Source — AITW Ep037 — The Bushfires Internationally; the Soleimani Killing; Reviewing 2019; Looking Ahead to 2020¶
Episode Metadata¶
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Episode number | 37 |
| Title | Ep. 37: The bushfires, internationally; the Soleimani killing; reviewing 2019, looking ahead to 2020 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-10 |
| Recording date | Tuesday, 7 January 2020 |
| Guests | None (Allan and Darren only) |
| Allan present | Yes |
| Format | Year-in-review: bushfires/international reaction; Soleimani assassination; word of the year; trend of the year; 2020 outlook; reading segment (best of 2019) |
Summary¶
First episode of 2020. Opens with the Black Summer bushfires (international reputational implications, climate diplomacy) and Trump's killing of General Soleimani (escalation risk, Australia's Gulf deployment). Then year-in-review structure: word of the year (Allan: sovereignty; Darren: decoupling); trend of the year (Allan: decline of rules-based order institutions; Darren: domestic politics of foreign policy); 2020 outlook (Australia-China management; US election). Reading segment: Allan's best foreign policy book of 2019 is George Packer's Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, with extended commentary that includes a biographical disclosure — his own involvement in Canberra's Afghanistan/Pakistan discussions during the Holbrooke period.
Key Quotations¶
"I've seen a number of Quiet Australians yelling loud"¶
"Yeah. Well, I've seen a number of Quiet Australians yelling loud."
— [00:10:36.180 --> 00:10:40.020]
Context: Darren suggests the bushfire crisis might break through the "identity politics" barrier that has blocked climate action, if it can transform the issue into one about the safety of "the PM's so-called Quiet Australians." Allan's response is eight words. The repurposing of Morrison's signature phrase — the silent majority who re-elected him — as the now-yelling people directly affected by fire is both wit and political observation. The inversion is exact: Morrison named the Quiet Australians as his mandate; Allan notes they have become loud. Characteristic economy.
Word of the year: "sovereignty"¶
"My word of the year is sovereignty. We first noticed its appearance in Scott Morrison's Lowy lecture after a long absence from Australian prime ministerial rhetoric. But then it started popping up in all sorts of other places and ministerial speeches... it reflects the wider shift in the international zeitgeist, you know, America First, Brexit, taking back control, all the new nationalism in places ranging from Poland to India... In Australia, sovereignty got an added boost from the whole foreign interference debate... And I think it also reflects, although policymakers probably wouldn't acknowledge this, increased caution about our American ally, and a sense that we are more on our own."
— [00:16:22.280 --> 00:17:34.640]
Allan's word of the year completes an analytical arc begun in Ep033, where he first noted the displacement of "interdependence" by "sovereignty" across multiple speeches in a single week. Here he synthesises that observation into a year-level diagnosis: sovereignty as the keyword of 2019 encodes simultaneously the new nationalism, the foreign interference anxiety, and a quiet unease about the US alliance. The third reading — "increased caution about our American ally, and a sense that we are more on our own" — is the sharpest and the one he flags policymakers "probably wouldn't acknowledge."
"You can't even get an arms control treaty in the arms control space"¶
"The problem at the moment is that you can't even get an arms control treaty in the arms control space."
— [00:23:27.620 --> 00:25:02.680]
Context: Darren asks what the equivalent of an arms control treaty would be in the trade/technology space. Allan's response names the problem before answering it: arms control itself is failing (US withdrawal from INF Treaty; no progress on the Iran nuclear deal). The compression is characteristically exact — a single sentence which shows that the analogy Darren proposes is unavailable because the original category is also broken. He then develops the broader 2019 trend: decline of all rules-based order institutions across every domain.
"What would the ANZUS alliance be after eight years of Trump?"¶
"I agree with you absolutely about the term consequences of this particular US election. What would the ANZUS alliance be after eight years of Trump? Could it possibly sustain the same deep bipartisan support in Australia that it's traditionally held? I'm really doubtful of that."
— [00:36:11.820 --> 00:36:32.340]
One of the sharpest alliance statements in the corpus. Allan is usually careful to affirm bipartisan support for ANZUS as a structural constant. Here he places it under genuine conditional doubt: eight years of Trump could, he says, erode the deep bipartisan consensus that has always underpinned the alliance in Australian politics. "I'm really doubtful of that" is a rare expression of genuine doubt about something he has treated as fixed. It is not advocacy for weakening the alliance; it is an assessment of what eight more years of the current path would do to its domestic political foundations.
"As someone who was heavily involved in the Canberra discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan"¶
"Just one final point relevant to Australia, as someone who was heavily involved in the Canberra discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan during the period Holbrooke was the US representative, and you remember we were talking about this with Duncan Lewis a few weeks ago, the book is a revelation of how much was going on in debates inside Washington that we didn't know about."
— [00:36:40.720 --> 00:39:34.660]
A direct biographical disclosure embedded in a book recommendation. Allan identifies himself as "heavily involved" in the Canberra discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan during Richard Holbrooke's tenure as US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (January 2009 – December 2010, when Holbrooke died). This is consistent with his ONA DG role in the Rudd era and his "countless hours in the NSC" on Afghanistan (Ep035). The word "heavily" is notable — not merely present but a central participant. He connects it explicitly to the Lewis conversation of "a few weeks ago," confirming that the NSC Afghanistan work he mentioned there was in this same Holbrooke-era window.
On the bushfire reputational impact¶
"We will have a harder time arguing, as we did in Madrid, that we shouldn't be doing more on climate change policy nationally because people will be able to point to the direct impact in Australia."
— [00:05:34.260 --> 00:06:02.320]
Precise framing of the reputational mechanism: not that Australia is "tarred" by the disaster itself (which generates sympathy) but that the disaster destroys Australia's argumentative position in international climate negotiations. The COP25 Madrid argument becomes untenable when the domestic impact is visible and severe. Allan traces the logical consequence rather than the emotional one.
"No, I haven't. I don't think we get Disney."¶
[Darren recommends The Mandalorian on Disney+] Allan: "No, I haven't. I don't think we get Disney."
— [00:40:56.180 --> 00:40:59.400]
Consistent with the established portrait: no Foxtel, no social media, and now no Disney+. The "I don't think we get Disney" phrasing is characteristic — not "I don't subscribe to Disney+" but a slight uncertainty about what streaming service comes with what, suggesting genuine unfamiliarity with the subscription landscape. The non-techie portrait is consistent across the full corpus.
Biographical Fragments¶
Evidence type: Confirmed
- "Heavily involved in the Canberra discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan during the period Holbrooke was the US representative" — Holbrooke was US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from January 2009 to December 2010. Allan's ONA DG role in the Rudd era (transition from Lowy confirmed Ep035 as ~2007/8) places him at ONA precisely during this period. "Heavily involved" is strong — a central participant, not a peripheral observer. The NSC work on Afghanistan ("countless hours") that he and Lewis discussed in Ep035 now has a more precise contextual anchor: it includes the Holbrooke period specifically. (Ep037)
Style and Method Evidence¶
- Word of the year as analytical synthesis: Allan's "sovereignty" pick is not a media observation but the conclusion of an analytical arc he has been building since Ep033. He traces its multiple causes — international zeitgeist, foreign interference, alliance anxiety — in about 90 seconds.
- Book recommendation with autobiographical anchor: Recommending Our Man leads Allan to disclose his own involvement in the period the book describes. He does not make this the point of the recommendation — it is introduced as "just one final point." But it is a genuine biographical trace embedded in a literary observation.
- The Holbrooke parallel as warning: His observation that the book reveals "how much was going on in debates inside Washington that we didn't know about" is a policy argument, not just personal reflection. Mid-level allies aren't briefed on internal US debates — the Soleimani killing (Morrison not informed beforehand) is the present-day example. Past and present run together.
- "It's good to end the podcast on an optimistic note like that, Darren": The standard ironic close — Darren's recommendation is a Star Wars show, which is indeed optimistic relative to everything else in the episode.
Reading, Listening and Watching¶
Allan — George Packer, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (Knopf, 2019)
"This is an unusual biography because it's about a man who never quite made it to the top of his profession... The book is a revelation of how much was going on in debates inside Washington that we didn't know about. Now, I'm not complaining about that, there's no reason for the US administration to lay its internal debates open to mid-level allies, but as we just saw again in our ignorance of the US assassination of Soleimani, Australia needs to be constantly alert to the changing dynamics of American policy."
Allan's best foreign policy book of 2019. Extended commentary covering: Holbrooke's career arc; the Dayton Accords; the Afghanistan/Pakistan role; the personality complexity that blocked his rise ("the enormous ego, the overwhelming ambition, the slights to others"); George Packer as writer and biographer; and the policy lesson for Australia about watching Washington's internal dynamics. He locates himself in the book's period: "as someone who was heavily involved in the Canberra discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan during the period Holbrooke was the US representative." The closing Packer quote — about Holbrooke as "one of the last exemplars of a vision of American power in the world... that are only now turning to rubble" — is the elegiac frame Allan chooses for 2019's review.
Open Questions¶
- Allan's "heavily involved" in Afghanistan/Pakistan discussions during the Holbrooke period (2009–2010) is the most specific dating evidence yet for the ONA DG's active years. Does he provide further detail on the substance of those discussions in later episodes?
- "What would the ANZUS alliance be after eight years of Trump?" — this is recorded in January 2020. Does Allan return to this question after Trump's re-election attempt and Biden's win? How does the concern develop?
- Allan quotes the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper from memory. Does he return to it as a benchmark in later episodes — especially as the distance between the White Paper's aspirations and Australian policy practice widens?