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By AWPR President, Dr Alison Broinowski AM
The world has suddenly changed for the worse. The standoff over Ukraine turned into war on 24 February, after a series of attacks between separatist Russian-speakers and Ukrainians supporting the Kiev government led to Russia’s invasion. A long sequence of missed opportunities preceded this, including the Minsk accords, and the possibility of a multi-lingual federation in Ukraine. Further back, NATO’s lack of enthusiasm for Ukraine as a member, even though other former Soviet states were accepted, was paralleled by Russia’s determination to lose no more of its ‘near abroad’ to NATO.
The underlying dynamic of the past decade has been the rise of Russia and China. As competitors with the US for world domination, that rivalry has until now been peaceful, although collaboration between Presidents Putin and Xi has strengthened them both. But the rout of the US and its allies from Afghanistan must have seemed a window of opportunity to Russia and China.
In AWPR our core concern now, and always, is how Australia will enter a prospective war. Because the war powers in the Australian Constitution are unreformed, the ADF could be sent into overseas conflict at any time with no democratic process, as they have been five times since 1962. If the US uses its own forces in Ukraine, it will call on others to do the same. On past form, Australia would oblige.
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