Prime Minister Albanese is growing in confidence on both domestic and international fronts. Expect the Prime Minister’s encounter with President Trump to be a well-choreographed affair on 20 October 2025 under the control of canny minders on both sides of the alliance equation.
There is common ground between allies on most aspects of strategic policy with a limited policy divergence on the preferred directions of Australia’s trading ties with Asian countries and ongoing perusal of our investment portfolios by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer in joint co-operation with our own Austrade agency.
Post-1945 Australian leaders have offered both Britain and then the USA with an array of Australian strategic sites. This harmonious strategic arrangement commenced with the testing of lethal nuclear weapons by Britain during the early Cold War. It was extended to military engagements with Britain in Malaysia and later with the US in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.
This strategic loyalty to great and powerful friends abroad has been rewarded with a degree of autonomy on economic ties and tolerance of public sector business undertakings at both state and national levels of government which have steadily been relinquished by bipartisan commitments to national competition policies which were curtailed in the Hawke-Keating eras (1983-96) and into the Howard ascendency (1996-2008).
All of Australia’s intel agencies and their overseas counterparts are totally in step with strategic initiative of the US Global Alliance as explained by the Australian Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in Canberra.
Appointed to advise Scott Morrison on security matters, Andrew Shearer’s advice has not changed after Labor’s win in the last two elections in his continuity as Director-General of National Intelligence (ABC News 9 March 2022).
A New Highpoint Finger Pointing Diplomacy in the New Command Economy
These strategic conventions are currently threatened by popular rallies in support of Palestinian statehood by contemporary advocates of progressive politics. The momentum created by these rallies can strengthen a more united front across the broader Labor Movement to overcome the absence of a parliamentary majority in the senate since the introduction of proportional voting in senate elections prior to the 1949 election.
Drumming Up a New United Front
While staying firm on historic Cold War commitments to conventional strategic and economic policies, our Director-General of Intelligence Andrew Shearer used The Australian (9-10 October 2025) to warn fellow Australians and political elites on parliamentary security committees of the progressive head of steam that is building up again in the Asia-Pacific Region as in the early Cold War.
The previous wave of change was conveniently extinguishedby militarism and regime change in Australia and across our region.
Today’s Australian leaders would not dare to be as Whitmanesque as in 1973. This boat has long departed the quay from that passing springboard offered by Henry Kissinger’s engagement with China with the arrival of Gough Whitlam on the Australian political scene on 8 February 1967. In government, Prime Minister Whitlam’s reign was snuffed out by the Queen’s representative on 11 November 1975 after that Double Dissolution victory in May 1974 which did not extend to control of the Australian senate.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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This analysis of Australias strategic entanglement reads like a slightly dated geopolitical sit-com. The plot thickens with warnings of a progressive head of steam, as if Asia-Pacific activists are suddenly plotting with North Korea via encrypted text, rather than just wanting some peace for Palestinians. The comparison to the early Cold War feels particularly timely, given todays internet speed seems slower than diplomatic decision-making. Andrew Shearers urgent warnings might be better directed at fixing the national broadband rollout before chasing phantom security threats. Perhaps Gough Whitlams engagement with China was onto something, though maybe not the part about getting rid of the Queens representative? Ah, well, at least the plot involves plenty of strategic conventions and bipartisan commitments to keep the actors busy.quay random
If ever we needed someone”Whitlamesque” it is right now.
There are windows of opportunity presented by public interest in the plight of Palestinians even after the current peace agreement.
Thanks Denis: Historical precedents are a good mechanism for a better understanding of today’s world.
Breaking the grip of political alienation is a big barrier to contemporary politics and forces insiders to come up with silly jingles to encourage constituents to record a valid vote
My goodness, it IS “social cohesion Week” at AIM.
Indeed, as folk in Palestine would tell us, the “social cohesion” high point
comes with Silence (Of the lambs?).
if you are dead, how can you disagree and disrupt “social cohesion” (Orwell-speak).
Now that we don’t have to put up with tiresome images of mutilated kids any more, we can sink back into oblivionand rerachieve”social cohesion””social chesion”?
Well, walls “cohere”, but oddly hard to get much conversation. company or or ideas from them.
Welcome to my nightmare.
My goodness, it IS “social cohesion Week” at AIM.
Indeed, as folk in Palestine would tell us, the “social cohesion” high point
comes with Silence (Of the lambs?).
if you are dead, how can you disagree and disrupt “social cohesion” (Orwell-speak).
Now that we don’t have to put up with tiresome images of mutilated kids any more, we can sink back into oblivionand rerachieve”social cohesion””social chesion”?
Well, walls “cohere”, but oddly hard to get much conversation. company or or ideas from them.
Welcome to my nightmare.
Too many people accept their lot as inevitable: A reasonable house on the Gold Coast strip costs almost $2 million and the rental option costs $1,000 a week
Whitlam’s reign was snuffed out by a 35 or so million-dollar investment by the CIA given to the Honorable Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser. Just another case of US backed regime change. The cost was cheap in comparison to what the US paid to get regime change in Ukraine just so that they could start yet another war with the intent of achieving regime change in Russia. Lest we forget.
Great response from B Sullivan.
The US owned-Murdoch press with its related streaming services conceal alternative opinions.
The Murdoch network assists in promoting positive perspectives on the free spirit claimed to reside in global capitalism and its so-called patriotic alliance system where lethal weapons are made for profit by corporate military industrial complexes as well as government agencies in both the USA and Britain.
Here lies the conflicting paradigms in our strategic associations.
As Trump and others dine at gala banquets in places like Windsor Castle to glorify old regal traditions, factories are turning out weapons of mass destruction.
Alternative media systems like PBS in the USA and public broadcasting here are totally under-funded.Their programming agendas have gravitated to ridiculous programmes like Hard Quiz instead of quality drama and investigative reporting of the construction of new US military installations across Australia and visits by nuclear powered submarines which may or may not be carrying nuclear weapons into those ocean trenches to our near North.
Perhaps AIM Network assists in a small way to promote more critical discussion but the big public network need more resources here in Australia.
Come on Jim Chalmers and give public broadcasting a life in the 2026-27 budget on behalf of your loyal constituents in Outer Brisbane and Logan City who are struggling with rents and housing prices while multinational real estate networks glorify the rise in housing prices even in disadvantaged parts of Metro Brisbane.
I was pleased to support last weekend Palestinian rally: I was impressed by the enthusiasm of younger family members and younger people generally in Brisbane at the event
Mainstream Labor supporters should note the enthusiasm in the Palestinian support network.
Let’s have more of a united front on these issues when the advocates of direct action in the streets have mobilized a degree of public sympathy over the Yes Minister style of Labor commitment.
Ex-ministers in retirement are supporting lobbying by military industrial complexes (From Crikey: https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/06/26/arthur-sinodinos-joel-fitzgibbon-abc-aukus-forum/ 26 June 2025)
There are certainly conflicting paradigms at work here as this article shows.
Check out today’s Australian with so much space offered to support the Israeli causes and commitment to might is right strategies with continued links to Mossad.
Social Democracy must work to unite all streams of the Labor Movement and assist with the maintenance of its activist base particularly in the regions and disadvantaged outer suburbs where support for far-right candidates is considerable and assist in delivering seats to the LNP as in Page or Capricornia.
What brand of teeth whitener does President Trump use in that lead pic? Perhaps I can buy a tube at Aldi to look fresh and younger.
Round and round, up and down, the circus continues with the death dealing clowns running the show. They regularly cycle the globe to ensure their paying audiences remain enthralled by the same old acts, newly dressed, and latest lingo.