Tag Archive for: obituary

The writing of Joseph S Nye Jr: highlights from The Strategist

Joseph S Nye Jr, who co-founded neoliberalism and identified the concept of soft power, died at the age of 88 on 6 May. Here are links to a selection from the 100 columns by Nye that appeared in The Strategist beginning 2016.

How world order changes (2025)

‘Will the Trump administration maintain this unique source of America’s continued power, or is Kallas right that we are at a turning point? The years 1945, 1991, and 2008 were also turning points. If future historians add 2025 to the list, it will be a result of US policy—a self-inflicted wound—rather than any inevitable secular development.’

Trump’s challenge to international order (2025)

‘If the international order is eroding, the US’s domestic politics are as much of a cause as China’s rise. The question is whether we are entering a totally new period of US decline, or whether the second Trump administration’s attacks on the American century’s institutions and alliances will prove to be another cyclical dip.’

How to prevent a war over Taiwan (2024)

‘The US and its allies must make clear that they would not respect a Chinese blockade. That means positioning American military systems in Japan, Australia, and the Philippines that can reach Taiwan within a week. This would reduce the ambiguity in US deterrence.

At the same time, the US should not give up the basic features of double deterrence. Preventing a war requires showing China that the US and its allies have the capacity to defend Taiwan, and reminding the island’s leaders that a de jure declaration of independence would be provocative and is unacceptable.’ 

The evolution of America’s China strategy (2022)

‘Some critics see the situation today as proof that presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush were naive to pursue a strategy of engagement, including granting China membership in the World Trade Organization. But while there was certainly excessive optimism about China two decades ago, it wasn’t necessarily naive.’

Is nuclear war inevitable? (2022)

‘While our moral obligation to them compels us to treat survival very carefully, that task doesn’t require the complete absence of risk. We owe future generations roughly equal access to important values, and that includes equal chances of survival. That’s different from trying to aggregate the interests of centuries of unknown people into some unknowable sum in the present. Risk will always be an unavoidable component of human life.’

Whatever happened to soft power? (2022)

‘No one can be certain about the future trajectory of any country’s soft power. But there is no doubt that influence through attraction will remain an important component of world politics.’

What is a moral foreign policy? (2020)

‘We judge moral policy by looking at behaviour and institutions, at acts of commission and omission, and at all three dimensions of motives, means and consequences. Even then, the nature of foreign policy—with its many contingencies and unforeseen events—means that we will often wind up with mixed verdicts.’

China’s soft and sharp power (2018)

‘As democracies respond to China’s sharp power and information warfare, they have to be careful not to overreact. Much of the soft power democracies wield comes from civil society, which means that openness is a crucial asset. China could generate more soft power if it would relax some of its tight party control over civil society. Similarly, manipulation of media and reliance on covert channels of communication often reduces soft power. Democracies should avoid the temptation to imitate these authoritarian sharp-power tools.’

Information warfare versus soft power (2017)

‘Information warfare can be used offensively to disempower rivals, and this could be considered ‘negative soft power.’ By attacking the values of others, one can reduce their attractiveness and thus their relative soft power.’

Do we want powerful leaders? (2016)

‘Abuse of power is as old as human history. The Bible reminds us that after David defeated Goliath and later became king, he seduced Bathsheba and deliberately sent her husband to certain death in battle. Leadership involves the use of power, and, as Lord Acton famously warned, power corrupts. And yet leaders without power—the ability to cause others to do what we want—cannot lead.’

All of Joseph Nye’s Strategist articles can be found here.

Vale, Allan Gyngell, the finest mind in foreign policy

In mid-April, Foreign Minister Penny Wong addressed the National Press Club on Australia’s interests in a regional balance of power. As she began her presentation, the minister paused to acknowledge one of her guests, Allan Gyngell.

Allan, she said, had been an official and unofficial adviser to governments for decades, always in singular service of Australia’s national interest.

She went on to describe Gyngell in terms that all of those who have dealt with him over decades would endorse with great feeling: ‘He is the definitive historian of Australian foreign policy. He is the finest writer about Australian foreign policy. He is, frankly, the finest mind in Australian foreign policy. And possibly also the smallest ego in Australian foreign policy.’

Allan Gyngell died yesterday and Wong spoke again of her deep sense of loss. ‘I am deeply saddened by the loss of Allan Gyngell AO,’ she said.

‘Allan was our finest mind in Australian foreign policy. He offered sage advice, both official and unofficial, to the Australian Government for decades. He was the definitive historian of Australian foreign policy.

‘As foreign minister and over the years of Opposition, I benefitted greatly from his insights. He was generous with his time and wise with his counsel.

‘Allan made an exceptional contribution to international policy making in Australia.

‘His long and distinguished career in Australian international affairs included appointments as national president of the Australian Institute of International Affairs 2017-23, and director-general of the Office of National Assessments 2009-13. He was the founding executive director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy for six years from 2003, and an honorary professor at the Australian National University.’

Wong said Gyngell served as senior international adviser to Prime Minister Paul Keating from 1993-96. Prior to that, he was at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, including as first assistant secretary international from 1991-93. He began his foreign policy career as an officer at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, where he served as a diplomat in Rangoon, Singapore and Washington.

In 2009 he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for his services to international relations.

‘Allan always strove for a respectful and informed national discussion on Australia’s foreign policy. But he also had the intellectual and personal courage to call things as he saw them,’ Wong said.

‘Allan often spoke of the formative influence his high school history teacher had on his curiosity about the world. He in turn opened the eyes of new generations of Australians to our place in the world. That continued with his more recent books and podcast.

‘As mentor to many Australian diplomats and foreign policy analysts, his legacy lives on in all of those whose lives and careers were touched by his leadership and quiet wisdom.

‘He will be greatly missed by all those who knew him.

‘I will remember him for his intelligence, kindness, wit and warmth.

‘I offer my deepest condolences to Allan’s family and to his friends.’

Des Moore: a true believer in public policy

The former Treasury deputy secretary and member of ASPI’s inaugural council Des Moore sadly passed away in Melbourne on 1 November at the age of 88. As David Uren noted in his tribute published in The Australian, Des was a feisty public policy pugilist, deeply committed to the case for smaller government, lower taxes and economic deregulation.

Des sat on the ASPI council from its inaugural meeting in August 2001 through to his retirement as a councillor in August 2007. He was appointed to the council by Defence Minister Peter Reith, and I recall a later discussion with one of Reith’s chiefs of staff who was relishing Des’s appointment. ‘He’ll keep the council on its toes’, was the assessment.

Des was a passionate advocate of the American alliance and of the need for strong defence capabilities, and this became a theme in his interaction with ASPI staff and fellow councillors. In the early days of ASPI there was a debate about what ‘independence’ really meant in terms of the research and public commentary staff could undertake. Des firmly held to the view that the council should have a hand in editorial direction.

Robert O’Neill, ASPI’s inaugural chair, maintained that ASPI’s executive director and staff should have the latitude to express their own views. O’Neill’s stance was the correct one in my view and helped to set the foundations for the type of organisation ASPI is today. But there’s a lot to be said for strong views consistently and plainly put, and Des was a master of that art. He helped shape the institute in its early days and reminded us all that policy judgements profoundly matter and need to be explained, advocated and defended in a tough marketplace of ideas.

After his time on the ASPI council, Des kept an active interest in defence and international security issues. He would regularly send his thoughts on interesting developments to an email contact group, addressing, among other things, the fight against Islamic State, his ‘amazement at the policy on submarines’, China, climate and the political battles of the day. His interest in policy issues ran deep and was sustained through all his life.

I last saw Des at our June 2019 conference on ‘War in 2025’. At that point, walking with a cane, he attended every conference session and asked the chief of the Australian Defence Force a pointed question about climate change (Des was emphatically not a believer). Des emailed me after the conference saying he found it ‘most helpful’ and asked for speech transcripts for his further study.

A decade and a half ago, I recall an ASPI council event at which a respected agency head had given a talk on national security which had much been to Des’s liking. He asked the agency head with some incredulity, ‘So you say you have had a long career in DFAT?’ It seemed unlikely to Des that one could have that background and still say sensible things on security. Spirited, opiniated and at times a bit of a curmudgeon, Des Moore was a believer in public policy and the need to vigorously engage in the contest of ideas. He never lost that spark.

David Uren noted that Moore’s vigorous voice had been heard on one side of every public economic policy debate in Australia for the past 35 years.

Moore spent three decades in Treasury during a period of great intellectual ferment about the scope and nature of economic policy, before making the transition from public service to public intellectual in the late 1980s.

His Treasury career was associated with John Stone, who was the department’s formidable secretary from 1979 to 1984. Stone had been Treasury’s representative in London in the late 1950s when Moore, who was studying at the London School of Economics, paid him a visit, which eventually resulted in a job offer.

Stone recalls that Moore came from a wealthy Melbourne retailing family and might have been expected to return from his London studies to pursue a profitable career in business, but instead chose to take on a low-paid position at Treasury.

‘Des was never interested in his own wealth, but was a passionate believer in public policy and the public interest’, he said.

Treasury was an institution of extraordinary power and influence in the 1960s and 1970s, carrying sole responsibility for all Australia’s foreign borrowing, overseeing the exchange rate and taking charge of the budget, which was the main instrument of economic policy. Monetary policy and central banking were much less important in those days.

Through the 1970s, there were big debates within Treasury about the place of government spending, the role of money supply, the regulation of financial markets and the cost of Australia’s wall of tariff protection. The department’s culture was to foster robust debates internally but present a united face to the outside world.

Treasury was appalled by what it saw as the spendthrift ways of Gough Whitlam’s government. Whitlam blamed Moore and Stone for what he believed was Treasury obstruction. Treasury also found itself at loggerheads with the subsequent government of Malcolm Fraser. Moore was at the centre of debates between Treasury and Fraser over devaluing the currency.

As Treasury deputy secretary through the early 1980s, Moore was involved in implementing the early reforms during Paul Keating’s time as treasurer, but he left the department in 1987, concerned the government’s economic settings were too expansionary. Stone left in 1984, replaced as secretary by Bernie Fraser.

Moore then threw himself into the realm of public policy, heading the economic policy unit at the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs, and then establishing a one-person think tank, the Institute for Private Enterprise, with a newsletter presenting the case for smaller government, lower taxes and deregulation of the economy.

He was active in the H.R. Nicholls Society lobbying for industrial relations deregulation and was also involved in the formation of ASPI.

Over the past decade, the climate change debate became a passion, as he argued there was not the statistical evidence to support the thesis of human-induced global warming.

Moore was a keen supporter of the arts, reflecting the engagements of his wife, Felicity. They could always be found close to the front row of the Australian concerts given by their daughter, Lisa, who is a renowned US-based performer of contemporary piano. He also leaves behind two sons.

In memoriam: Sir Michael Howard

On 30 November 2019, with the death of Sir Michael Howard, we in the strategic studies community lost one of our outstanding leaders of the 20th century. Born into a well-connected stratum of British society in 1922, he had, as he readily admitted, a very fortunate life. He was educated at Wellington College and in 1940 won admission to one of Oxford’s more elite colleges, Christ Church, to read modern history.

In 1942 he volunteered for war service and was accepted into a distinguished infantry regiment, the Coldstream Guards. As a platoon commander he showed outstanding courage and leadership, winning a Military Cross for bravery in the Italian campaign when he led his platoon into an attack on a strongly held German position.

This period of service at the cutting edge of battle gave him a wonderful basis of knowledge of what soldiers could and could not do when bearing the stresses of war. As a result of this experience he had a much better eye than many of his contemporary colleagues in academia and journalism for judging the performance of armies, the people who serve in them and the people who command them.

After the war he returned to Oxford to complete his degree in history. He was then well placed to join with another Coldstreamer, John Sparrow, who later attained a high post at Oxford as head of All Souls College. They worked together on writing the history of the Coldstream Guards in World War II, published in 1951.

With this book behind him, Howard was able to gain a series of posts in history at King’s College London, where he developed support for the foundation of a separate war studies department. This initiative required boldness and a willingness to withstand attacks when he was at an early, and vulnerable, stage of his career. He proved himself equal to these challenges, partly because he knew from his war experience what it was like to weather storms, and partly because he was adept at finding well-placed and capable allies to give him the essential support on key committees and in gathering a resource base, especially the necessary funding. He won the day and founded what has become one of the most prominent departments of King’s College, and a leading centre of teaching and research on the global scene.

In parallel with his development of the Department of War Studies, Howard joined with several others to establish Britain’s first ‘international think tank’ in his field, the Institute for Strategic Studies, later the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Within a decade, it had achieved recognition worldwide as one of the leading bodies in the field of security policy analysis. For many years Howard was a council member of the institute, ultimately becoming its president.

In 1961 he published his celebrated history of the Franco-Prussian War, in which he was able to demonstrate brilliantly his depth and breadth of knowledge of recognisably modern warfare in all its political, social and military dimensions. From that achievement he was able to move on into studies of the broader aspects of warfare for which he received much acclaim and many awards. Works with his name on them all had a special ring of quality.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s Howard developed a close working relationship with Captain Basil Liddell Hart, who for most of the 1930s and 1940s had been one of Britain’s leading journalists and military historians. I came to know them both in 1964 when I was a doctoral student at Oxford and benefited greatly from their mentoring. Liddell Hart was of assistance to Howard in developing the Department of War Studies, and passed on his personal library and vast collection of papers to become the foundation of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King’s. This centre is now one of the largest publicly accessible databases on British and related defence policy, worldwide.

In 1968 Howard’s life as an institution builder took a different turn when he was appointed to a special fellowship in higher defence studies at All Souls College. This position enabled him to concentrate his energies more on historical research, and he produced several notable books, ranging from a volume in the Grand strategy series of the official History of the Second World War, published in 1971, to his joint translation (with Peter Paret) of Carl von Clausewitz’s On war in 1976. Both translators received worldwide acclaim for this work at a time when, during the Vietnam War, strategy seemed to be defective in key places in the West.

In 1977 Howard succeeded Norman Gibbs as the Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford before being chosen to be the Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1980. In 1989 he moved to Yale University as the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, finally retiring formally in 1993.

While Howard modestly attributed much of his success to luck, there can be no doubt that he was a star. His lectures were consistently brilliant, penetrating and stimulating and often very amusing. He wrote with great clarity, force and elegance. One could differ with his views, but there was no doubt as to where he stood on major issues. He never wasted listeners’ or readers’ time. He left a huge mark on the fields of strategic studies and the history of war. There are hundreds of active thinkers and writers on these subjects today who would not have attained their influence without his example and mentorship.