Biopolitics, thanatopolitics, geopolitics…over the last two decades a rich literature has arisen in the humanities and social sciences around the question of how modern forms and strategies of power seize upon and shape life as a goal, threat and object, in ways that (as Michel Foucault remarked) ‘life insurance’ is bound up with ‘death command’.… [Read more…]
It has become commonplace to accept that security is a ‘contested concept’. How contested, however, seems to be what is at stake for critical approaches to security. With the US Congress poised to ask for a National Intelligence Estimate on the security impacts of human-induced climate change; with terrorism, people movements and disease the focus… [Read more…]
In a week’s time, the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas is going to submit an application for full membership to the United Nations Security Council. They are doing so after nearly two decades of frustration with the Oslo process, which was meant to produce swift agreement but has only produced suffering, violence and more… [Read more…]
The following article was published on ABC Online in September 2011 in response to the Australian High Court’s decision on the repatriation of asylum seekers from Australian territory to Malaysia for processing. My aim was to cut through the surface debate and ask some questions about its meaning for the literally fantastic quality of Australian… [Read more…]
As I post this, news emerges that finally the U.S. Senate may vote to ratify the New START agreement between the U.S. and Russia. This treaty, among other things, would return a regime of mutual verifications between the two states, reduce overall warhead numbers to 1550 each and 700 delivery vehicles, while preserving U.S. freedom… [Read more…]
What follows is an excerpt from an introductory chapter to a work in progress, Postmodern Conflict: Global Security and Asymmetric War, which is being looked at by publishers. This describes the book at an early stage and will no doubt change. It is my effort to think through what are an important set of problems… [Read more…]
My UK colleague Ruth Blakeley has some interesting comments about George W. Bush’s revelations that he had approved what is in effect torture against terrorist suspects. Its just the tip of a vast iceberg of abuses during his two terms, from extraordinary rendition to detention practices in Cuba and Iraq, but if it reopens debate… [Read more…]
Here is a link to an opinion article by myself and the ANU’s Andrew Phillips, following the parliamentary and public debate recently about Australia’s civil-military commitment in Afghanistan. “Afghan mission too vital to abandon”, The Australian: http://bit.ly/bZl6O5 I am known for generally being antiwar and critical of much mainstream strategic thought, so coming out publicly… [Read more…]
Every person and their mutt seems to have an opinion on the wisdom of Stephen Colbert’s and Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear” held on the Washington mall last weekend. Somehow TV comedians doing non/political events will antagonise tea-partiers, exposes the left as shallow, means Obama is weak, and whoever thought that dogs… [Read more…]
In May 2010 I had the privilege of meeting the Australian artist Michael Callaghan, who invited me to his studio in the ANU’s School of Art to talk to him about his recent war work. I looked over massive screenprints of some of the Iraq and torture pieces, saw the layers in Photoshop he was… [Read more…]
January 5, 2012
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