Last year – for the first time in modern history – Asia outspent Europe on their militaries. The true significance of this milestone lies in how easily the Asian countries were able to achieve it. There…

A key facet of America’s extended, depressing election campaigns is that every serious presidential candidate has to prove their fanatical, unswerving devotion to the Israeli government. As part of this…

In its newly released budget request to Congress, the Obama Administration is seeking to reduce NASA’s funding by US$59m to US$17.7 billion – a reduction of just 0.03%, not that you would know that from…

Americans may not think about Australia much, but when they do, they try not to let facts get in the way. But why should we be surprised by that? With great passion comes great ignorance. And Americans…

It’s third time lucky for President Obama. He’s cancelled his trip to Australia twice before, but now he has finally made it to Canberra. Julia Gillard has struck up a friendship with the US President…

When President Obama begins his long-awaited visit to Australia today, he’ll have a keen tour guide in Julia Gillard. They’ve developed an apparently firm friendship in recent months. But should the Prime…

The recent Cannes G20 meeting was ostensibly about saving Europe from falling into economic oblivion. But a frank exchange between US President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, caught…

Sometimes good policy and good politics are the same thing. By tying together lessons learned from economist John Maynard Keynes and former president Harry Truman, Barack Obama is taking steps that may…

We now know the name of the next president of the United States: Rick Perry. The range of poor choices facing Republicans – from the bland Mitt Romney to the polarising Michele Bachman – has been transformed…

Despite the apparent disgust of many Americans and the contempt held by many outside observers, US politics is supposed to look this way – at least sometimes. The widely diagnosed dysfunction of the recent…

On Wednesday, absent the flight suit, President Obama gave his own version of George W. Bush’s “mission accomplished” speech. His temporary escalation of 33,000 troops in Afghanistan had worked. A third…

President Barack Obama has made a number of speeches focusing on events in the Middle East in recent weeks. Obama used a landmark speech regarding the uprisings in the Arab world to call on Israel to…

President Barack Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa yesterday is being considered a landmark event in US foreign policy. Made in the wake of the so-called Arab spring and the killing of…

The western liberal’s capacity for self-flagellation is seemingly endless. There is no enemy that the liberal west did not create. There is no inhumanity that the west did not begin. There is no crime…

Osama bin Laden is dead – assassinated a fortnight ago by bullets sprayed from the guns of special armed forces of the United States. During the wild celebrations that followed, the word “assassination…

The author of this article, Daniel Metcalfe, is a former director of the US Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy. He advised the US Government on the Abu Ghraib pictures. President…

As the US was brought to the brink of a government shutdown this weekend, one of the sticking points was Republican insistence that President Obama curtail the activities of the Environmental Protection…