Strategic Thinking

In September’s edition of Quadrant we publish an important article by Ted O’Brien, the LNP member for Fairfax in the House of Representatives. It is important because, from an uncommon position that deserves to be better known, it raises issues about foreign policy, strategic thinking and the challenges Australia now faces in the world. O’Brien argues that the starting point to addressing the strategic problems of the emergence of China as a major and potentially belligerent power is to first ensure we have a very clear understanding of ourselves. “A nation’s foreign policy,” he states, “should be an outward expression of its values: a reflection of its people, who they are and what they believe in.”

This is a position that was argued with much insight by the late, great American political analyst Samuel Huntington. Although he became best known in the 1990s for his prophetic thesis about the “clash of civilisations” in the post-Cold War era, Huntington wrote…