sexual material to kids. It’s no surprise the Trump administration is pulling federal funding.

 

BY MARK HEMINGWAY

 

Churchill once said of John Foster Dulles that he was “the only case I know of a bull who carries his own China shop around with him.” Had Churchill miraculously lived another 60 odd years, I think he would agree that when it comes to this particular metaphor, Dulles has been outclassed. At the dawn of Trump’s second term, we even see that the bull has become self-aware and is deliberately trying to break as much of the federal crockery as he can get away with.

Environmentalists have failed to transform the underlying social values that drive environmental destruction. Fifteen companies produce 30% of Australia’s greenhouse gases. Mountains provide 60% of our fresh water, but not for much longer.

 

Environment: Humans’ contempt for the natural world drives environmental destruction   By Peter Sainsbury

 

Who is really destroying the environment?

Are environmentalists as culpable as governments for failing to protect the environment?

The possible withdrawal of the United States from its preeminent position in NATO, even if it does not withdraw from the Atlantic Alliance, sends the political West back to its own devices. How can peace be ensured on the continent? The European Defense project, developed by François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, does not allow for the defense of the European space, but only provides the EU with the means to intervene in the event of a massacre abroad.

 

Western Europeans Deprived of Defense
by Thierry Meyssan

 

The projects of Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer correspond to the needs of their countries, but in no way to those of the continent. However, time is running out as conflicts loom in northern Ukraine, Moldova, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Pretoria’s diplomatic tensions with Washington have worsened following the nomination of a new ambassador by US President Donald Trump, a South African legislator has said.

Speaking to RT, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party commissar Nqobile Mhlongo stated that the timing of Trump’s nomination of Leo Brent Bozell III – just days after South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled from Washington – signals a strategic attempt to pressure Pretoria into compliance. 

“He’s doing it to provoke South Africa, but also to assert his authority,” she said.

CNN — Elon Musk on Friday evening announced he has sold his social media company, X, to xAI, his artificial intelligence company.

 

President Donald Trump has made his fixation on Greenland abundantly clear—enough so to unnerve many of the people who live there. “I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future,” he told reporters this week, once again teasing the notion of annexation.

 

 

The Truth About Trump’s Greenland Campaign
When the president talks about security in the Arctic, he’s talking about climate change.
By Brett Simpson

 

EU officials have demonstrated hypocrisy in how they have treated arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Russian and Israeli leaders, a political sciences professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank has told RT.

Saad Nimr commented with regard to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas’ recent visit to Israel, during which she expressed support for the Jewish state but did not address the issue of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The professor slammed the fact that the EU’s top diplomat appeared to have taken the Israeli side in the conflict by failing to meet with Palestinian prisoners or those injured in the IDF’s fight against Hamas.

I guess calling Ursula von der Leyen’s €800 billion defence spending plan, “ReArm Europe,” as she did initially, didn’t test well – probably because Europeans are too busy wondering why there’s no money for literally anything else that isn’t a weapons buying bonanza.

So, what’s with this new name, Readiness 2030, that they’ve suddenly started using as a replacement term? And why 2030?

 

Paranoia rebranded: The EU is desperate to sell its people more Ukraine war
Peacekeepers are now a “reassurance force”, rearming is now “readiness”, and citizens should stock up on emergency supplies

BY Rachel Marsden