Very good article.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, our prime strategic partner would expect us to sink the shipping of our prime trading partner."

Definitely not a good look.

The upside of the whole thing is that everyone has an interest in peace and free trade, and Australia should exert itself to promote them.

"If goods don't cross borders, armies will."
Bastiat

It was in fact the economic policies of protectionism that gave rise to the military policies of expansionism that led to WWII. With free trade, if you can't physically produce something, it doesn't matter. You can just buy it in. But protectionist policies, to the extent of their protectionism deny entire national communities the advantages of the division of labour, which is the economic basis of human society. Thus protectionism is fundamentally anti-social and worse, being backed by force.

Australia's diplomatic strategy should be to encourage peace and free trade, and to discourage war, aggression, and what amounts to the same thing, socialism in all its forms.

A good long read which packs in enough themes for 2 or 3 articles.

What jumped out for me was the possibility that Indonesia's economy might, by 2030, be larger than the UK or Germany's and Australia's. See in the 10th paragraph the hyperlink "belarger than those of Germany and Britain" leading to http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/indonesias-economy-to-be-in-worlds-top-six-in-2030-standard-chartered/

If there is a correlation of a large Indonesian economy having a large military then Australia should watch its step. Abbott needs to sort out the current standoff with the Indons.

Pete

"It is the approach of a country which has no culture of an independent diplomacy."

Describes Australia perfectly! We will pay a heavy price for this abject failure in the future.

Even N.Z. stood up to the U.S. and the French. Australia has been falling over itself to accommodate to the U.S. pivot lock, stock and barrel seemingly unaware of its geographic location and importance of regional trading partners.

And now we have a village idiot as our Prime Minister!

Will the last one to leave turn out the light?

An excellent article.
We need to be extremely careful about upsetting our nearest neighbours just because some of the population don't like Muslims or immigration of Asians (asylum seekers?).

Trade with Indonesia is very important to Australia, whether we like it or not.
Abbott needs to fix this mess quick smart, no matter which Government 'spied', or where the asylum seekers set out from.

Abbott is not a good communicator, and neither is his deputy...so what to do?

Suse, what to do? Appoint Abbott as Sports Minister and Turnbull as P.M. would be a good start.

I agree this is a good article with mush to discuss. It might usefully have been a two-parter.

His description of Australia as "a country which has no culture of independent diplomacy" is particularly apt. It comes through in the capitulation on the TPP which the local media shamefully won't cover. It is apparent in the decision to revert to the Howard era policy of abstaining on UN General Assembly resolutions critical of the illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Our orders on that one apparently come from Tel Aviv.

All of this is compounded by the neophyte duo of Abbott and Bishop, whose blundering on the world stage, and not just Indonesia and Sri Lanka, is a major embarrassment for all of us who hope for an independent and intelligent foreign policy.

Not the least of the looming tragedies, as the author points out, is that in the foreseeable future American geo-political ambitions may put us in the position of sinking the ships of our major trading partner. If Morrison's approach is any guide, we won't even be told about the policy. No wonder this morning's poll has an undeserving Labour in the lead and Abbott in negative approval territory.