Publius
Displaying 1 - 10 of 11 articles
With Islamic State lopping off heads and the Russian state lopping off parts of other sovereign states, America suddenly has its enemies back. For a quarter century, the presumption of a creeping, perpetual…
Much of the anger at the federal budget is explained by a French political theorist who died 155 years ago. In one of the most prescient analyses of where democracy was heading, Alexis de Tocqueville warned…
It is not without irony that we are pondering the consequences of armed conflict in Ukraine in the centenary of the war to end all wars. Few in 1914 appreciated the scale of the bloodshed about to be unleashed…
At the same point in his presidency as Barack Obama is now, George W. Bush was contemplating rescuing his foreign policy by surging troops into Iraq. President Obama is pondering how to salvage his domestic…
How worried should we be that the government of the world’s largest economy, military, and democracy has shut down? Let me suggest two responses: 1) worried and 2) reassured. Reasons to be worried Compromise…
Having asserted that the use of chemical weapons constituted a red line, the crossing of which by Bashar al-Assad would lead to violence against him, President Obama rendered it more pink. Instead, the…
The impending victory of one middle-aged white male politician over another this Saturday raises the question of diversity in Australian politics. At a University of Melbourne Elections Masterclass on…
Why is killing women and children with chemical weapons more reprehensible morally than doing so with bombs and bullets? Either way, they end up dead. A civilian can die as painfully from shrapnel wounds…
The debate between Abbott and Rudd mimics that between American presidential candidates. But the US analogy both distorts and reveals. It distorts by personalising the election. Technically, very few Australians…
Alexis de Tocqueville warned in his great book, Democracy in America, that the race problem could not be resolved, short of war between blacks and whites. It is the most dispiriting part of his brilliant…