Some of the nuanced insights on foreign policy expressed by this contributor are beyond my understanding. However, I would have taken the trouble to look further into what he has to say but for the clear political bias he displays. To suggest the introduction of carbon tax is intended as a deflection from shortcomings in foreign policy, or that American involvement in Afghanistan is/was pointless, is 'nough said. Keeping prejudices out of the article would have made it more credible. If he wants to talk politics, he should have written a separate article rather than obfuscating this one.

"Australia's traditional allies, the United States and the United Kingdom, are consumed by bankruptcy and corrupt and dysfunctional financial elites, by small but extravagant unwinnable wars..." and of course, so are we.
Our acceptance of the irresponsible spending programs by this feckless Prime Minister and her equally ineffective associates; our acceptance also of the uninformed policy on Afghanistan by both Gillard and Smith, the first, a mistake hopefully forgotten by the public (they hope) and the second requiring a response following the rational comments by Peter Leahey. He was able to generate more good sense than the Labor Party in total as they follow on the aimless US-dictated policies commenced by the “man of steel” during his tenure as #1 US sycophant.

So while we see the failing or non-existent policies of both the UK and the US in the most important population area in the world, Asia, if there are any policies at all other than to drum-beat the possibility of China as a military power, in veiled comment by the equally incompetent (as Rudd) Hillary Clinton, (as ordinary a politician as the US has ever produced), then both countries are keeping it well-hidden.

Of course what we are seeing here is the UK, an imperialistic ex-empire builder with little interest in anything outside its domestic domain but hanging on to the coat tails of the new baton-carrier and #1 superpower, America (if you count nuclear warheads or financial debt), both floundering, one having lost its empire 50 years ago and the other well on the way to keeping its empire (780 military bases worldwide) but losing all the important things that their Constitution was framed to provide.

But what of the people. Do they care?

The UK has just completed a ‘humble’ experience, the Murdoch sideshow and now, back to normal. The US on the other hand, still wallowing in its boom or bust economical philosophies based entirely on military spending and extracting a high price for its military services provided to those bases around the world that go on expanding. The penalty of military hegemony and empire

When the US invaded Afghanistan they closed the 15 training camps that have provided training for some 20,000 plus potential terrorists. The British security services estimate that some 600 people trained in the Afghan camps now live in the UK, according to one Whitehall source. The al Qaeda training camps are an integral part of the terrorist organization. All 19 of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the operatives in the London Bombings, the USS Cole attacks and the Bali bombing which killed 88 Australians attended Afghan training camps.

If the allies pull out of Afghanistan, the Afghan Taliban will then be free to rebuild their terrorist training camps and then move their forces in to help the Pakistani Taliban overthrow Pakistan's government which is barely holding on now.

Pakistan now has over 100 nuclear weapons, long range missiles, and a fleet of hi tech French designed Agosta stealth submarines with second-strike capability, with a range close to 12,000 miles . Each of the Agosta 90B is able to carry sixteen Harpoon Stand-Off Land Attack cruise missiles and represent a very serious threat to every western country including Australia. And these religious psychopaths, the Taliban who would cut the throats of their own wives or daughters if provoked, or hang anybody who plays music or flies a kite have already stated that they will use these weapons on the west as soon as they acquire them.

What the Australian public needs to understand is that, yes we have had some casualties in Afghanistan but they are nothing compared to the possible millions of casualties that could easily occur with nuclear attacks on the world's major cities if the Taliban / al - Quida acquires these weapons and they are smuggled in to our cities by freighter, aircraft, fired by a submarine or parcelled out to anti -western rogue states or groups. In WWI in one day, the British had 65,000 casualties fighting for freedom -now if we lose a soldier a month we want to bring the troops home

And there is the US Australian alliance. Australia with it's tiny defence force is completely dependent of the US. for our defence.If we pull out of Afghanistan, why should the Americans support us in any conflict that we will one day surely encounter with China or Indonesia?
Australians need to realize that the United States stands almost alone in the war on terrorism and we Australians are completely dependent on America's military might for our defence.The fact is that the Australian ADF - total numbers 57,000 can not fight it's way out of the proverbial paper bag without US support as we saw in the miniscule police action in East Timor. The Indonesians only backed down when the US 7th. Fleet and US Marines threatened to intervene. Incidentally the US Navy has more officers than we have personnel in our entire army, navy and air force.

So when China, which is now claiming nearly the entire South China Sea as its own through which more than half of Australia's traded goods have to sail, begins to interfere with ships bound for Australia laden with oil and trade goods, we obviously will always have to back down to this increasingly belligerent and ruthless Communist nation without the support of the US Navy. Ditto when China with it's 1.5 billion and exploding numbers of people and overfilled fields will have no choice to begin fishing in the territorial waters of other nations - including ours. And as China does not recognize our claim to our Australian Antarctic Territory, the Chinese who have already scoped this area out under the guise of "scientific research" will begin to drill for oil and minerals in these pristine waters and may even harvest whales and other protected marine species. So who will will call on for help? Certainly not the corrupt and useless UN which only ever accomplishes anything when the United States actually does 99 % of the work, or NATO which can't even mount a minimum bombing campaign in Libya for two weeks without US support.

Cont/

The US doesn’t know when to stop, managed as they are by the very militarists that benefit from their military/industrial economy. It has now become an endless loop. Cut off the military spending, no more wars....unemployment at 15%. Hey, let’s keep the wars going. They are now an economic necessity. Right?
They will be forced to watch the real world of Asia become the centre of commerce. When was the last time Asia had a distracting local war that wasn’t arranged by the Americans. Perhaps as far back as Japan and China in 1931. Asia seems to have learned something from history. The US hasn’t.

As for Australia, the less said about our independence and professionalism the better. Our frontline consists of the likes of the globe-trotting Rudd , enjoying his position of almost unfettered (political) power, to again show that we are hardly worth a second glance as a member of the world and even less than that as soon as the accounting for all the irresponsible policies and practices implemented since 2007 are measured, accurately, without spin.

So we will go on, jumping to the military “requests “ of the US as they plan their next Israeli-induced war, say in Iran or Syria and at the same time exporting all our carbon to those countries who do not feel that they are yet ready to address the restriction on the use of carbon so they can move further to control the manufacturing capability of the world and climb another step up the ladder to be the next superpower. (China could be there already based on debt, GDP, assets overseas and market success).

Finally, we will reach our ultimate by becoming a provider of services, perhaps foodstuffs if we haven’t sold off all our productive land to the miners, certainly minerals for a while yet, providing tourism for the millions in Asia as they fly here in their own aircraft, stay in their own hotels in their own resorts and eat the food grown on their own farms, once Australian owned.

A slave to others, our ultimate destiny.

Methinks some may be eternally frustrated that they cannot be Foreign Minister and that a (once) vastly junior diplomat (Kevin Rudd) is now Foreign Minister.

Still the art of alphabet soup appreciation (obscurantist and with no apparent public traction) is alive and well.

Planta