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2008
October
Richard Tanter, Conflict of Interest, 1 October 2008
Channel 31’s Conflict of Interests hosts Greg Barns and Peter Faris speak with Richard Tanter, Professor from RMIT on the war in Afghanistan and why Australia is still there…: episode one, episode two.
September
Richard Tanter, Lowy poll shows drop in Afghanistan war popularity, Ashley Hall, World Today, Radio national, ABC, 29 September 2008
"I think that the problem is that the way we are going about the so-called job to be done is making things much, much worse. So I think the question is now, what is the way out for Australia.
"I think in reality, coalition forces will leave Afghanistan. I think we are making no positive contributions to the possibility of peace there and what is really important is to foster a domestic internal Afghan peace process, and unfortunately we are no longer in the position of being an honest broker."
Richard Tanter, Gaffe costs Japan's transport minister his job, Sonja Heydeman, Radio Australia, ABC, 29 September 2008
"The Japanese transport minister, Nariaki Nakayama has resigned. less than a week after taking the job. He's been criticised for a series of remarks - such as calling Japan's largest teachers' union "a cancer", and referring to campaigners opposed to airport expansion as "squeaky wheels". Mr Nakayama will be replaced as transport minister by Kazuyoshi Kaneko. It is a setback the new prime minister, Taro Aso, could do without, having been in his own job for less than a week."
Peter Hayes, North Korean Leader Had Surgery After Stroke, South Koreans Say, Mark Mazzetti and Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times, 11 September 2008
"If Mr. Kim dies or is incapacitated, who is going to take over the world’s most isolated and unpredictable regime, now armed with nuclear weapons?
"Peter Hayes, director at the Nautilus Institute, a research institution based in San Francisco, guessed that “a leader from the current political elite with strong ties to the military” would take over. Such a leader would stress continuity while trying to put a slow modernizing process in place. Mr. Hayes and other analysts believe there would be no change in North Korea’s nuclear strategy. Any leader or leaders would continue to cultivate the powerful national myths that permeate North Korean life and propaganda, based on xenophobic nationalism and the personality cult built around Mr. Kim’s father, the national founder revered among North Koreans, Mr. Hayes said."
Timothy Savage, Search Begins for New Japanese PM, Jason Strother, Voice of America, 2 September 2008
Timothy Savage, deputy director of the Nautilus Institute, a regional policy research group, in Seoul, says the LDP is struggling to find a leader who can stay in office.
"What you have going on is the LDP is trying to hold on to its long standing monopoly of power by shuffling in one unpopular prime minister and replacing him with another unpopular prime minister."
With the opposition party in charge of the upper house of Parliament, Savage says the LDP will most likely have to call a general election in the next few months.
Should Aso become prime minister, Savage says Japan's relations with its neighbors will be rattled.
"Aso is defiantly aligned with the more nationalist right in Japan. I think actually the biggest problem could be is with North Korea, where there was recently some progress with the abduction issue under Fukuda," said Savage.
June 2008
Peter Hayes, North Korea to Blow up Nuclear Reactor Tower, Rob Sharp with Peter Hayes, ABC, 27 June 2008
Commenting on recent developments in the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program, Hayes states:
“what is really going on here is that the whole process really amounts to confirming that North Koreans have nuclear weapons at the moment, which is really in their interest and they are saying they are willing to accept a cap of roughly six weapons worth as sufficient to compel the United States and its partners to accept its terms, and to deter American attacks. So in a sense we're conducting a virtual nuclear test for the North Koreans that saves them another weapons worth of plutonium. We're moving parts around on the chess board at the moment, not taking them off.”
Tim Savage: North Korea to Deliver Nuclear List Today, U.S. Says (Update2), Ed Johnson and Viola Gienger, Bloomberg, 26 June 2008
"North Korea and the U.S. are agreed on completing'' the declaration and disablement phase of the disarmament accord, said Timothy Savage, deputy director at the Nautilus Institute in Seoul.
What the communist regime will do in the final phase, which involves dismantling its programs so they can't be rebuilt, "is a completely different matter,'' he said. "North Korea's general methodology is to continually raise the ante and raise demands for every concession that it makes.''
May 2008
Richard Tanter: Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Commission, 3CR (Melbourne), 12 June 2008
Prof Richard Tanter, says Rudd’s proposal for a Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Commission comes close to work of Gareth Evans and the Canberra Commission in the 1990s, which came close to an abolitionist position in a report dropped by Alexander Downer. Tanter says DFAT knows nothing about its details at the moment, but he expects it to reinvigorate the treaty review process. Tanter says this will need to involve looking at our relationship with the US, and climate change as a legitimation of expansion of nuclear power and Aust's uranium enrichment. Tanter says Aust could push hard for the criminalisation of nuclear weapons, and use this for illuminating Japan's nuclear activities. Tanter discusses the changing attitudes of the Japanese population to nuclear weapons after WWII.
Peter Hayes: North Korea hands over nuclear documents, Sen Lam with Peter Hayes, ABC, 15 May 2008
The United States has described as "an important first step," the handing over of North Korean documents detailing the country's nuclear programme.
"They will be the first primary materials supplied by the North Koreans as to the operating profile of the reactor since it was fired up in the late '80s early '90s. I think it will be useful for us to know whether they have two bombs worth of plutonium, one of which has been blown up or 12. From a strategic nuclear perspective, one or more is a significant amount, because you can blow up a city with one nuclear weapon. But at the end of the day, what this is really about is actually stopping the production of more plutonium. It doesn't solve the rest of the problem, which is what enrichment capacity, if any do they have, nor does it stop all the other potential disasters that could arise from the North Korean plant, including the export of nuclear knowledge or nuclear material, however improbable that might be. But of those three elements, undoubtedly stopping the production of further plutonium was the most urgent, until we get through the next phases of negotiation and start to actual dismantle and dispose of their actual nuclear weapons."
March 2008
Richard Tanter: Now for the hard part, Daniel Flitton, Age, 1 April 2008
"My guess is they frankly worked it out," says RMIT’s Richard Tanter. "(Rudd) is going to Japan in July for a summit, and there will be side meetings there.
"I’m sure some people are miffed, but frankly the Australian relationship with Japan is much deeper than with China."
Richard Tanter: CFR.org Daily News Brief, Council of Foreign Relations, 20 March 2008
Council of Foreign Relations links to Tanter's report examining how a recent coup attempt in East Timor might affect the country’s democracy project.
Peter Hayes: (Maybe) denuclearizing North Korea, Axel Berkofsky, ISN Security Watch, 19 March 2008
"North Korea expects manna to flow from heaven when they are removed from the (2007 Country Reports on Terrorism) list, but that is very unrealistic. With the list removed, then it's only their reputation blocking international investors, which means most investors will still stay away due to risk and higher earning potential elsewhere."
Richard Tanter: Beijing says Pentagon has 'cold war mentality', Sen Lam with Richard Tanter, ABC, 5 March 2008
"What’s happened in the past year is Washington moving to balance India against China, and Australia of course being somewhat caught in between there. Hence Foreign Minister Smith’s remarks earlier this year that Australia would no long take part in the four party India, United States, Japan, China talks- this to balance Chinese concerns. But its certainly true the United States has moved in a very realist international way to balance rising Chinese power with the openness from India."
February 2008
Richard Tanter: Asia’s tigers eye nuclear future, Geoffrey Gunn, Asia Times, 14 February 2008
As Richard Tanter has summarized, "The consequences of Indonesia and Australia pursuing their somewhat non-rational approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle could have very negative consequences for people who are already suspicious of each other."
January 2008
Richard Tanter: New Foreign Minister in mission to US and Japan, Sen Lam with Richard Tanter, ABC, 24 January 2008-
"I think that the Bush administration is well aware of the political realities of its allies around the world. On the other hand Mr Smith will be at pains to point out to the Bush administration that Australia is really only removing one part of its really quite broad deployment in Iraq."
"Both Australia and Japan have nuclear cooperation agreements with the Indonesian government and high on (Foreign Minister Smith's Tokyo) agenda there will be the two government's approaches to the Indonesian government's proposal about a Muria peninsula nuclear power station in central Java. "
Richard Tanter: Indonesia's Ailing Suharto Eludes Court, Anthony Deutsch, AP, 18 January 2008
"There is enough evidence against Suharto to try him under international law for crimes against humanity and genocide", said Richard Tanter, a professor of international relations at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. "The idea of pursuing old, sick men is unattractive, but the basic deterrence function of such prosecutions largely outweighs" the drawbacks, Tanter countered. "For the ghosts of all the slaughtered and tortured, I'd like to see justice."