Source — AITW Ep012: What We Learned from 2018, Looking Ahead to 2019¶

Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode	12
Title	What we learned from 2018, looking ahead to 2019
Publication date	2019-02-20
Speakers	Allan Gyngell, Darren Lim
Guest	None
Duration	~35 min

Summary¶

A retrospective and prospective episode: what 2018 revealed about the international order, how it updated Allan's assumptions, what Australia did well and poorly, and what needs to happen in 2019. Contains Allan's most sustained and explicit reflection on his own analytical framework — including the model he didn't know he had. Notable for a direct disagreement with Darren about whether Australia can do better or is simply condemned to "muddle through." Also contains a book recommendation that is itself biographically significant (German history of 1918-1920).

Key Topics¶

2018 as a pivotal year: end of the liberal post-war order
Speed of change: faster than Allan expected (bipolarity emerging)
Allan's hidden model of international change (practitioners vs. theorists)
US institutional resilience: cautious optimism (but Brexit is different)
Australia's 2018 performance: Allan's assessment is harsh
Morrison's "National Security" speech: critique of its conceptual vacuity
Australia's China messaging failures
What 2019 requires: articulation, Southeast Asia, multilateralism
Science and technology literacy for future IR scholars
Social media as a non-user (Allan's conscientious objection)

Key Quotations¶

On 2018 as pivotal¶

"I think we will look back on 2018 as a pivotal year, as a real step change, in that the only international order I've known during my lifetime, that was the liberal post-war international order, came to an end."

— Allan Gyngell [00:02:58.380 --> 00:04:10.800]

"For me, it was bigger than the other great systemic changes of the late 20th century and early 21st century, the end of the Cold War and the consequences of the 9-11 attacks. But in terms of surprise and the sort of test of my assumptions, I think it was the speed with which the international system moved towards a new sort of bipolarity."

— Allan Gyngell [00:02:58.380 --> 00:04:10.800]

Strong, clear claim: 2018 is bigger than the end of the Cold War or 9/11 — not in immediate shock but in structural significance.

On his hidden model¶

"Like most practitioners, I don't think of myself as having a model. But like most academics, you're right when you tell us that we just don't recognize and acknowledge the models that we have."

— Allan Gyngell [00:04:41.800 --> 00:05:31.800]

Beautifully honest. Acknowledges the IR theorists' point while maintaining the practitioner's self-description. The epistemic humility is genuine, not performed.

"I suppose it was the speed this time, the rapidity with which globalization could come undone when it no longer served the particular geopolitical interests of big powers. I guess I'd assumed not that globalization was forever, but that the structural constraints it imposed on states were stronger than I think they've proved to be."

— Allan Gyngell [00:04:41.800 --> 00:05:31.800]

On US institutional resilience and Brexit¶

"I remain sort of optimistic, but with increasing anxiety. Institutions are important. And I do think that the United States will return to something more normal after Trump. Brexit, though, is different. That's a large structural change... There are some things that you simply can't get back once they've been done."

— Allan Gyngell [00:08:29.800 --> 00:09:24.800]

On Australia's 2018 performance (Morrison's National Security speech)¶

"Just last week, Scott Morrison made a speech at the National Press Club called Our Plan for Keeping Australia Safe and Secure... I picked it up enthusiastically. Now, I'd always thought that Kevin Rudd's 2008 National Security Statement would hold the record for the broadest definition by an Australian government of national security. He included climate change and natural disasters, but Scott Morrison has taken the prize, I think, because he went even further in adding issues like violence against women, the scourge of ICE and cyber bullying."

— Allan Gyngell [00:09:48.800 --> 00:13:48.800]

"The strange thing about the speech was that there was no link at all with the $200 billion investment in submarines, fighters and frigates that Morrison went on to extol. So what's all that about? Why are we spending that money? It was impossible to know from the speech. The word China doesn't appear."

— Allan Gyngell [00:09:48.800 --> 00:13:48.800]

A sustained and precise critique. He does not object to violence against women or drug policy as government concerns — he objects to their inclusion in a speech that cannot then explain the military spending. The conceptual incoherence is the target.

On Australia's strategic communication failure¶

"My point in all this is not to have a go at the speech so much as to say that given the stakes involved in the world we're now in, we need to be doing a lot better than this at articulating to ourselves and to the Australian people what's going on."

— Allan Gyngell [00:09:48.800 --> 00:13:48.800]

Direct disagreement with Darren about Australia's options¶

"Darren, yeah, too forgiving of us. You bet, you bet. Look, that's a recipe for complacency and laziness, if ever I heard one. Underneath what you were saying is this sort of image of poor little Australia pottering around the margins of the big world when times are good, but condemned, in your words, to muddle through, batten down the hatches, keep our heads down when the world looks hard. I don't buy that. I think that we can do more."

— Allan Gyngell [00:16:06.800 --> 00:16:53.800]

"You seem to think that stridency was the alternative to keeping your heads down. Whereas I think that skillful diplomacy in all its forms, including working with others, subtly trying to change behavior, being direct where we need to be direct without being offensive, I think there's a whole range of things that are not encompassed in the view that you were just expressing."

— Allan Gyngell [00:18:03.800 --> 00:18:47.800]

The most direct disagreement between Allan and Darren in the early episodes. Allan explicitly rejects Darren's "muddle through" framing as complacent. His counter-formulation — "skillful diplomacy in all its forms" — is important and characteristic.

On the new bipolarity and Australia's articulation problem¶

"The speed with which we've been moving back into a new bipolar world is much quicker than I expected... Scott Morrison was again saying during his South Pacific visit that we don't have to choose between the United States and China. But that's sort of sounding less persuasive by the day."

— Allan Gyngell [00:20:09.780 --> 00:21:05.800]

On science and technology literacy¶

"Science and technology are going to be a central part of the coming contest, and anyone who wants to understand international relations is going to need higher levels of scientific and technological literacy than perhaps was necessary in the 1990s... There are security, commercial, environmental, ethical dimensions which require careful, reflective input and not just sloganeering."

— Allan Gyngell [00:27:03.800 --> 00:29:05.800]

"As you know Darren, I'm a conscientious objector to social media, so I'm really glad to hear that."

— Allan Gyngell [00:30:20.800]

"Conscientious objector to social media" — a carefully chosen phrase. Not just non-participation but a principled stance.

Reading Recommendation¶

Allan recommends Daniel Schönpflug's A World on Edge: The End of the Great War and the Dawn of a New Age (recently translated from German):

"Schoenflug tells the story of that astonishing period of chaos and hype from 1918 to 1920 through a series of personal stories... Characters range from Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Marshal Foch through revolutionaries and reactionaries to the experiences of just ordinary demobilised American and German soldiers. He's particularly good at bringing in the impact of these developments on writers and artists like Virginia Woolf and Schoenberg. I like the fact that it was written by a German, so the point of view is slightly different from the history as I normally read. And it takes a global view incorporating people like Gandhi and Ho Chi Minh. So it was a reminder of what the world feels like when you don't really know what's going on. And that makes it very relevant to current contemporary times."

— Allan Gyngell [00:32:02.800]

Key revelations: Allan reads history broadly (WWI, this specific period); he values non-Anglophone perspectives ("I like the fact that it was written by a German"); he reads literature and arts alongside politics (Virginia Woolf, Schoenberg); he reads historical disorientation as a mirror for the present. "A reminder of what the world feels like when you don't really know what's going on" — a rare admission of present uncertainty through a historical parallel.

Evidence Relevant to Allan's Views¶

2018 is pivotal: the liberal post-war order ended; this is structurally larger than Cold War's end or 9/11
He had a hidden model: globalization's structural constraints would hold longer than they did
Brexit is irreversible in a way that Trump may not be
Australia's 2018 performance was poor: Morrison's speech is conceptually incoherent
"Skillful diplomacy" — the alternative to both silence and stridency
The bipolarity emerging is faster and deeper than expected
Science/technology literacy is now essential for IR scholarship

Evidence Relevant to Allan's Style and Persona¶

Self-reflection: "like most practitioners, I don't think of myself as having a model" — acknowledges the theorists' point
Impatience with Darren's defeatism: "too forgiving of us"
"Conscientious objector to social media" — principled non-participation
Reads German history translated into English; values non-Anglophone perspectives
Reads literature and arts alongside politics (Woolf, Schoenberg)
Historical analogy as a way to name present disorientation

Biographical Fragments¶

Read widely over the summer break (Schönpflug book)
Is a non-user of social media — a deliberate, principled choice

Characteristic Phrases¶

"Optimistic, but with increasing anxiety"
"Like most practitioners, I don't think of myself as having a model"
"Conscientious objector to social media"
"Skillful diplomacy in all its forms"
"Too forgiving of us"
"Pottering around the margins of the big world" (characterising, then rejecting, Darren's framing)

Relevance to Central Biographical Question¶

This episode is one of the richest for understanding Allan's intellectual self-awareness. His acknowledgement of a hidden model — and of being surprised by speed — is unusually frank for a public figure. His direct confrontation of Darren's defeatism, and his insistence on "skillful diplomacy in all its forms" as the alternative, encapsulates his core argument: Australia can do more, and the excuse of smallness is too convenient. The Schönpflug recommendation reveals his reading habits: transnational, literary-historical, German-inflected, attentive to ordinary experience alongside high politics.

Open Questions¶

Does Allan return to the theme of Australia's articulation failure in 2019?
Does he update his assessment of whether Trump's damage is reversible as the series progresses?