Axis is a four-letter word that should be banned or at least binned for the time being. The US uses the term in a distinctly hostile way, and now Andrew Shearer, Australia’s chief security adviser, has adopted the same language.

When the world teeters on the edge of uncertainty following the outcome of the US presidential elections, presaging fears of unimaginable catastrophes, all security chiefs should be ultra careful not to use such inflammatory language.

In plain speech, an axis is a straight line with a specific function that gives it importance, such as an axis of symmetry. In politics, the term “axis” came into general use to refer to the “Axis powers” of Germany and its allies in the Second World War. In that context, it made sense. Mussolini had proposed an alliance with Germany against France as an axis already in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Japan proposed a similar pact with Germany against the Soviet Union.

Memories of the War are still potent and colour thinking and action in the West. Politicians use the scenario of the rise of Hitler in the 1930s to drum up fear. In 2002 US President George W. Bush described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil”. He........

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