The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review excerpts are dated 18 January 2002. On 28 June 2002 George W Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 14, which of course was nuclear weapons planning guidance. That's about a 5 month gap between the NPR and the change in guidance. President Clinton didn't change the guidance that he inherited, NSDD-13, until well into his administration. In his case that change in guidance had nothing to do with the results of his Nuclear Posture Review.

The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is dated April 6 2010. September 6 2010 will mark its 5 month birthday, so to speak. Yet we still do not know of any change in planning guidance following on from its release. The Federation of American Scientists Presidential Directives pages continues to show no Obama nuclear weapons planning guidance. Given all the rhetoric on how the Obama NPR was such a great sea change in nuclear strategy, one would expect to see at least evidence of a change in guidance.

Let us be a little bit philosophical. NSPD-14 was signed on 28 June 2002. That's when it come into being. However, we didn't know about it until declassified documents, well after the fact, pointed to its existence. For this we must thank the redoubtable Hans Kristensen. So, perhaps Obama has signed new nuclear weapons planning guidance only we don't know about it. These things aren't governed by the Copenhagen Interpretation. Just because we don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't there.

That said, we only knew about the 2002 NPR based on leaked excerpts. The 2010 NPR was to break new ground in terms of public disclosure, which it seemingly did.. One would expect that the same would apply to the actual guidance. This of course doesn't necessarily have to follow; greater NPR transparency need not entail greater planning guidance transparency (I don't mean its content, just its actual existence!)

It has been said that it would take about a year to work through all the issues at Strategic Command in terms of drawing up new targeting plans as a consequence of the 2010 NPR, but StratCom can only radically change operational planning after receiving a revamped presidential guidance. One should not conflate the time it takes to work through the strategic war planning system with getting out the PG.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but without a radically revamped nuclear weapons planning guidance I am afraid that all the talk about the 2010 NPR representing a radical sea change in nuclear strategy is just so much hot air.

Remember Dr Strangelove's response to the Russian ambassador after he told him of the Soviet doomsday device? Why keep a deterrent secret? If Obama has changed the guidance, why keep its existence secret given the positive impact it would have on Washington's image?

But I do know a bit about nuclear abolition and nuclear terrorism, which seem to be key features of the film. So, without endorsing Darwin BondGraham's specific charges against the film, which is creating a bit of a storm, I whole heartedly support the underlying thrust of his comments. I would actually go further than BondGraham, on the push for abolition not the film, and say that I do not support the abolition of nuclear weapons.

I don't support abolition for much the same reasons that Henry Kissinger and George Schultz support it. For them, nuclear abolition is meant to make the world a safer stage for the projection of conventional military power. We don't live in an ideal world. It is what it is. Given the way international relations is structured nuclear abolition would most likely lead to more military interventions by the world's sole remaining strategic superpower, and other great powers regionally. This, in turn, would create large strategic incentives for nuclear proliferation.

Just because nuclear weapons disappear does not mean that nuclear insecurity and nuclear proliferation disappears. Those who argue that we stand on the cusp of a major proliferation cascade, who tend to be pretty vocal in their support for going to zero, actually might well create a cascade should their policy preference be enacted.

BondGraham's piece appeared in the Monthly Review, so let me use some Marxist lingo; those in the peace movement who support nuclear abolition are "reckless adventurers".

They are also especially reckless when it comes to nuclear terrorism. For example The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons likes to repeat unduly alarmist rhetoric about proliferation cascades and nuclear terrorism. There is no difference between what they do and what the neoconservatives do when they spin alarming tales about nuclear security.

Why is it the same?

It's the same because the effect is the same. The neocons use nuclear alarmism to support a strategic policy geared toward the projection of military power. If the abolitionists get their way the US, and other regional powers, would have a greater margin of safety for the projection of power. Judged in terms of results there is no difference. That's what matters, not the moral posturing.

It's easy to parade in public as an idealist, but I think those who do so on the nuclear issue are not idealists at all. They are dangerous people.

I agree that mutually interacting nuclear command and control systems are a worry, but that's why I support minimum deterrence. This type of deterrence can significantly mitigate this problem without at the same time opening up another can of worms. Getting to minumum deterrence can serve as a springboard for a wider set of strategic reforms geared toward ameliorating the role of military power in international relations.

When we get to this point then we can go for zero. This would not be just "zero." This would be "sustainable zero." The difference between the two is huge.

For the first time since 1945 Australian public opinion is to the left of the Australian Labor Party. The Labor Party has leaked votes to the Greens. Three conservative, but state-interventionist minded, independents seemingly hold the balance of power in the House. The Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate. The informal vote increased sharply.

Neither of the political groupings that now appear to hold the balance of power in both houses of parliament are devotees of neoliberalism. Never during the neoliberal era in Australia has such a course of events transpired.

This is all a tad ironic, or sad for many labour movement activists and supporters, because Julia Gillard was able to assume high office only after ditching the beliefs she held when she was a part of the Victorian Socialist Forum. A nominally left wing Prime Minister may well lose office because, in part, she moved too far to the right on key issues such as global warming and was not able to, or did not want to, embed the fiscal stimulus and national broadband narratives within a broader narrative focused on the poverty of free market fundamentalism. When she ousted Kevin Rudd she had actually praised John Howard and Peter Costello for continuing neoliberal free market reforms!

Which Julia is the "real" Julia? The Julia of the Socialist Forum? The Julia before she became PM? The Julia after the first week of the election campaign? I don't know, and neither do most Australians it would seem.

The Australian Labor Party is a party in crisis. It is perceived as a party that stands for nothing, believes in nothing, that is dominated by apparatchiks and hacks who live for the political process and so on. I believe these perceptions to be accurate ones. The Labor Party has slowly evolved from being a mass based political party, intimately connected to broader social movements, to being an electoral machine, much like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US.

A labour/social democratic party that allows itself to lose its social base is a party that is always vulnerable to a coordinated assault from capital. The rise of Abbottman is indeed one of the most extraordinary in Australian political history. However, the rise of Abottman was largely manufactured by very powerful establishment forces, aided and abetted by a compliant corporate media. This has been the case from the conservative coup against Malcolm Turnbull all the way up to yesterday's election.

It is said that Labor lost votes in NSW and QLD because state governments there are on the nose. This obscures the fact that brand Labor is on the nose in NSW and QLD for many of the same underlying reasons that brand Labor was on the nose federally. It was the eerie affinity between the soulless Labor brand in these states and the federal brand that Abbottman's spin doctors were able to exploit. This cannot be ignored.

A labour based party deeply connected with its social base can withstand establishment assaults. The ALP of a Chifley, an Evatt, a Calwell, for instance, had it much tougher. The establishment would regularly line up against Labor en mass. But their primary vote didn't sink to Gillard like lows. One reason is because they had a social movement underneath them acting as a solid line of self defence. To be sure Chifley, Evatt and Calwell lost elections, but from 1949 to 1972 labour did not lose. It held the line.

Despite the power of the rich elites, that lie behind the manufactured rise of Abbottman, it is by no means clear that they have carried the day. I tend to think that they haven't. I think this would still be accurate even should Abbottman form a government. Whatever agenda they have covertly mapped out for Abbottman cannot be readily implemented by a minority government, given the balance of power in Parliament.

The Parliament of Australia is no longer controlled by the cash upped elites.

During the neoliberal era the ALP has fretted away its connection to broadly based popular and social movements. More valued was the "policy adviser", the "stacker", the "media and communications officer", the advertising "guru" and the like. From such stuff a progressive party of social reform is not made. The Abbottman assault could have been comfortably checked and parried by a labour movement with deeper connections to the community.

The same observations apply to the trade union movement. The union movement, under the aegis of The Accord, played a critical role in bringing about neoliberalism. It was the union movement that delivered wage restraint in the context of lower levels of industrial disputation. Whilst the rich were hamming it up, whilst profits were rising, the unions disciplined the working class and, furthermore, delivered wage restraint. The union movement is no less dominated by apparatchiks and factional operatives than the Labor Party. Without a truly grassroots based unionism, that takes away the power of the union bosses, labour based politics in Australia will remain in crisis.

Much has been written about affluent leftists supporting the Greens in the inner city. But consider. My electorate is one of the safest Labor seats in Parliament, namely Gorton. In total the Greens vote in Gorton was less than the state wide vote for the Greens. This tends to reinforce the stereotype. However, a lot of that was due to a lower Greens vote in Caroline Springs and Cairnlea. This is the more affluent McMansions end of the electorate. The Greens vote in places like Deer Park (my booth) and Kings Park was just about on a par with the average Greens vote.

Labor is leaking votes to the Greens even in working class booths. That tells you something, no? OK, that's just my electorate. But I have looked at Swan in Western Australia, which I know a little bit about, and the same shows up in places like Bentley and Victoria Park. These are some of the working class booths that gave the seat, famously, to Kim Beazley in 1993.

I look forward to writing some more about these issues and the election.

In short, I think that Australia has moved to the left in this election, that Abbottman was pushed by powerful establishment based forces, he might well form a minority government, and the ALP is a party that is in crisis.

The National Research Council in the United States has published a very important study on the current status of nuclear forensics. Only the executive summary has been declassified. Nuclear forensics has often been described as an “art.” I am currently writing a book on al-Qaeda and nuclear terrorism, so the topic interests me greatly. Of course, the revival of interest in nuclear forensics is due to increasing alarm and anxiety about the prospect of nuclear terror.

Nuclear forensics involves both the pre-and-post detonation attribution of nuclear materials employed in a nuclear terror plot. Of the two post-detonation nuclear forensics gets the most attention. In so far as nuclear security policy is concerned the key issue revolves around the deterrence of nuclear terrorism; nuclear forensics is taken to be central to the deterrence of nuclear terror.

Post 9/11 much political rhetoric, followed on in academic analysis, tended to advance the view that new terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, cannot be deterred because they lie outside of the rationality criteria of traditional deterrence theory. I use the term “theory” here with reluctance, but let's leave that aside (for now). However, a growing body of literature in the nuclear security field saw reason to fault this oft stated claim. Assuming that a successful nuclear attack by a non-state group would involve a state being involved in the causal loop, such analyses opened up the prospect of deterring nuclear terrorism, at least, without relaxing the assumption that al-Qaeda lies outside the bounds of rationality.

The latter part is important for nuclear terrorism is said to be a feature of the new terrorism due to the irrational nature of religious based terrorist groups. In this way, one keeps deterrence without ditching the argument for nuclear terror. It's a neat one-two not commonly discussed by analysts. For more; don't forget the book!

If it is possible to deter a state sponsoring or assisting an al-Qaeda nuclear attack then we can bring deterrence into the nuclear terrorism policy conversation. I personally don't subscribe to the view that al-Qaeda is not instrumentally rational, but that's another story.

The idea behind nuclear forensics, then, is to successfully attribute nuclear materials used in a nuclear terror plot back to its state of origin. If such a capability can be brought into being then this opens up the prospect of deterring the state sponsorship of nuclear terror. If nuclear terror plots require state support to succeed then at least the provision of nuclear materials by states to non-state groups can be deterred.

Stated very crudely; nuclear forensics involves matching nuclear materials seized pre-detonation or nuclear materials detected post-detonation with an extensive database of global nuclear materials. A successful match between field and database nuclear materials leads to successful attribution, whereupon deterrence is said to follow.

Much can be learnt from nuclear forensics work. For example, after North Korea's 2006 nuclear test radionuclide analysis would have given the US intelligence community insight into North Korea's nuclear capabilities. There is an interesting story on how, during the cold war, Hans Bethe brilliantly used nuclear forensic work, on the fly so to speak, to draw a fairly accurate picture of the Soviet Union's version of the “layer cake” bomb, known as “the sloika.” Nuclear forensic work in cases involving terrorism are much more challenging, however, than cold war era forensics.

The National Research Council report states,

...The committee, however, has concerns about the program and finds that without strong leadership, careful planning, and additional funds, these capabilities will decline...

In fact, later on in the executive summary, the report finds that these capabilities are in decline. The report states,

...although US nuclear forensics capabilities are substantial and can be improved, right now they are fragile, under resourced, and, in some respects, deteriorating...

Every major US presidential candidate since 9/11 has asserted that nuclear terrorism is the gravest security threat that the US faces. The Obama administration echoed these assertions during this year's nuclear security summit. Indeed, Obama officials even went so far as to state that the threat is serious, real and growing.

So, why is nuclear forensics “under resourced?” Why are US nuclear forensic capabilities, in some respects, “deteriorating?”

Before looking at this issue it would pay to have a look at the Obama administration's policy on the deterrence of nuclear terrorism. The Obama policy, which essentially reaffirms Bush era policy, was articulated in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. The 2010 NPR states that the US will,

...hold fully accountable any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts...

The use of nuclear weapons are not excluded. In addition, contrary to the National Research Council report, the 2010 NPR states

...In addition, the United States and the international community have improving but currently insufficient capabilities to detect, interdict, and defeat efforts to covertly deliver nuclear materials or weapons—and if an attack occurs, to respond to minimize casualties and economic impact as well as to attribute the source of the attack and take strong action...

The above statement encompasses nuclear forensics.

The NPR recognises that nuclear forensics is “currently insufficient”, but nonetheless these capabilities are “improving.” That doesn't square with the National Research Council finding that “in some respects” forensic capabilities are “deteriorating.” Given current trends, furthermore, nuclear forensic capabilities will further “decline.”

The US deterrence posture is robust, but the nuclear forensic capabilities needed to match declaratory policy are not sufficient and might well decline further, a point to which we return.

It is not easy from the above to appreciate just how robust US nuclear deterrence policy is.

It is not just that a deliberate transfer of nuclear materials by a state to a terrorist group is being deterred through the threat of nuclear attack. The Bush-Obama policy adopts what is called a “negligence doctrine.” If a state is negligent in its oversight of nuclear materials, and should a terrorist group acquire nuclear materials due to such negligence, then a nuclear attack upon the negligent state falls within the ambit of the policy.

This is what that seemingly innocuous word, “enables”, in the NPR deterrence policy refers to. In the lexicon of US counter-terrorism policy “enables” has a pretty precise meaning. This meaning encompasses negligence. I will have more discussion of this in my book.

A negligence doctrine is pretty extreme. Such a policy leaves open any state to nuclear attack if the US decides that that state was negligent in its oversight over nuclear materials.

A robust deterrence policy requires a robust nuclear forensics capability. There is a big mismatch, quite clearly, between declaratory policy and forensic capabilities.

Things are actually a little bit more grubby than that. Take say an important op-ed, for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, written up by a group of researchers working for the Fissile Materials Panel Working Group. They observe that the June 2010 G8 Summit did not extend the G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction initially agreed to in 2002. The researchers claim that this put global security at risk,

...By not extending the G-8 Global Partnership, which is an effort that is specifically designed to lock down or eliminate weapons and materials of mass destruction that threaten every corner of the globe, the world's leaders opted to put global security at risk ... With the G-8 nations representing 44 percent of global GDP, the financial commitment they needed to make to extend the program is more than affordable, especially in terms of preventing a WMD terrorist attack. In fact, with the U.S. already covering about $1.5 billion of the annual $2 billion pledge, the rest of the G-8 nations would have only been responsible for contributing a half a billion per year collectively--or $ 5 billion over 10 years...

The authors report that they do not know the reasons accounting for this. This particular G8 summit focused on the sovereign debt “crisis.” During the Summit we saw the head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, trot out the old neoclassical economic arguments on public debt and the crowding out of private investment. The debt crisis is being used the world over in the service of the reassertion of neoliberal ideology.

Maybe this matters more than nuclear security. Just thinking out loud. Consider. If the risk of nuclear terrorism is high, and indeed growing, but the response to that claimed risk trails rhetoric then we might make a couple of hypotheses. Notice that this just nor applies to the non-US member states of the G8. The National Research Council report finds that nuclear forensics is under-resourced.

Maybe, the risk isn't really nearly so high as Obama and the others would have us believe?The mismatch arises because risk is being inflated, perhaps. If so, nuclear terrorism might provide an interesting case study for those interested in the social construction of risk. Perhaps, instead, the risk is real but policy makers have higher short-term priorities, such as the reassertion of neoliberal ideology?

Could there be a mixture involving both of these factors?

Actually the National Research Council report makes some interesting statements about the international relations of nuclear forensics. The report states, accurately, that international collaboration is vital for nuclear forensics to work. It calls for greater international database sharing and linkages, and additionally, calls for the US to develop a policy to facilitate this.

The problem with this is the more robust the US nuclear deterrence posture is the less incentive states have to cooperate on international coordination. Why would a state want to collaborate with the US when deterrence encompasses negligence? US deterrence policy acts as a disincentive for international coordination, but international coordination is essential for nuclear forensics. Without forensics what then remains of deterrence? That's a bit of a nuclear Cartesian circle.

US policy is ill conceived and self defeating. If we must have deterrence then it should be limited to the explicit state sponsorship of nuclear terrorism. The US would not even need to have an explicit deterrence policy to achieve this. Realist international relations theorists argue that deterrence works existentially; “I have the bomb, therefore I deter.” The mere existence of the bomb acts as a deterrent. Elaborate statements of declaratory policy, thereby, are superfluous for the purposes of deterrence.

Under existential deterrence all the US would need, in so far as fissile material transfer goes, is the capability to attribute nuclear materials through nuclear forensics. No explicit statements or policies of deterrence are further required.

I tend to think that there is nothing about nuclear terrorism that undermines traditional, that is basic common sense, conceptions of deterrence. During the cold war the quants at the Rand Corporation needlessly racked their brains over the finer points of deterrence “theory.” It seems as if al-Qaeda is having the same affect today. Really, it shouldn't.

At any rate, I write this blog post to report on a new and exciting media project in Australia. The Analyst is a new online and print media project, covering a whole raft of topics of contemporary interest, that this country is really, really crying out for. I am to be involved in this project as a writer, so you shall see more meaty articles from me on arms control, global security and intellectual and current affairs being published over there, so to speak. The Analyst website is still in its formative and developmental stages.

In a previous post I had mentioned that I had wanted to write an essay on knowledge and the Iranian nuclear crisis. I have duly written such an article and it is now available at The Analyst. It's long, so beware.

I recommend that you check it out.

Now I also will have a blog at The Analyst on international relations. It is called "Maxim." Watch out Stephen Walt!

That means my other niche blog, The Vile Maxim, is pretty much done and dusted. That's gone.

So, what am I to do with this blog?

I am pretty fond of it, even though it probably has very few readers. One good thing about a blog, especially on an academic topic, is that it really helps you think. Take say the B61-Mod 7 LEP recently discussed in the media. I want to write a post on it. So you end up engaging in more detective work and thinking about the evidence than you normally would when you have a specific blog post in mind. It really is a great learning device, in my opinion. I think it's worth doing even if you have 2 readers, which is probably my market share.

So, given that, I'm keeping this nuclear-global security oriented blog. I will cross-post. So any substantive blog post here I will also post at the Maxim blog with The Analyst.

This silly blog is proving to have nine lives already.

Many of his most vocal supporters shared in this delusion. For instance his lead cheerleader amongst the Australian intelligentsia, Robert Manne, even went so far as state that Rudd's critics did not seem to understand that the colossus from Griffith was “an intellectual in politics,” who was “struggling” to simultaneously both “understand and change” the world. No self respecting philosopher king can take seriously Marx's clarion call in the Theses on Feuerbach.

For Rudd ,and Manne, such an injunction is too modest by half.

Rudd seems to have seen himself as some sort of philosopher king with a Hawkian “special relationship” with the Australian people to boot. His political legitimacy and authority resided in his own personality and talent.

This delusion of grandeur proved to be his undoing.

How else to explain his claim that he did not owe his leadership to the ALP? How else to explain the sheer contempt that he showed the party during the course of his leadership? For example, by coming and going as he pleased at the last ALP national conference? By announcing on radio, well away from the conference, that its resolutions, especially on tax reform, are irrelevant? Not even Paul Keating would have displayed such brazen contempt.

By sidelining cabinet, even to the extent of exiting cabinet meetings to attend to petty media interviews? How else to explain the extraordinary level of centralisation that he vested in the leader's office, against more than a century's worth of Labor tradition that places primacy upon the parliamentary party?

He treated both the Labor Party and the Labour movement with contempt. He did so because of his grandiloquent view of himself, but his leadership was based on nothing else other than high standing in the polls. When those polls turned against him so did the party he viewed as an irrelevant appendage.

He was not able to see this until the end. Such are the delusions of grandeur.

A good deal of commentary has focused on the manner in which Rudd was replaced as leader.

Attention has been especially drawn to the role of factional and union power brokers in his ousting and the efficient manner in which they organised his “assassination.” This aspect of the Rudd downfall has been best encapsulated by Mark Latham and Paul Kelly. Writing in the The Australian Financial Review Latham observed that (AFR, 25 June 2010, p24), “the leadership of Australia's oldest political party has become a transit lounge, controlled by poll and media obsessed appartchiks.”

Latham surely has a point.

The ascension of Gillard did not follow on from policy or ideological differences. This is not a political party that is struggling with its soul, with its policy direction, with its goals and visions, and so has changed its leader. “Our princess” Julia Gillard was seen as a better prospect at the next election. So the powers that be helped to elevate her to the leadership.

Commenting upon the Latham thesis Kelly states in The Australian today that the Rudd ouster, “reveals a party governed not by ideas but powerful interests that span networks of factional, trade union, family and special interest group connections that thrive on the patronage, finances and appointments that only incumbency can deliver.”

That is also true. However, it is possible to overcook this view.

What Latham and Kelly state is surely correct. But there were more issues and, crucially, more players involved. There is a widespread view amongst the Left side of Australian politics that Tony Abbott, and those around him, are rabid right wing extremists. It would be a disaster for progressive politics in Australia should the Liberal Party win the next election. This has played an important element in the change of leader.

The focus on factions and so on is important, but it should not obscure this part of the equation.

Perhaps the most important institutional factor in the demise of Kevin Rudd was big business. It is big business that, ultimately, determines the leadership of the Labor Party. One reason why the corporate media turned viciously against Mark Latham is because big business did not trust him.

To be sure, as Robert Manne pointed out, up until then Latham was the most right wing Labor leader in history. However, Latham always had the dangerous class warrior lurking within him. I saw it. I perceived it. I liked it. But, the rich saw it, they perceived it, they did not like it.

At times his use of the idiom of class sounded almost Marxian. He would not give big business a trusted place in his office. He would, in short, not “consult.” The big end of town did not trust him and so it was easy for the corporate media to portray him as an unhinged nut.

This has happened many times to Labor in the neoliberal era. Recall, for example, the role of the corporate media and the big mining interests in the ouster of Gough Whitlam and Rex Connor. It is not ideological orthodoxy that big business seeks from the ALP. It is important that Labor tends to its interests. Because of the party's roots in the Australian working class the ALP always represents a risk for corporate Australia.

The main function that the faction system in the ALP serves is to take away the risk of democracy that the rich at all times face.

Consider the case of Bob Hawke. The so called “Hawke ascendancy” and his own “special relationship” with the Australian people was a corporate media fiction. Throughout the 1970s the corporate media pushed the Hawke bandwagon, which was resisted by the Labor caucus almost until the 1983 election.

In office Bob Hawke did not disappoint his corporate patrons. For the rich the Hawke era was a veritable bonanza. But Hawke was ousted precisely because of his adherence to neoliberal orthodoxy. He was successfully challenged by Paul Keating during the depths of the 1990-1991 recession, the one “we had to have.”

Throughout this deep recession Hawke was maintaining neoliberal orthodoxy. Keating, by contrast, was brazenly abandoning neoliberal austerity in favour of fiscal stimulus and loose monetary policy. Keating understood that when the rich get in trouble they want the nanny state to bail them out.

Hawke didn't and so the corporate media, reflecting the consensus of big business, turned on Hawke and the rest is history.

They made Hawke and then they broke him.

Rudd seemed to understand that “the Latham debacle” represented big business disciplining the Labor Party into proper behaviour. Under Rudd's leadership the door for big business was widely opened. Commentary at the time reflected how much better the relationship between the Labor leader's office and big business was when Rudd took over the leadership. Prior to the 2007 election meetings with business leaders were frequent, even formalised on a weekly basis.

Compare that with the relationship that Rudd has had with big business in recent times.

Though his tax reform policies were designed to assist corporate Australia as a whole, though he has extended a helping hand to the financial services industry, though he ditched the ETS to mollify big business, none of that was enough. When the mining industry turned on him because of his minor infringement after announcing the resource super profits tax, which is what the tax is, big business was loathe to come to his defence. Laurie Oakes has spoken of a “disastrous” meeting with the Business Council of Australia days prior to his ouster.

Comments and analyses on Rudd and the Rudd style in the corporate media thereby recently became frequent. The Rudd “brand” was rendered toxic by precisely those who helped to craft it in the first place. The mining industry decided that it would destroy Rudd and destroy him they did. The change over has been fulsomely praised by all of Australia's peak business bodies. The ascent of Julia Gillard comes with the promise that they will be “consulted” better, as if they have not hitherto been consulted enough already.

In other words, Gillard knows her place unlike the grandiloquent Rudd.

Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd lost the leadership of the Labor Party because they lost the confidence of corporate Australia. How is that Rudd was able to forget the lessons that corporate Australia dished out to the Labor Party during “the Latham debacle?”

This owed to his delusion of grandeur. He saw himself as striding the Australian political stage on the back of his own unique vision, drive and capability. However, a minor infringement against those who really run the country, the big moneyed interests, was very much the big nail that was driven into his political coffin.

Corporate Australia has brought Kevin Rudd back down to Earth with a thud. It is indeed ironic that this is just as it was with Mark Latham. The element of the delusion of grandeur in Rudd's case immediately brings to mind Marx's refrain in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”

Quite.

The emphasis on the factions and patronage is thereby only half the story. The Labor Party's power brokers do seek office in order to dispense patronage and thereby secure institutional prerogatives. But they understand that this can only be achieved by looking after the needs of big business. If they lose touch with corporate Australia they lose elections.

One interesting aspect to the latest developments in Canberra is the announced departure of the socialist minister for deregulation, Lindsay Tanner. He was widely praised in the corporate media following his announcement. In fact, he earned high praise too from financial market economists for his commitment to economic rationalist orthodoxy.

Tanner was a person who, in his maiden speech to parliament, declared himself to be a socialist. His departure from parliament is now mourned by financial market economists, who shall miss his economic rationalist zeal. This has been taken as praise, but such valedictories by financial market economists are a fitting end to Lindsay Tanner's career.

Good riddance, Comrade Tanner. Don't ever come back.

Mark Latham summed him up very well in his diaries.

I had stated that the Rudd bubble might prove to be a dilemma for the ALP in the future. I had not expected that the bubble would burst so suddenly and with such force. If the property bubble, that the former PM has helped to sustain, bursts like the Rudd bubble then heaven help us.

Julia Gillard has achieved the highest political office in the land by betraying her socialist beliefs and her core working class constituency. If she had not done either of these things during the course of her political career, rather than being PM, she would be organising the next Altona ALP chook raffle. Lindsay Tanner, who has done the same, was right to have characterised her as a “careerist”.

In the Tanner lexicon no pejorative ranks higher.

Although in media commentary much as been made of Gillard's working class roots, this all should not be taken too seriously. Gillard has announced, loudly and clearly, her whole hearted support for neoliberalism and her dedication towards the further pursuit of neoliberal reforms.

The Age reports newly minted PM Gillard as stating today that

..."I give credit to the Labor giants Bob Hawke and Paul Keating as the architects of today’s modern prosperity," she said.

"I give credit to John Howard and Peter Costello for continuing these reforms," she said...

These remarks are truly amazing. The former socialist Gillard even has gone so far as to praise Howard and Costello for continuing and extending neoliberal reforms!! This is how low the ALP has sunk since Gough Whitlam took away the power of the organisational wing.

If Gillard stays true to these comments then this change over will amount to what Keating would have called “embroidery.” Gillard might change the style and packaging of neoliberal Labor, but the essential commitment to neoliberalism, one of the defining features of the Rudd leadership, will continue to obtain.

The ALP power hierarchy will remain committed to neoliberal policies and programs so long as the current structure of the party endures. The ALP requires root and branch reform if it is to return to being a genuine working class party.

Changing leaders could be a start. However, if so the new leader would need to be dedicated toward the dismantling of the Hawke-Keating legacy. That, Gillard has stated, she won't do. Quite the opposite. She will continue the neoliberal programs that Hawke and Keating, but also Howard and Costello, did so much to bring into being.

There can be little doubt ,however, that a Gillard government would be better than an Abbott government. It would truly be a disaster for progressive politics in Australia if Abbott should win the next election. He is a rabid right wing extremist. So are the people pushing his cart.

I don't expect much from Gillard, but in saying this I nonetheless maintain that she should be supported by progressives. Those of a left wing persuasion should not allow their justified scepticism of Gillard to obscure the huge stakes involved in the next election.

I sincerely hope that both she and the ALP win the next election. When she does, we should continue the struggle against neoliberalism. That, judging by these remarks, will mean that the Australian left will end up opposing her.

I submit that now is definitely not the time for all that. I submit that it is possible for progressives to support Gillard but also at the same time to continue to work against neoliberal policy and ideology.

Surely Gillard still has some place inside her that remains true to her old fiery and passionate commitment to social justice. I don't think there was anything of that in Rudd. If there was, he kept very well hidden.

Hopefully, some of that old passion will emerge during her leadership. I personally doubt that it will, but we always have “the audacity of hope.”

If I remember correctly the White House replaced General McKiernan because he was seen as a latter day General McClellan. General McChrystal was seen as more of a gung ho commander. It looks like Obama made a big mistake in going for a wild card like McChrystal. Obama appointed him after sacking McKiernan and now he has to wear him.

But there is more happening on the Afghan front than this Korea like spat between the commander in chief and his theatre commander. For example Richard Holbrooke just visited Marjah, which seems to have been a disaster in itself. It looks as if the Osprey helicopter carrying Holbrooke came under Taliban small arms fire. Recall that Marjah was supposed to have been pacified

...According to ABC News, Taliban gunmen tried to shoot down the Osprey. Several suicide bombings were carried out after his departure, the report said.

Holbrooke was visiting Marjah for a first-hand assessment of US- led NATO efforts to take over a Taliban-controlled region that they had hoped would set an example for tougher battles to follow.

Troops have met with stiff resistance, which has delayed plans to take on the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province this summer. Holbrooke was also to visit Kandahar...

Much more serious than these political issues is the status of Pakistan army counterinsurgency operations along the border with Afghanistan. According to a RAND Corp study

...PAKISTAN HAS failed to develop an effective counter-insurgency strategy, undermining efforts to tackle militants who roam the Afghan border, according to a new study by security analysts.

A report by the Rand Corporation, a non-profit research group frequently used by the Pentagon, concludes that Pakistan’s army and frontier corps have failed to hold territory regained from insurgents...

The Pakistani army is clearing insurgents from places like the Swat valley and Bajaur agency ,but the Government is finding it tough to hold ground and build alternative political, economic and social structures. This is a bit like Marjah. The strategy adopted is one of “clear, hold and build.” If you can't hold and build then you are waging an attritional strategy of "clear, clear, clear" until the insurgents are bleed white.

Who will crack first? The strategy for Af-Pak was supposed to be a classical counterinsurgency based strategy. It looks as if we have got ourselves into a war of attrition to me.

The Pakistan army is clearing, but according to the RAND report it is not so good at holding and building. You can't blame the Pakistan army for this. The cash strapped Government in Pakistan probably doesn't have the resources to both destroy the border areas and then rebuild them. Don't forget that Team Obama early on took to calling the Afghan theatre as Af-Pak. Strategic planners in Washington surely would be reading the conclusions of this RAND Corp study with deep concern.

Here in Australia I wonder for how long the Government will stomach a war of attrition. I think Canberra bought the McChrystal-Obama counterinsurgency strategy. But if Australia is finding itself in the middle of a war of attrition then maybe this might prompt a strategic rethink in Canberra.

It would come as no secret to anybody that has read my posts and articles on the Afghan war that I am firmly against Australia's involvement. However, I am troubled by the way the latest debate is being structured.

The argument now seems to be that the mounting death toll is too high a price for Australia to pay. Because the intensity of the conflict is increasing, and will continue to increase, more Australian casualties are to be expected. Given this, now is the time to withdraw. The strategic gains for Australia are not worth the human cost that our soldiers are paying, and can be expected to continue to pay in future.

These are bad arguments, and dangerous to boot. Consider. Australia's level of commitment is not strategically significant. But if Australia were to withdraw then the Taliban would thereby make a politico-strategic gain, namely the US led coalition losing another member state. This would be widely reported both in the region and globally.

The Taliban would be following the debate in Australia. If opposition to the war in Australia is allowed to be based on the mounting casualties then the Taliban will increase the level and intensity of its attacks against Australian forces in hopes of achieving a politico-strategic objective, namely the further withdrawal of a US coalition partner.

The debate in Australia needs to be framed in a way that does not expose Australian troops to extra risks. I myself oppose the war and continue to do so. I opposed the war when Australia was experiencing no casualties in Afghanistan. Let me explain my reasons, briefly, why I oppose the war.

Firstly, I do not accept that Australia should be assisting the US to set up a political regime and social structure that clearly does not have the support of the Afghan population, especially in the South where the troops are deployed. Outside forces do not have the right to do this. For example a recent report in The New York Times suggested that the US is seeking to maintain stability in Ourzgan province, where our troops are deployed, by working with a brutal and rapacious local warlord. In return the warlord is allowed to, effectively, rule over the province.

Australia's participation is usually framed in the context of nation building, and reconstruction, and the like. I am sure that our forces are doing their fair share of providing security for reconstruction and so on, but this is being done within the context of the US supporting the regional rule of a rapacious warlord. That is similar to what Afghanistan was like before the Taliban came to power.

Any good Australia does in Ourzgan province is being conducted within the context of this overarching regional strategy being pursued by the US. If the report in the Times is true then Australia is being effectively undercut by our ally.

As the NYT article pointed out

...In some cases, these strongmen have restored order, though at the price of undermining the very institutions Americans are seeking to build: government structures like police forces and provincial administrations that one day are supposed to be strong enough to allow the Americans and other troops to leave...

That's not good enough.

Furthermore, it is commonly argued that it is necessary to stay in Afghanistan in order to prevent that country from being a terrorist safe haven, as it was prior to 9/11. This argument is very sloppy. Even if true that does not imply that only an outside western military presence can prevent this.

According to the head of US military intelligence in Afghanistan al Qaida has only about 100 fighters in Afghanistan. The Taliban don't have any need for tactical, let alone strategic, assistance from bin Laden.

The argument is also based on a misreading of the 9/11 plot. The 9/11 attack did not rely for its success on the Afghan safe haven as much as it is commonly assumed. Of course, the Afghan haven played a role. But this role has tended to become exaggerated in the public mind. Many terrorism analysts argue that al Qaida is now a loosely connected jihadi franchise. Fighting in Afghanistan, therefore, really amounts to us fighting yesterday's war.

If there is a terrorist threat to the Australian homeland then, I submit, that threat exists here in Australia not so much in Afghanistan. Indeed, al Qaida always was a jihadi franchise, rather than a jihadi central committee, to a significant extent, as pointed out by Jason Burke in his top class study of al Qaida.

Also western forces in Afghanistan have the freedom to conduct military operations as they see fit. This contributes to the rising civilian death toll in Afghanistan. Every day we read reports of scores of civilians being killed as a result of either western military operations or brazen Taliban attacks. It is not right that we are propping up illegitimate thugs in military operations that are killing too many innocent Afghans.

I agree that the Taliban are assholes, but that doesn't absolve us of our own moral responsibilities.

At the end of the day it is hard to disagree with Michelle Grattan's summation in The Age today

...In reality, we will be there as long as the United States wants us to be. Whatever its other reasons and justifications, this commitment is part of what we do for our American allies. For us to withdraw support would be a declaration that it is hard to see any Australian government making, whatever the public might say through polls. That is, unless the number of casualties really increases...

It is true that what Grattan states here is amazingly cynical. Namely, that our involvement in Afghanistan is just part of the insurance premium we pay to the United States. The deep thinkers in Canberra believe that so long as the premium in Australian blood can be kept down then Australia's role can be maintained politically.

That's brutal. But you can't blame Grattan for relaying to the public the facts of the matter. This is how the foreign policy making elite in Canberra thinks. Grattan does us all a service by openly showing this.

I myself do not consider this sufficient reason for supporting Australia's role. I don't accept the cynicism of Canberra's sophisticates and so I reject the policy that flows from it.

Remember one thing about insurance premiums. To loyally pay your insurance premium over a long time is by no means a guarantee that your insurer will pay you out when disaster strikes. We all know this. The bean counters in company headquarters will do the math and decide whether it's in their interests to pay you out.

The United States will act no differently no matter how high our premium may be and for how long we dutifully pay it.

That's tough. But that's what international relations is all about.

I can’t stand Kevin Rudd. I have always believed that Rudd is exactly as Mark Latham described him in his diaries. Recent events have borne this out, and the Latham view is now widely shared in Australia although its provenance continues to be denied. When Rudd was flying sky high in the polls I had called him a “flaky” and so on. I had also characterised his standing in the polls as Labor’s “asset price bubble.”

The bubble, never based on substance or “the fundamentals”, has now well and truly burst just as the country prepares for a federal election. This is a disaster for the progressive side of Australian politics. Rudd needs to be saved from oblivion. Now is not the time for progressives and progressive commentators to sink the boot into Rudd. I say this as someone who, accurately, had characterised Robert Manne as an intellectual with a proclivity to kiss Rudd’s arse. So, at least I have some credibility on this issue.

Now is the time for progressives to call time out on putting the boot into Rudd.

This is because the only realistic alternative would be very bad for progressive politics in this country. Tony Abbott, and all those pushing his cart, are rabid extremists probably on the same wavelength as the right wing of the Republican Party in the US. If Rudd sinks into oblivion then it is clear that an Abbott led Liberal Party will come into office. The Abbottites promise to turn the clock back to rabid neoliberal labour market reforms, to cut public spending more than Labor, to dither on climate change, to pander to the mining lobby, to take the lead in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan and so on.

People of a progressive bent need to think of such matters as the federal election approaches. Despite Rudd’s cynical essay criticising neoliberalism his government has operated well within the dominant neoliberal consensus. But the level of commitment to neoliberal programs exhibited by Labor and the Liberal Party is not the same. The different levels of commitment largely flow on from institutional imperatives. The debate on the Resource Super Profits Tax is a case in point.

The debate on the RSPT largely focuses on the impost, real or imagined, that the tax will have on cashed up resource corporations. The Rudd Government largely structures the argument for the tax on, what are largely uncontroversial in other contexts, mutual obligation grounds. The resources of Australia belong to the people of Australia and the people ought to get a fairer share of the gains that those resources accrue. The debate simply assumes that the second, crucial part of the argument, is accurate.

However, the proceeds of the RSPT are meant to finance a cut in the corporate tax rate, to support changes to superannuation that are effusively welcomed by the financial services industry, still making “super profits” despite the GFC, and to fund infrastructure developments to aid corporate activities (including resource corporations).

The RSPT is not to be used to fund active labour market programmes to skill up the unskilled and the long term unemployed for what Ken Henry believes will be a coming skills shortage. That’s avoided because a tight labour market, absent skills migration, will lead to better wages for the Australian population. Ken Henry doesn’t want that, big business doesn’t want that and neither does Rudd Labor.

The Rudd policy is largely beneficial for the corporate sector in Australia as a whole. That is why opposition in the corporate media to the RSPT is not uniform. The Government’s backflip on the ETS might need to be seen, partly, in this context too. Backing up on the ETS probably was a preemptive sweetener for the resources sector. We should notice that resource corporations do not complain about the investment uncertainty that this decision on the ETS, that tends to their interests poses, poses for energy companies.

At the same time Rudd Labor has announced a tightening of the state’s “mutual obligation” provisions directed towards the long term unemployed. Unlike Clive Palmer and Twiggie Forrest whose rejection of mutual obligation is given wide coverage in the corporate media; this has been ignored in the orgy of commentary that focuses on the tender needs of the super rich. There will be no Rudd backflip on mutual obligation for social welfare recipients nor any high level consultations with their representatives, unlike for the billion dollar resource corporations.

In a previous essay, written after Labor’s decision on the parallel importing of books, I had argued that the rich will not tolerate the slightest deviation from Labor. The rich are greedy and thereby fickle. Despite their many, many millions those two fat shits, Palmer and Forrest, just want more and more. Labor is being disciplined into proper behaviour by the rich.

Although all this remains true, and more could be said about such matters, nonetheless Abbott would be much worse. With Abott all the distorting affects of the 2000s resource boom will repeat. This would follow if a similar boom should repeat, which is by no means a certainty as many commentators suppose. Under Abbott the vile maxim will continue. Under Adam Smith’s “vile maxim of the masters of mankind” the proceeds of any commodity prices boom are to be distributed inequitably, as it was when the Liberal Party was in office. Under Abbott resource corporations will win, but Australia will lose just like under Howard.

If progressive commentators are serious about taking into account the moral consequences of their actions then it follows that a unilateral ceasefire with Rudd and the ALP is now very much in order.

The issue here is not Rudd. I couldn’t care less about Rudd. The issue is the real people all around Australia who will suffer should Rudd lose office. Besides if Rudd were to be turfed now no group in Australia would be happier than the Murdoch press. The ALP should not allow the leadership of the party to be determined in the offices of Rupert Murdoch’s minions.