Allan Behm

SURF’s up, game’s up: AUKUS is between a rock and a hard place

It’s not often that Sarah Ferguson’s ABC current affairs program 7.30 can be compared with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the new meme for everything. Odysseus navigated between a rock (Scylla) and a hard place (Charybdis, the whirlpool) to save his ship, his men and himself. One suspects that the Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, following his tricky 7.30 interview on 29 July 2026, now finds himself aligned with Homer’s imperfect hero.

International Affairs

SURF’s up, game’s up: AUKUS is between a rock and a hard place

OPINION

Trump’s Grift and America’s Drift — A New Game Needs New Rules

Every Presidency runs an implicit profit and loss account. The Trump presidency is no different. But the profit and loss account is: Trump’s personal profits from the office of President are in the billions, while America’s losses in terms of authority, credibility, legitimacy and standing are spiralling by the day.

International Affairs

Trump’s Grift and America’s Drift — A New Game Needs New Rules

OPINION

Mr Albanese goes to the Pacific (again)

We all know that visitors can be expensive. And in the regional security world, they can be very expensive. When Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat came calling a fortnight ago, it cost Australia half a billion dollars, albeit to be spent over a decade or more.

International Affairs

OPINION

The Pacific comes to Mr Albanese

The second half of 2025 was not Prime Minister Albanese’s best year in the Pacific. With considerable fanfare, Albanese visited Port Vila and Port Moresby expecting to sign security agreements that would impose tight strictures on China’s ability to establish military bases in either Vanuatu or Papua New Guinea.

International Affairs

OPINION

"Budgetary make-believe": Marles lifts defence spending, mistaking spending targets for strategy

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has released the defence strategy you have when you don’t have a defence strategy. What the Deputy Prime Minister offers as justification for this strategy requiring large dollops of recurrent and prospective spending, amounts to little more than a collection of unsupported, and possibly unsupportable, assertions.

Economy International Affairs

"Budgetary make-believe": Marles lifts defence spending, mistaking spending targets for strategy

OPINION

The attacks on Iran hurt us all

As we line up at the petrol bowser to pay 60 cents per litre more – and rising – than we did before the US and Israel attacked Iran, we should remind ourselves how indebted we are to Don and Bibi. And indebted is the word. Iran’s approach to asymmetric warfare hits the global community’s hip pocket hard, as it is intended to do. Erosion of political support is the result.

International Affairs

OPINION

Can we trust the USA?

Prime Minister Curtin’s Christmas 1941 newspaper column advised the Australian people that henceforth we would look to America as our protector rather than Britain. To have questioned our trust in the USA at that time would have been unthinkable. A decade later, under Prime Minister Menzies, trust was cemented into the ANZUS treaty, which has remained the cornerstone of Australia’ security and self-confidence ever since. It has become an article of faith.

International Affairs

OPINION

Stop trying to make the Quad happen – it’s not gonna happen

For some strange reason, foursomes are back in vogue. Maybe it’s the persistence of Bridge Clubs, or the strange return of American Foursomes in the golfing world. How else can one explain the hold that quadrilaterals have over the imaginations of defence planners in the US and Australia?

International Affairs

Stop trying to make the Quad happen – it’s not gonna happen

OPINION

Adelaide gets its bit of AUKUS

On Sunday 15 February, Prime Minister Albanese and Defence Industry Minister Conroy, with South Australian Premier Malinauskas in tow, launched the new AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine construction site at Osborne, to the west of Adelaide. Defence Minister Marles was conspicuously inconspicuous.

International Affairs

Allan Behm

SURF’s up, game’s up: AUKUS is between a rock and a hard place

AUKUS: When not enough is still too much

Trump’s Grift and America’s Drift — A New Game Needs New Rules

Mr Albanese goes to the Pacific (again)

The Pacific comes to Mr Albanese

"Budgetary make-believe": Marles lifts defence spending, mistaking spending targets for strategy

The attacks on Iran hurt us all

Can we trust the USA?

Stop trying to make the Quad happen – it’s not gonna happen

Adelaide gets its bit of AUKUS