Source — AITW Ep082 — Afghanistan Evacuation; US Alliance at 70; Ministerial Meetings; 9/11 Reflections¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	82
Title	Ep. 82: Afghanistan evacuation; US alliance at 70; ministerial meetings; 9/11 reflections
Publication date	2021-09-10
Recording date	Thursday, 9 September 2021
Guests	None (Allan and Darren only)
Allan present	Yes
Format	Two-host; four topics: Afghanistan evacuation wrap-up; ANZUS at 70; Australian diplomatic ramp-up; 9/11 twentieth anniversary reflections. Reading segment.

Summary¶

Wide-ranging episode closing the Afghanistan chapter and marking the 9/11 twentieth anniversary. Two significant biographical fragments: Allan was in Beijing on the night of 9/11, speaking to unsettled Chinese Foreign Ministry officials the following morning. He also describes using 9/11 as a generational marker with young APS graduates — a practice that has now lost its force, with the youngest cohort having been three years old at the time. The alliance analysis is notable for its structural candour: Trump's potential 2024 return weakens the alliance's underlying continuity, regardless of current commitment levels. Allan names China's diplomatic freeze on Australia as "no-speakies" and identifies it as against China's own interests.

New biographical fragment: Allan was in Beijing on the night of 11 September 2001, speaking to Chinese Foreign Ministry officials the following morning.

Key Quotations¶

"Simultaneously moved... and offended" — opening on Afghanistan¶

"Simultaneously moved by the stinging sense of condemnation and despair and betrayal coming from people I admire and at the same time offended by the speed with which developments have been turned into political rocks to be thrown at Biden by people without much self-reflection. So I'll let you go first."

— [00:03:15.190 --> 00:03:37.910]

A compressed two-sided acknowledgement before pivoting to Darren: Allan holds both reactions simultaneously without collapsing into either. "People I admire" — the condemnation comes from those he respects, not just partisans. "Without much self-reflection" — the counter-move is epistemic, not political. He cedes the floor immediately after, which is itself a method: getting the interlocutor's view before giving his own.

Beijing on the night of 9/11¶

"I was in Beijing on the night it happened and speaking the following morning to a group of really deeply unsettled Foreign Ministry officials, some of whom had been up most of the night."

— [00:41:27.710 --> 00:44:07.430]

Said in response to Darren sharing his own 9/11 memory. Allan was in Beijing, September 2001 — on a visit or posting that brought him before Chinese Foreign Ministry officials. Their unsettledness is registered with precision: "deeply unsettled... some of whom had been up most of the night." Allan does not explain what the meeting was about; he uses the detail instrumentally, then moves to the generational story.

The 9/11 generational marker — "I was only three at the time"¶

"I got a shock a year or so ago when I asked, as I often do, a group of young graduates entering the Australian Public Service for the first time, what was the first event they remembered, which made them realize that there was an outside world that could have an impact on them beyond their families and their neighbourhood. And for a number of years, the answer to that question had been 9-11. But this time I was met only with silence and blank looks... 'Oh, no,' one of them came back. 'I was only three at the time.'"

— [00:41:27.710 --> 00:44:07.430]

Allan regularly addresses groups of new APS graduates — another dimension of his pedagogical and institutional role. The question he "often" asks is diagnostic: it surfaces the formative international event for each cohort. The shift from 9/11 to silence marks a genuine generational discontinuity. He does not lament it; he uses it to make the point that 9/11 is now historical rather than lived. The "I was only three at the time" is delivered as the punchline, without editorialising.

The theatricality of 9/11 — memes and force¶

"I've been thinking a lot about memes lately for reasons we might discuss sometime. And I think that's relevant because it was ultimately the theatricality of the assault on the Twin Towers, which gave it its force and shock, not just the mass casualties that resulted."

— [00:41:27.710 --> 00:44:07.430]

A structural observation about the event's impact: the visual spectacle — the specific iconography of the towers — amplified the force beyond the casualty count. The reference to "memes" (pre-announcing a future topic) is an unusual aside; Allan does not typically signal future intellectual preoccupations.

Alliance candour — Trump's return weakening continuity¶

"I'm not so sure [the alliance has never been stronger]. And that's not due to any lack of commitment on either side, but more to the uncertainty of American politics. The mere fact that it's not at all unlikely that Donald Trump will return as US president in three years in itself, it seems to me, weakens the underpinning solidness of the alliance — the sort of sense of continuity under any future administration."

— [00:18:54.590 --> 00:21:33.350]

Written in September 2021, three years before the 2024 election. Allan identifies structural alliance risk not from current policy but from political volatility: any alliance that can be fundamentally altered by one election lacks the bedrock continuity that makes it a genuine strategic guarantee. This is a structural argument, not a partisan one — he is not attacking Trump, he is identifying a category of risk.

The Iraq option no longer available¶

"It will make it harder for us to do what we did in Iraq, for example, which was to manage our engagement in a way that provided high levels of political support to our ally, but minimised attendant military and political risks because we weren't a central player. Now, that option is not available in our own region, so political and economic flow-on effects are going to be massive, whatever we do, and we've got to learn to live with that."

— [00:18:54.590 --> 00:21:33.350]

The regional consequence of the US strategic pivot to China: Australia can no longer calibrate its exposure as it did in the Middle East. In any US-China confrontation in the Indo-Pacific, Australia is a central player by geography. The "learn to live with that" is characteristically unsentimental — the situation is what it is.

"No-speakies" — China's diplomatic freeze¶

"It's notable that it's not even the subject of much commentary here that putting together all those two plus twos that you noted and this trip by the two ministers, China, which is at the heart of all the discussions, is not on the itinerary. Now, that's China's fault. It's not ours... China's decision to play no-speakies with Australian ministers seems to me to completely counter to its own interests."

— [00:33:58.590 --> 00:36:09.470]

"No-speakies" — a deliberately childlike formulation that heightens the absurdity of China's diplomatic freeze. "That's China's fault. It's not ours." is a rare instance of Allan making a direct blame attribution rather than distributing responsibility across parties. He immediately adds that the freeze is counter to China's interests — his analytical reflex is to evaluate strategic rationality, even in the context of criticism.

92 counterterrorism laws — "more restrictive than any of our close partners"¶

"Just this morning I was reading an article by two academics which we can put on the show page pointing out that before 9-11 Australia had no specific counterterrorism laws but now we have 92 of them which amount to 5,000 pages of rules, powers and offences. A greater volume, those writers claim, than any other state, and more restrictive than any of our close partners, and all of them passed very quickly through Parliament with bipartisan support. So... is there something about Australians which makes us more happily compliant with government regulation than the Americans or the French, do you think?"

— [00:45:36.310 --> 00:46:36.310]

Allan has been reading academic work on the morning of recording — a characteristically specific detail. The statistic is striking and the closing question is genuinely curious rather than rhetorical. The Australian tendency toward bipartisan compliance with security legislation is noted as something worth explaining, not just deploring.

"Not trading freedom for security, but rules for institutions"¶

"We, as a society, as a country, are in the early stages of a new question, which also asks how much we value our security. And security now is going to be defined in even broader ways. But this time, we're not trading off so much against freedom, but for rules and institutions."

— [00:46:36.310 --> 00:47:27.790]

A closing analytical frame: the post-9/11 freedom-vs-security trade-off is giving way to a different challenge — how much are we willing to invest in the rules-based order and international institutions to maintain a form of security that is structural rather than immediate? The framing anticipates AUKUS, climate, and the broader China challenge without naming them.

Biographical Fragments¶

Evidence type: New

Beijing, night of 11 September 2001 — "I was in Beijing on the night it happened and speaking the following morning to a group of really deeply unsettled Foreign Ministry officials." Allan was in Beijing on or around 11 September 2001, meeting with Chinese Foreign Ministry officials. Whether this was a posting, a visit, or a delegation is not specified. (Ep082)

Evidence type: Reinforcing

Regularly addresses new APS graduate cohorts — "as I often do, a group of young graduates entering the Australian Public Service for the first time." Allan has an ongoing pedagogical practice of speaking to new APS entrants — consistent with his AIIA National President and ANU Honorary Professor roles. (Ep082)
New edition of Fear of Abandonment published — Allan mentions the new edition and a virtual launch on 23 September 2021 with Professor Caitlin Byrne from Griffith University. (Ep082)

Style and Method Evidence¶

Two-sided opening: holding condemnation and irritation simultaneously before deferring to Darren — epistemic caution and collegial generosity combined.
Generational marker question: Allan's diagnostic for cohort formation — "what was the first event that made you realise there was an outside world?" Used regularly with APS graduates.
"No-speakies": deliberately childlike language to characterise China's diplomatic freeze — the bathos heightens the absurdity.
Structural alliance analysis: Trump risk identified not as political preference but as category of systemic uncertainty.
Reading on the day: the 92-laws statistic was from something Allan read "just this morning" — habitual engagement with current academic literature on the day of recording.

Reading, Listening and Watching¶

Allan — Richard Powers, The Overstory (2018, Pulitzer Prize)

"I'm a sucker for novels with big social themes, which span time and have large casts of characters... nine main figures and multiple generations. If you like David Mitchell, you're going to enjoy this... it reflects very powerfully on trees and forests, and their interaction with humans, and on the things that we're doing to them, and to the planet. And no better time to read it than in these weeks leading up to the Glasgow climate change meeting."

— [00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:47.190]

The Richard Powers recommendation is characteristically purposive: the novel serves the Glasgow COP agenda — it is climate advocacy in literary form. "I'm a sucker for novels with big social themes" is a self-description that sits alongside his known reading of Pinker, Rorty, and other big-picture thinkers. The David Mitchell comparison is a guide for listeners who know Mitchell's style.

Open Questions¶

What was Allan doing in Beijing in September 2001? Was this a recurring diplomatic visit, a conference, or something more specific? Does Beijing appear elsewhere in the corpus as a regular posting or visit destination?
The "memes" aside — "I've been thinking a lot about memes lately for reasons we might discuss sometime." Does this topic appear in later episodes?
Does Allan develop the "freedom vs security" → "rules vs institutions" framing in later episodes, particularly in the context of AUKUS or the Albanese government's foreign policy?
The Dennis Richardson review of the national intelligence community legal framework — referenced again here. Does Allan return to it in later episodes?