AIIA

Kevin Rudd’s World – Mr Daniel Flitton

After two years and a whirlwind of activity in Australia's foreign affairs, what has Kevin Rudd got to show for all his global ambition?  Australia has won a seat at the revamped G20 leaders' summit, while chasing another at the United Nations Security Council.  "Enhancing" and "deepening" ties with the world is now the Government's mantra - be it Africa, South America or India.

 

But there have also been hurdles to surmount - relations with China soared amid high hopes for what a Mandarin-speaking Australian leader could achieve, only to sour - so, too, with Indonesia.  Climate change has added to the intensity of the debate over Australia's role in the world.  So has our commitment to the war in Afghanistan and its rehabilitation.  All this and more poses the question of how will Kevin Rudd, the former diplomat, see the world in an election year, and what part will it play in his stewardship of Australia's interests?

 

Daniel Flitton is diplomatic editor of ‘The Age’.  He is a former intelligence analyst for the Australian Government and was at one time a university lecturer specialising in international relations.  We are pleased to welcome him back to the AIIAV for this key address.

The Middle East: Where to Now? - Dr Michael Rubin

Uprisings against governments in one country after another are consuming the Middle East, with growing violence and casualties as authoritarian rulers seek to stay in power. Iran's earlier 'Green Revolution' has been crushed for now with a brutality that mirrors that of Gaddafi's Libya and towards which Syria and Yemen are heading. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolts succeeded in their immediate aim of removing unpopular leaders.

In its regional and global impact, these revolutions are reminiscent of what took place in Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed. Unlike Eastern Europe, the political outcome is far less predictable.

To explore these seismic events and examine what they mean for the Arab, Iranian and wider Islamic world - and for the West - we are pleased to present a leading thinker on trends across the Middle East.

Dr Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School's Center for Civil-Military Relations; and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Between 2002 and 2004, Dr Rubin worked as a staff adviser for Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon, from which he was seconded to Iraq. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale in 1999. He has lectured in history at Yale, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Johns Hopkins University and at three different universities in northern Iraq. He currently provides academic instruction on regional issues for senior US Army, Marine Corps and Naval officers deploying to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran, co-author of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos, and co-editor of Dissent and Reform in the Arab World: Empowering Democrats. He is completing a history of US engagement with so-called rogue regimes.

Podcast: Book launch: 'The Korean War: Australia in the Giants' Playground' - Mr Cameron Forbes, aut

The Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, son of the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, has begun handing control of an impoverished nation, a huge standing army and a nascent nuclear capability to his third son, Kim Jong-un.  Scholar Andrei Lankov describes the dynasty as perhaps the most perfect Machiavellians of the modern world. Sixty years ago Australia was part of a United Nations force which prevented the North Korean Stalinists from seizing the whole of the strategically important peninsula.  The Korean War – the Cold War’s hot war - has been described as the substitute for World War III.  It was a brutal affair with perhaps four million dead and American talk of using the atomic bomb again.  It shaped the great ideological confrontation, spurred the arms race and revived militarism. Cameron Forbes travelled to Korea and China, and interviewed Australian, Chinese, Korean, Turkish and American veterans to produce his latest book 'The Korean War: Australia in the Giants’ Playground'.  On a geostrategic level it examines the byplay between the two tyrants, Mao and Stalin, and the conflict between Truman and MacArthur.  It traces Australia’s gaining of the alliance with the United States, which was paid for in blood and which led us into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Cameron Forbes has been foreign editor, Europe and Asia correspondent for ‘The Age' and Washington correspondent for ‘The Australian'.  He has reported on wars, civil wars and rebellions in the Middle East, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Burma, Portugal, Northern Ireland, Bougainville and Afghanistan.  Mr Forbes has received a number of awards, including the Graham Perkin Journalist of the Year Award and the United Nations Association Media Peace Award.

2010 Festive Luncheon with special guest speaker Jon Faine of ABC Radio

In April 2008, ABC radio personality Jon Faine and his son Jack took leave of their Melbourne lives and spent six months on an adventurous, risky and sometimes funny overland journey to London in their trusty 4-wheel-drive vehicle. Over AIIAV's festive luncheon, hear Faine's personal account of the highlights and lowlights of this extraordinary odyssey, now portrayed in their book 'From Here to There'.

Prof. Richard Tanter: Achieving Peace in Afghanistan

A decade on, the war in Afghanistan appears to be a disaster for both Afghanistan and the US-led coalition including Australia. What is to be done?

Richard Tanter proposes a series of policy initiatives by which the Australian Government and civil society could move constructively towards a foundation of sustainable peace. It would start with a withdrawal of Australian troops, then focus on an interlinked set of issues. These include the partisan role of the United Nations in a civil war; the need to form linkages with like-minded countries to sustain pressure for peace; shifting military policy towards containment and deterrence of any future return to a platform for international terrorism; serious economic aid to build human security; finding alternatives to the opium economy; and getting serious about the destructive and self-destructive role being played by Pakistan. Such policies may seem too hopeful, but it is argued that they are no less utopian than current war policies.

Dr Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate, Nautilus Institute. From 2004 - 2010 he was Professor of International Relations in the Research and Innovation Portfolio, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and Director of Nautilus Institute in Australia, where he coordinated Austral Peace and Security Net, the Australian Forces Abroad briefing book series (including Australian Bases Abroad and Australian Defence Facilities), and the Climate Change and Reframing Australia-Indonesia Security project.

Within Nautilus he has been closely involved in the Global Problem Solving project, the East Asian Science and Security Collaborative, and the Indonesian Nuclear Power Proposal study project. From 1989-2003 Dr Tanter was Professor of International Relations in the School of Environmental and Social Studies at Kyoto Seika University in Japan. Later he was senior curriculum consultant to Deakin University for its security studies graduate programme at the Australian Defence College's Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies. His Ph.D dissertation for Monash University in 1992 was on Intelligence Agencies and Third World Militarization: A Case Study of Indonesia.

Podcast: Adj. Prof. Bjorn Lomborg: Climate Change: A Way Forward

The challenging issue of climate change continues to generate debate and controversy among many sectors of the community, including scientists in Australia and overseas.  Many support the idea that global warming is a clear threat to humanity, that it is largely caused by human activity, and that solutions to the problems of climate change must be found urgently.  Others challenge the view that world warming is caused by humans or that it poses a serious risk. In a sign of shifting political attitudes, President Obama’s recent State of the Union speech did not mention climate change, but focused instead on ways to make low-carbon energy cheaper, rather than taxes or schemes to make oil and coal more expensive. To discuss this crucial topic, we welcome to the Institute Adjunct Professor Bjorn Lomborg, author of 'Cool It' and 'The Sceptical Environmentalist'. He accepts that global warming is real, and also thinks that it can be solved at relatively low cost without compromising social and economic development.  Bjorn Lomborg is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School.  He is the organiser of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, which brings together some of the world's top economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, to set priorities for the world. 'Time' magazine named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2004.  In 2008 he was called "one of the 50 people who could save the planet" by the 'Guardian'; "one of the top 100 public intellectuals" by 'Foreign Policy' and 'Prospect' magazine; and "one of the world's 75 most influential people of the 21st century" by 'Esquire'.

Podcast: Mr Rowan Callick: China: Taking Over Our World, or Riding for a Fall?

Since the global financial crisis, China's continued economic success has fuelled the self-confidence to push its strategic interests more forcefully.  This display of strength, accompanied by a growth in military spending and the appearance of sophisticated new weaponry, is causing neighbours to reconfirm their support for a strong, continued US presence in Asia.  Australia is among countries in the region to express concern. But the party chieftains in Beijing face many pressures and uncertainties within and beyond their borders.  So, are threats emerging to undermine China's economic progress, and has it over-reached itself already as a superpower? Rowan Callick was China correspondent for the 'Australian Financial Review', based in Hong Kong, from 1996-2000, before becoming Asia-Pacific editor.  He became 'The Australian' China correspondent at the start of 2006.  After three years in Beijing, he took up his present role as Asia-Pacific editor. Mr Callick worked for 11 years in Papua New Guinea, where he became general manager of a locally owned publishing, printing and retail group.  He was a member of Australia's National Advisory Council on Aid Policy from 1994-96, a board member of the Australia Indonesia Institute from 2001-2006, and a member of the Foreign Minister's Foreign Affairs Council from 2003-2006.  His book 'Comrades & Capitalists: Hong Kong Since the Handover' was published by the University of NSW Press in 1998.  He won the Graham Perkin Award for Journalist of the Year for 1995, and two Walkley Awards, for Asia-Pacific coverage, for 1997 and 2007.

Mr Paul Barratt, AO: How WikiLeaks Changed the World

The disclosure of vast numbers of confidential diplomatic cables in recent weeks has shocked governments and placed many key politicians and officials in a delicate position.  While many observers argue that these revelations are in the public interest, others maintain that they are criminal acts. In this presentation Paul Barratt will examine the tensions between secrecy and openness in a democratic society, and outline the criteria that justify giving documents a national security classification.  He will discuss the contents of the cables so far revealed by WikiLeaks, and examine questions such as whether the leaks have revealed anything new; whether they have put lives at risk, as claimed by Government spokespeople in Australia and elsewhere; what the leaks have revealed about the behaviour of our political leaders; whether large scale leaks of this type will become a permanent feature of the political and diplomatic landscape; and whether the fact of the WikiLeaks phenomenon will transform the way governments do business with each other. Mr Paul Barratt, AO, has more than 40 years’ experience of policy advising and international negotiations in the areas of defence, foreign relations, international trade and climate change.  After completing an honours degree in physics he joined the Department of Defence as a scientific intelligence analyst.  He undertook an intensive course at the Australian School of Nuclear Science and Engineering and completed a second degree, in economics and Asian civilisations. He has been Secretary to the Department of Defence, Secretary to the Federal Department responsible for mining, oil & gas, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, Deputy Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Department and of the Trade Department, Special Trade Representative for North Asia, and Executive Director of Australia’s leading business roundtable.  Mr Barratt is now an independent consultant, and a director of Australia 21 Limited.

Prof. Greg Barton: Islam, Politics and the Future of the Muslim World

On this day Muslims around the world will be celebrating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.  Nothing is more important to understanding Islam than understanding what Muslims believe about the character of the Prophet.  Few in the West realise that the attributes and values that Christians associate with Jesus are precisely those that Muslims prize in Muhammad.  This is why Islam is understood to be a religion of peace and of justice. And yet the image of Islam that dominates our awareness seems overwhelmed by a media focus on political unrest, oppression and militant violence.  But there is more to it than that.  For one thing, it is partly a product of scale: around one in five people alive today live in the band of Muslim majority societies from Dakar to Jayapura, Mogadishu to Astana. By any measure, though, the Muslim world has its share of strife.  This presentation will attempt to make sense of the social and political troubles currently facing Muslim societies and to understand the drivers behind Islamic movements.  It will examine the competing claims for political reform in non-democratic Muslim countries such as Tunisia and Egypt and the links between democracy and Islam in successful democracies such as Turkey and Indonesia.  It will also review developments in jihadi terrorism and extremism and the challenges that these represent to Muslims and non-Muslims.  Finally it will sketch likely scenarios for political and social change in Muslim society, developments in Islamic thought and social movements and in relations between 'Islam and the West'. Dr Greg Barton is the Herb Feith Research Professor for the Study of Indonesia in the Faculty of Arts at Monash.  He is based in the politics stream in the School of Political and Social Inquiry.  He is acting director of the Centre for Islam and the Modern World (www.arts.monash.edu.au/politics/cimow), deputy UNESCO chair in interreligious and intercultural relations – Asia Pacific, and is active in the Global Terrorism Research Centre.   For the past 20 years Prof. Barton has been active in inter-faith dialogue initiatives and has a deep commitment to building understanding of Islam and Muslim society.  The axis of his research interests is the way in which religious thought, individual believers and religious communities respond to modernity and to the modern nation state.  He also has a strong general interest in comparative international politics.

Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich

Jeffrey L. Bleich was confirmed U.S. Ambassador to Australia in 2009. He served as Special Counsel to the President at the White House. From 1995 to 2009, he was a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, where he was recognized as one of the nation's top lawyers. Outside of his legal practice, Mr. Bleich has a long-standing commitment to international law. After clerking for Judge Howard Holtzmann at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal and acting as Special Rapporteur to the International Court of Arbitration, he assisted the Special Prosecutor for the International Tribunal for the Former-Yugoslavia. He has taught international human rights at UC Berkeley's School of Law, and written and lectured extensively on the international criminal court.