Skip to content

Source — AITW Ep002: Elections in Pakistan and Cambodia

Metadata

Field Value
Episode 2
Title Elections in Pakistan and Cambodia, the new trilateral infrastructure investment fund, and how worried should Australia be about the United States?
Publication date 2018-08-10
Speakers Allan Gyngell, Darren Lim
Guest None
Duration ~49 min

Note: The publication date (August 10) precedes Ep001 (August 17), suggesting the episode numbering follows recording rather than publication order. In the episode itself, Darren refers to "surviving our first attempt at this podcasting business."

Summary

The second episode establishes the format that will carry the series — news round, deep dive, reading recommendations — and it reveals, in that structure, something important about how Allan operates. He does not rush to verdict. When Darren asks whether Imran Khan's election should be reassuring, Allan's answer is immediate and precise: "I wouldn't feel reassured, but I would suspend judgment, I think, at this point in time." It is a formulation that recurs throughout the corpus. For Allan, the refusal to be pushed into a position before the evidence warrants it is not caution but discipline. The same economy of judgment governs the Cambodia discussion: Australia should make its views clear, but "there's no way I can see anyway, apart from making our own views clear, that we can change this." The restraint is analytical, not defeatist.

The deep dive into US decline produces two of the episode's most intellectually distinctive moments. First, Allan's periodisation of liberal internationalism: its high watermark was not Obama but the Clinton-Bush era, and the structural power shift underlying Trump's rise was already under way. Second, his provocation that "future historians will see more in common between Obama and Trump than seems remotely possible" — grounded not in ideology but in the logic of responding to a shifting global power distribution. These are not talking-point positions; they are the products of a mind trained to think structurally rather than narratively. The calmness with which he deploys the Obama-Trump comparison — without hedging, without waiting for Darren's reaction — is characteristic.

The language correction at the end of the episode is worth noting as a small but telling example of Allan's precision. When Darren invokes calls for a "more independent foreign policy," Allan pushes back: "I have some trouble with the idea that Australia needs a more independent foreign policy because we've always had one. It's people who say we need a more independent foreign policy are really saying we need a different foreign policy from the one we've had." The distinction is sharp and delivered without apology. He then closes the episode by recommending Stephen Pinker's Enlightenment Now — 450 data-rich pages on why the world is better than you think — because "in these difficult times, we need a cheery note." The combination of structural pessimism about the international order and genuine Enlightenment optimism about human progress is one of the defining tensions of Allan's worldview, and it is visible here, in episode two.

Key Topics

  • Pakistan elections (Imran Khan and PTI; nuclear risks; IMF bailout; China-Pakistan corridor)
  • Cambodia elections (Hun Sen; China-Cambodia alignment; limits of Australian influence)
  • US-Japan-Australia trilateral infrastructure fund ($113m vs. BRI)
  • AUSMIN 2018 and bipartisan alliance support
  • US decline: Trump as symptom of deeper structural shift; "high watermark of liberal internationalism"
  • Australia and a more independent foreign policy
  • Closing recommendations: books, podcasts, reading

Key Quotations

On why Australia should care about Pakistan

"Here's a country with just under 200 million people in a part of the World that is exceedingly dangerous for a number of reasons... If you're concerned about nuclear conflict in the World, the place where this is possibly more likely than any other is in the order between India and Pakistan."

— Allan Gyngell [00:04:13.000 --> 00:06:01.000]

On suspending judgment about Imran Khan

"I wouldn't feel reassured, but I would suspend judgment, I think, at this point in time. Nothing else has worked very well in Pakistan, which we've had a succession of governments which have failed to address the underlying problems facing the country."

— Allan Gyngell [00:07:27.000 --> 00:09:35.000]

Characteristic move: refusing to be rushed into a verdict. Patient and empirical.

On the trilateral infrastructure fund vs. BRI

"Yes, he is right, Darren, I think. I mean, you know, maybe the argument is that this was a start... The best estimates of what the Chinese are doing with the Belt and Road Initiative... somewhere between one and eight trillion dollars invested compared with, as Wang Yi pointed out, 113 million."

— Allan Gyngell [00:23:09.000 --> 00:24:43.000]

Agrees with Wang Yi's mockery of the US announcement — a frank acknowledgment uncomfortable for some. Shows willingness to credit China where credit is due.

"It can only be a template... it does provide it can provide an example of how you can do these things better than they're being done at the moment."

— Allan Gyngell [00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:58.000]

On Cambodia and the limits of influence

"According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, every country in East Asia, apart from Australia and New Zealand, falls under the categories ranging from flawed democracy to authoritarian state. So it's not going to be easy for us."

— Allan Gyngell [00:15:38.000 --> 00:17:06.000]

"There's no way I can see anyway, apart from making our own views clear, that we can change this."

— Allan Gyngell [00:20:30.000 --> 00:21:24.000]

On the AUSMIN talks and bipartisan alliance support

"Australia is, I think, the only Western US ally in which both sides of politics claim ownership of the alliance... Penny Wong's speech began with Curtin and the turn to America. Julie Bishop begins with Robert Menzies and Percy Spender and the ANZUS Treaty. That's very unusual."

— Allan Gyngell [00:30:14.000 --> 00:31:59.000]

A recurring theme: the bipartisan consensus on the alliance as a distinctive feature of Australian politics.

On Trump and the future of US foreign policy

"Look, my view on this is that the United States will return to something more normal after Donald Trump. I'm not 100% sure of that, but I'm pretty sure of it. But the new normal will be different from the past."

— Allan Gyngell [00:35:54.000 --> 00:37:20.000]

"We have seen already in Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and George W. Bush on the Republican side, the high watermark of liberal interventionism, liberal internationalism in both its Democrat and Republican manifestations in the US."

— Allan Gyngell [00:35:54.000 --> 00:37:20.000]

Key interpretive claim: Trump is not an aberration but a symptom. Clinton and Bush together mark the apex of liberal internationalism. This is a bold and memorable formulation.

"The reason I chose Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama was because I think that future historians will see more in common between Obama and Trump than seems remotely possible. Now, because I think Obama was himself, his policies were themselves a response to an underlying power shift in the World."

— Allan Gyngell [00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:53.000]

Provocative and intellectually distinctive: locates continuity between Obama and Trump through the lens of structural power shift rather than ideology.

On Australia and "independent" foreign policy

"I have some trouble with the idea that Australia needs a more independent foreign policy because we've always had one. It's people who say we need a more independent foreign policy are really saying we need a different foreign policy from the one we've had."

— Allan Gyngell [00:41:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000]

A precise and deflating correction of loose language. This is Allan at his most analytically sharp.

"There's no reason, I think, why you give away one of the large assets in your foreign policy for no good reason. But it doesn't mean that we should do exactly what the United States wants us to do at any given point."

— Allan Gyngell [00:41:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000]

On what needs investment

"We're already doing a reasonable job on the defence front. We're doing a totally inadequate job on the foreign policy front... The instruments of persuasion, as opposed to the instruments of deterrence and the instruments of warfighting, need a better go than they've had."

— Allan Gyngell [00:44:24.000 --> 00:46:10.000]

A consistent theme: underinvestment in diplomacy, aid, and soft power relative to military spending.

Reading Recommendation

Allan recommends Stephen Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress (450 pages):

"It's 450 data-rich pages on why the World is better than you think it is. And in these difficult times, we need a cheery note. And Pinker reminds us, for example, that the average income in India and China now is the same as the average income for Swedes was average per capita income for Swedes in 1920 in India's case and 1950 in China's case. So it's a terrific, terrific read and a reminder of the values that we need to keep fighting for."

— Allan Gyngell [00:46:42.000 --> 00:47:43.000]

Reveals: Allan reads empirical/optimistic social science; is moved by data about human progress; has a core commitment to Enlightenment values. Reading something to be cheered up — and finding data genuinely cheering — is characteristic.

Evidence Relevant to Allan's Views

  • Bipartisan consensus on the US alliance is a structural feature of Australian politics, not a fluke
  • Trump is a symptom of structural US decline, not an aberration
  • "Liberal internationalism" peaked with Bush and Clinton — a bold periodization
  • Obama and Trump share more than is comfortable to acknowledge
  • Australia's foreign policy has always been independent; "independence" rhetoric is a demand for different policy
  • Instruments of persuasion (diplomacy, aid) are underfunded relative to military
  • International institutions matter but can't substitute for president-level commitment

Evidence Relevant to Allan's Style and Persona

  • Refuses to be rushed to verdict on Imran Khan: "suspend judgment"
  • Willing to agree with Wang Yi: 113 million is laughably small against BRI
  • Precision about language: distinguishes "independent" from "different"
  • Historical imagination: names Curtin, Menzies, Percy Spender; traces bipartisanship back to the alliance's origins
  • Provocative but reasoned: Obama-Trump comparison grounded in structural logic
  • Reads to be cheered up; finds data genuinely moving

Biographical Fragments

  • Allan and Darren are recording in "this tiny studio in the ANU's Crawford School"
  • The reading/watching segment begins here and will continue through the series — a recurring window into Allan's intellectual life

Characteristic Phrases

  • "I wouldn't feel reassured, but I would suspend judgment"
  • "We've always had one [an independent foreign policy]... they're really saying they need a different one"
  • "The high watermark of liberal interventionism"
  • "The instruments of persuasion... need a better go"

Relevance to Central Biographical Question

This episode shows Allan's structural mode of analysis at full stretch. His willingness to say provocative things calmly (Obama and Trump share more than is comfortable; Australia's "independent" foreign policy rhetoric is really a demand for difference) signals intellectual self-confidence rather than contrarianism. He has no need to flatter the consensus. The Pinker recommendation shows that alongside the strategic pessimism, there is an underlying commitment to human progress — an Enlightenment optimism that grounds the seriousness with which he takes the challenge to the order.

Open Questions

  • How well does Allan's prediction about Trump as symptom rather than cause hold up across later episodes?
  • Does the Obama-Trump structural comparison recur or get qualified later in the series?