For those who had hoped Australia might bring a more constructive approach to issues of peace and security, year’s end cannot come soon enough.

2023 has seen a succession of armed conflicts – from Ukraine to Nagorno-Karabakh, Sudan, Myanmar and Israel-Palestine – and countless humanitarian crises fuelled by civil war, insurgencies, and the ravages of climate change. With this has come the displacement of peoples on an unprecedented scale, now estimated to be in excess of 114 million.

This is also the year that has witnessed the almost complete collapse of global arms control, a trend in the making over the last 20 years, beginning with the US decision in 2002 to withdraw from the landmark Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, followed by reciprocal Russian announcements.

In 2019 the Trump Administration withdrew the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that banned ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500-5,000 kilometres, thereby eliminating an entire category of nuclear weapons. Since then, the New START, CTBT, Vienna Document and Open Skies treaties have been derailed, suspended or discarded.
Australia’s response to these perilous trends has been conspicuous by its absence. Our political, bureaucratic, military and intelligence elites have instead chosen to pursue outdated policies, if anything with renewed vigour and hyperbole.

For the last 18 months Labor’s focus, as with previous coalition........

© Pearls and Irritations