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

After WWII the USA liberated hundreds of millions of people from brutal Nazi and Japanese oppression - then post war helped feed and rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan. America then opened wide it’s trading doors to allow it’s former enemies to grow rich with their access to the huge US markets - The Japanese though denied American access to Japanese markets.
America with her massive military and nuclear weapons then defended Europe from an aggressive Red Army, which was poised to enslave Europe under the hammer and sickle.

The US formed NATO along with European countries allowing them to participate in their own security. Even today the US spends $100 billion p/a on the defence of Europe, and more on the defence of the Pacific region which of course includes Australia and Japan.
Having liberated hundreds of millions of subjugated Europeans from a brutal nazi occupation and provided the ways and means to wealth and prosperity while defending them at the same time, having bailed European banks out with a $1 trllion loan - you would think that Europeans would be a little grateful to the US, but no the reverse is all too true, especially by American haters Germany and France -the very nations who have caused the bulk of European instability and war causalities.Today America is the enemyof all, including the leftists and the elites in Australia.

Additionally the US feeds over 100 million people world wide, and even at time her current enemy North Korea, but of course to the American haters such as rexw, America is his Great Satan even though his very freedoms and prosperity is due entirely to the US military - from 1941 to today.

"If America didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it: upon what other convenient scapegoat could we so conveniently load our sins and dump our garbage? Where else would we find such a place to whitewash the crimes of the planet, since anything that goes wrong on earth, from global warming to terrorism, can be laid at America’s door? It’s a stroke of good luck for a dictatorship or a criminal gang finally to be chased down and singled out by the United States. It gains them immediate sympathy, the goodwill of all for whom, in Chris Patten’s words, "the only authorized racism in the modern world is anti-Americanism." We don’t doubt it for a moment: if the June 1944 landings were happening today, Uncle Adolf would enjoy the sympathy of innumerable patriots and radicals of the extreme left with the excuse that Uncle Sam was aiming to crush them."

None of the comments today have show us an alternative answer to the fiscal disaster that is about to embrace the US, based solely on Keynesian military economical policies.
The US depends on wars in 2011, hence the 780 base structures around the world, with the support for all military spending the only item that occupies the mind of whoever it is in the White House. The political colour makes little or no difference.

The Unites States has been been continuously engaged in or mobilised for war since 1941. There have been 201 overseas military operations between the end of WWII and September 2001 in which the US struck the first blow. The US also holds the unenviable record of having helped install and then totally supported such dictators as the Shah of Iran, Suharto of Indonesia, Batista in Cuba, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, Mobutu in Conga.

The result of all this and more, much more, is the military/industrial domination of Washington, threatening bankruptcy, turning the 'free press' into worse than the media instruments of the cold war in Russia, and approving young men and women to torture prisoners picked up in battlefields or city streets in foreign lands.

Is that “justified defence of country" ? Hardly.

Soon people will be welcoming what writers like Hannah Arendt called "desk murderers:” the likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ordering remote-controlled killings by the hundreds of thousands or imposing embargos on Iraq in an earlier period when over a million children died through disease and lack of medical supplies or supplying nerve gas to Iraq to attack Iran, and on it goes.

The culminating act in the disregard for humanity was the structuring and long established support for the "School of the Americas", a university of death where foreign terrorists were trained by the US to cause mayhem and murder and overthrow governments in South America.

Fascism. Pure and simple.

Worse than anything done by the British Empire, and all in just 60 years. The qualities of the US, once respected, have long since vanished.

While the comments to this article are an interesting insight into some of the paranoia and rewriting of history by people like kman, aren't they rather missing the point of Mr Little's article? As I understand his argument he is saying that western nations in general and Australia in particular are so locked into a western oriented mindset with all its cultural and colonial baggage about Asia they are completely missing the radical transformation that is taking place in our backyard of south and east asia.
This is particularly, but not only, evident in the area of education where the Asian nations such as China, Japan and Korea are leaving us behind at a rate that few australians even begin to comprehend.
This combination of lack of knowledge, lack of insight, cultural baggage and mindless paranoia is compounded by the appalling quality of political leadership. This problem did not begin with the Rudd/Gillard regime and it certainly won't end if we have the misfortune to acquire Abbott as prime minister.
Mr Little is offering some rare insights which we need to ponder. A failure to take his message on board can only end badly for australia.

Kman.
Please, don't even "go there" the Allies declared war on Germany, not the other way around.
The allied butchery of Germans surpassed anything they'd dished out.
"Fed the Germans"? Try starved, that's the truth of what they did, they deliberately starved them.
You've heard of Auschwitz right?
What about the Rhine Meadows camps where over a million German prisoners were killed by the Allies?
You've heard of operation Reinhard right?
What about operation Keelhaul, where up to 800,000 Eastern Europeans and former Soviet prisoners were turned over to the NKVD to be executed or sent to slave labour camps,the "Gulags".

Japan? Well your precious Allies really did a number on them didn't they?

And to the people trying to paint "our" senior politicians as bumblers or junior partners and the Americans and British as corrupt and inept, you're wrong.
They're all smart,highly motivated and VERY good at what they do, what's more they're all in it together, Rudd, Abbott and Gillard are just as important to the mission as anyone else.
The lower level players are mostly just traitors and opportunists but the top echelon are the real deal, they're selected for membership of the globalist gangster class on merit alone, they've earned their place at the conference table.

James O'Neill, show me any so called rewriting of history - I can't wait! Oh and from a reliable source - not Green Left, Pravda or the Daily Worker.

Jay Of Melbourne,
So now the Germans are the victims?

"the Allies declared war on Germany, not the other way around."
Hmm after invading Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France etc. you thought maybe the allies should not have declared war?

'The allied butchery of Germans surpassed anything they'd dished out'.
You are joking of course. German prisoners of war were sent to POW camps in Canada, the US, Australia and Great Britain where they were allowed to work in market gardens and were treated so badly, that tens of thousands of these former POW's from Germany and Italy they migrated to live in the countries where they were prisoners.

The various major genocides carried out by the Nazis and the numbers likely murdered: 16,315,000 victims overall. Then is shown the 11,283,000 people the Nazis killed through institutional practices, such as forced "euthanasia," forced labor, and the processing of prisoners of war; or in Nazi institutions, particularly prisoner of war and concentration or death camps. Russian losses alone now stand at 26.6 million. Most were peasants massacred by the invading Germans who did not want to guard or feed them.

"Feed the Germans"? Try starved, that's the truth of what they did, they deliberately starved them."
Really? So the Berlin airlift never happened eh?
24 hours each day for 9 months during the Russian blockade of Berlin, US and British planes delivered to Berlin 2000 tons (2032 tonnes)394,509 tons (400,821 tonnes) of foodstuffs, coal and supplies carried by 689 military and civil aircraft .39 British, 31 Americans lost their lives in the Berlin Airlift. 68,000 people were flown OUT of Berlin
Berliners received an average of 2,300 calories a day which was higher than the UK food rationing system provided at the time. The airlift cost the United States $350 million; the UK £17 million. Big money back then...So much for starving anyone.

You've heard of Auschwitz right? What about the Rhine Meadows camps where over a million German prisoners were killed by the Allies?...
Yes it is true, official German inquiries estimate death totals between 3,000 and 10,000. The figures you quote are absurd as there were 1 to 1.9 million prisoners in them, so to say that a million died is totally ridiculous. Most of these deaths were attributed to an unexpectedly large number of POWs which accumulated during the end of WWII, and the subsequent inability to provide adequate necessities for them and to feed the German civilian population as well. The allies were also concerned about a breakout of this huge numbers of prisoners.

On the other hand Germany placed their civilian prisoners in concentration camps that were treated so horrific it was beyond belief that the Germans were actually human beings.Yes I know those concentration camp pictures of walking skeletons are all doctored and it treally never happened.
On the other hand 57.5% of Russian POWs held by Germans died. German POWs held by Americans 0.15%

“Japan? Well your precious Allies really did a number on them didn't they?”
My "precious allies? So you obviously wished that the Nazis and Japanese won WWII.
And the fact that Japan attacked China the US and bombed Australia meant we should not retaliate. Any Australian reading this and comparing what the Japanese did to allied prisoners and how we treated theirs should be outraged at this stupid childish remark.

Australia is being betrayed & undermined & sold out by its own. The last federal election was a blatant example how a handful of connivers & an independent can get away with going against the majority. Something is seriously wrong.
The allies are amateurs in comparison.

Kman.
He said/She said, it depends who you choose to believe.
The estimates vary from 38,000 to one million.
Just like the estimates of deaths at Auschwitz have varied over time from four million to 1.5 million.
Example, Jewish academic Fritjof Meyer put out a paper almost a decade ago which totally contradicts the orthodox account of the Auschwitz death toll:
http://www.vho.org/GB/c/Meyer.html

This goes to the heart of this topic, "Who do you trust?".
Could a regime of the sophistication of the Nazis simply make six million people "disappear"? I'd say yes, they were capable of building devices which could vaporise a human body and we don't know the extent of their technological breakthroughs, they were supposedly working with plasmas, directed energy weapons, microwaves, fuel air bombs etc.
There are several versions of the "electric" machine stories from camp survivors, technology which could kill and completely dispose of up to 2,000 people at a time.
Well then...
Could a regime capable of dropping thermonuclear weapons and incendiaries on defenceless civilians possibly kill millions of non combatants through starvation and slave labour?
Absolutely, it's perfectly plausible if you look at it that way.

The current Canberra regime has the blood of innocent civilians on it's hands, it supports murder, genocide and terrorism in the name of the "War on terror".
Are they capable of betraying their own constituents? Of course, it's perfectly plausible that such people would go down that path.

Kman,
You are skating on particularly thin ice when you mention the German atrocities, every Nation which took part in WW11, sunk to levels of inhumane acts, whilst I abhor the vagaries of war, not one participating Nation came out squeaky clean, it is just the level of the atrocities which makes the difference. On a safer note, one cannot change 'that which IS', it will have to be sufficient to say that we hope that humanity improves somewhat over future decades, and hopefully not more wars (pie in the sky? yep.)
NSB

Cutting to the nub of the matter.

I agree that

>>…the United States [is] consumed by bankruptcy and [a] corrupt and dysfunctional financial elite..,>>

China and India are not bankrupt but their elites are at least as dysfunctional and corrupt. What’s more, since China holds most of its reserves in USD, a necessary concomitant to its currency manipulation, if the US goes so does much of China’s wealth.

Reg Little makes it sound as though Asia is somehow ganging up on the “Anglo-Saxon empire.” Nothing could be further from reality. There are signs that China’s recent assertiveness and expressions of nationalism are causing disquiet among its neighbours. India and the US are drawing closer together. In fact India may one day become co-dominant with the US in the “Anglo-Saxon club” which is no longer Anglo nor Saxon anyway. (Does Barack Hussein Obama sound like an Anglo-Saxon name?)

In a turnaround that would have been considered unthinkable when Saigon fell 35 years ago, Vietnam and the US seem to be becoming de facto allies.

See:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/04_us_vietnam_relations_tuan.aspx

>>Given the U.S. economic and security role in Asia Pacific, Vietnam welcomes active U.S. presence in the region.>>

I have no doubt that China will emerge as a great power. However whether a nation whose leadership is so insecure that it has to hide behind the “Great Firewall of China” can become a global dominant remains to be seen.

There are two ways to look at America’s current travails:

--It is in terminal decline and will soon be a negligible force

--America is undergoing one of its periodic and painful bouts of reinventing itself and will emerge stronger than ever

My GUESS is that reality lies somewhere between these two. America will never again be a global hegemon but it will remain a powerful player and will be welcomed in Asia as the only power able to help other countries deter possible Chinese aggression.

One thing. Demography is against China. It is aging rapidly – may get old before it gets rich.

This is worth hearing:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2011/3262439.htm

One point does need to be made.

If the US does implode and the situation in Asia begins destabilising Australia may have to consider acquiring the ultimate equaliser as a deterrent.

I’m referring to nukes.

India and Pakistan already have nukes.

Japan is in a sense a virtual nuclear power. It has no bomb but it is in a position to develop and deploy a nuclear deterrent very rapidly – probably within a year or two at most.

South Korea has the technology and would begin work if it appeared the US would leave it “naked” against the North and China.

The power vacuum created by a US implosion would certainly lead to a nuclear arms race in the region as countries scrambled to find a way of deterring attacks. I do not see how Indonesia and Australia could remain out of it.

To see what happens in a nuclear arms race let’s look at the Middle-East. I don’t mean Israel vs Iran. I mean Saudi Arabia vs Iran.

>>Riyadh will build nuclear weapons if Iran gets them, Saudi prince warns>>

See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/29/saudi-build-nuclear-weapons-iran

Does anyone imagine Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Australia would react any differently if they felt threatened?

A US implosion would cause a chain reaction in more ways than one (multiple puns intended).

Demography is against China.
stevenlmeyer,
and so is pollution caused by them on western consumer demand & much of it with australian ore & coal.
should make all the Greens feel warm'n fuzzy.

Reg Little,

Your article, similar to previous articles written by you, contains many implied meanings, presuppositions and so on.

Would you please explain what you mean by your assertion that we Westerners do not "comprehend the unspoken code and discreet thought customs" prevalent among Chinese?

Oh I see James O’Neill has not put his money where his mouth is-So where is the "paranoia and rewriting of history" I was accused off?

And Jay Of Melbourne, continues with his support for our enemies of WWII - the Axis.
"Could a regime capable of dropping thermonuclear weapons and incendiaries on defenceless civilians possibly kill millions of non combatants through starvation and slave labour?
Absolutely, it's perfectly plausible if you look at it that "

Hmmm. You praise the Germans who have killed what, 50 million in 2 world wars, including the attempts to exterminate an entire race. You quote the usaul holocaust denier garbage of 1.5 million when the truth is 7 million. You then blame the allies for bombing innocent civilians which again is another lie. The allies never targeted civilians. Yes civilians were killed ion large numbers but the allies knew the way to win th war was to knock out German and Japanese factories. On the other hand your friends, the Germans and especially the Japanese deliberately bombed civilians.

Incidentally let's no mention the 1937 Japanese invasion of China and in particular Nanjing where over 200,000 Japanese civilians were massacred by Japanese troops and where they even used babies for bayonet practice. And lets not mention the Burma Railway or the Battan death march, and there are dozens more examples right here....
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mX6vOjs0X3oJ:members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html+ww+11+japanese+atrocities&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&source=www.google.com.au

As for the use of the atomic bomb. When the bomb was invented no one really knew just what the effects were. After Okinawa and Iwo Jima where the US had over 200 ships sunk or damaged they knew that the landings in Japan were estimated to cost 1 million allied soldiers lives, because the Japanese population was going to fight to the death. The Japanese were warned that America had this weapon but were ignored and the US dropped the first bomb -so why didn't they surrender right then and there? You can sit smugly,cosy and war and self righteous sipping a latte behind your PC, but if you were one of the tens of thousands of allied troops that had to land on Japanese beaches and endure kamikaze planes and suicide attacks you would not be so smug. Then again by your expressed sentiments you would not have been there anyway because you are obviously a German and Japanese sympathiser and we are the enemy. You would have been shot during the war for the stuff you are spouting, and deservedly so.

And hy should one more allied soldier have died taking Japan? Why should one more allied family have lost their father or son fighting a ruthless barbaric enemy? Japan attacked China and then the US and Britain in an undeclared and unprovoked war, yet you want the allies to fight with kid gloves on and lose hundreds of thousands of troops at least just so you can feel fuzzy and warm.

It’s clear to me Jay that you are completely detached from reality in the real world.

NEWSFLASH to kman and Jay

World War 2 ended 66 years ago. I'll bet neither of you were born during that war. I am certain neither of you remember much about it.

How about you guys stop re-fighting World War 2 and focus on the actual implications for Australia and the Asia Pacific if America does implode. What sort of arms race might the ensuing power vacuum trigger?

Individual

There are whole river systems in China that are so polluted it is unsafe to use their water even for irrigating crops.

I also think at some point other countries will retaliate against China's currency manipulations.

While I am waiting for Reg Little's reply can any Onliners enlighten me as to what these Chinese "unspoken codes and discreet thought customs" comprise?

unspoken codes and discreet thought customs" comprise?
Seneca,
Several other cultures have that as well, it's like that goes without saying. You'll find that in most countries with age-old culture. The australian indigenous have it too.
You won't understand, it's a cultural thing.

Well might you wonder Seneca, I am with you.
NSB

Another mistake from NSB,
I got the wrong name of the right post, twas meant for individual, not Seneca

No but my parents were. We lived in Dee Why and they remember keeping buckets of sand out side the front door ready for Japanese attacks on Sydney.The Harbour Bridge was mined to blow up and the only deterrents to the Japanese were the US Navy and the one million US servicemen who came through Australia-our troops were in the Middle East.And thats why when these leftists start bashing America I really get peed off.
In Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide.there are memorials dedicated to the United States.These American haters would not have the freedom to dump on America if the japanese had won the war,but they never would consider anything like that,because to them America is the enemy.

In grateful remembrance
of the vital help given by the
United States of America during
the war in the Pacific 1941-1945.
Unveiled by
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
February 16, 1954.