The Voices of War

This is a repost of my conversation with John Blaxland and Qinduo Xu, originally published on 01 Nov 2021. 

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Today I spoke with John Blaxland and Qinduo Xu. John is an outspoken commentator and researcher on topics such as Australian military history and strategy, public policy, security, defence, and international relations. Qinduo Xu is a political analyst who frequently contributes to international media outlets on China’s rise and its interactions with the rest of the world. We discussed roots of the AUKUS partnership, difference in Australian and Chinese perspectives, China’s economic and military growth, COVID-19, Double standards, lack of transparency, projection of strength, culture and many other topics.

You can follow John and Qinduo on their respective Twitter accounts @JohnBlaxland1 and @xuqinduo.

I briefly mentioned an article I recently published on the state of Western democracy, grey zone warfare by authoritarian states and the dangers of social media. You can view the article here.

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Full show notes

My guests today are John Blaxland and Qinduo Xu. My audience might already be familiar with John Blaxland, who’s previously been on the show. He is a Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies and former Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

Prior to his academic pursuits, John enjoyed an extensive career as an Intelligence Officer in the Australian Army including as the principal intelligence staff officer for the Australian contingent deployed to East Timor in 1999, as the Director Joint Intelligence Operations at Headquarters Joint Operations Command and as Australia’s Defence Attaché to Thailand and Myanmar. John is an outspoken commentator and researcher on topics such as Australian military history and strategy, public policy, security, defence and international relations.

Qinduo Xu hosts Dialogue Weekend at China Global Television Network (CGTN), a talk show that offers in-depth analyses of current affairs. He also works as a producer of the TODAY show at China Radio International. As a political analyst who follows Chinese foreign policy closely, Qinduo frequently contributes to international media outlets such as The New York Times, Press TV, NPR, Turkey’s TRT, ABC, RT, and others.

Qinduo majored in both English and international studies. His focus of research has been on China’s rise and its interactions with the rest of the world. Qinduo has spent years in the US as the chief correspondent for China Radio International and one year in Australia as a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne. He is a Senior Fellow at the Pangoal Institution and an Adjunct Professor at Renmin University of China.

Some of the topics we covered are:

• Origins and impact of AUKUS from the Australian and Chinese perspective
• China’s economic and military growth
• The primacy of China and US relationship
• China’s overseas influence operations
• Why China did not accept responsibility for COVID-19
• Double standards, lack of transparency, and projection of strength
• Importance of perception, history, and culture
• Role of globalisation in deteriorating relationships
• Defusing tensions
• Chinese perspective of its role and contribution to the world
• Climate change and global challenges
• Need for increased dialogue between US, China, and other nations

This is a repost of my conversation with Michael Vatikiotis, a mediator at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and author of the excellent book ‘Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in modern Southeast Asia’. This episode was originally published on 22 Nov 2021.

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My guest today is Michael Vatikiotis who is a writer, journalist and private diplomat working in Southeast Asia (SEA) since 1987. He was formerly editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review as well as a journalist in Asia for more than three decades. He currently lives in Singapore and is the Asia Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva-based private foundation that facilitates dialogue to resolve armed conflicts.

Michael has written two novels set in Indonesia and three books on the politics of SEA, including ‘Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in modern Southeast Asia’, which we focused on today. Some of topics we covered include: ‘delusion’ of democracy in SEA; power of the elites; question of SEA identity; Western misunderstanding of SEA; China’s influence and role; reality of regional circumstances; US/China contestation; Australia and AUKUS; reality of adjustment and accommodation as well as issues plaguing traditional and social media.   

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Full show notes:

My guest today is Michael Vatikiotis who is a writer, journalist and private diplomat working in Southeast Asia since 1987. He was formerly editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review as well as a journalist in Asia for more than three decades. He currently lives in Singapore and is the Asia Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva-based private foundation that facilitates dialogue to resolve armed conflicts.

Michael has written two novels set in Indonesia and three books on the politics of Southeast Asia, including ‘Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in modern Southeast Asia’, which we’ll focus on a lot today, as well as ‘Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree’. His latest book ‘Lives Between The Lines: A Journey in Search of the Lost Levant’ was published in August this year. In addition to his books, Michael regularly writes opinion pieces for international and regional newspapers and is a regular contributor to outlets such Al Jazeera and the BBC.

Michael is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and gained his doctorate form the University of Oxford.

He joins me today to discuss social, political and cultural dynamics of Southeast Asia and the role it plays, or is likely to play, in the complex world of modern geopolitics.  Some of the topics we covered include:

• Michael’s background and journey to Southeast Asia
• Why Western idea of democracy remains a ‘delusion’ in SEA
• Power and influence of elites in SEA
• Identity in SEA
• Western misunderstanding of SEA and what makes it ‘tick’
• Chinese influence and role in SEA
• Diversity and values
• Reality of ASEAN
• US/China contestation and resulting friction in SEA
• Peculiar reality of the region’s position
• Sources of risks of conflict in SEA
• Australia’s role and impact of AUKUS
• Reality of ‘Easternisation’
• Geopolitical struggle of adjustment and accommodation
• Role of journalism and social media
• Reasons behind Michael’s hope

Repost of my chat with LTCOL Dave Grossman, originally published on 30 Aug 2021.

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Today, my guest is LTCOL Dave Grossman. He requires very little introduction, as I’m sure most of my audience will be intimately familiar with his books, most notably the one that has revolutionised the way we think and talk about combat. The book is of course ‘On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society’, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; has been translated into multiple languages; is on the US Marine Corps Commandant’s Required Reading List; and is required reading at the FBI academy and numerous other academies and colleges around the world.

He is now the director of the ‘Killology Research Group’ and is on the road almost 300 days a year, training elite military and law enforcement organisations worldwide about the reality of combat.

During our chat, we discussed a range of topics, including

• Non-firers in combat and how we made killing a conditioned response
• How anonymity can enable violence and the importance of non-verbal communication
• The logic behind the term ‘killology’
• What LTCOL Grossman means by the phrase ‘no pity party, no macho man’
• Sleep deprivation and its effects on our societies
• The issue with high doses of caffeine in energy drinks 
• The impact of sleep deprivation on ethical decision making in soldiers and first responders
• Social blind spots and how they impact our decision making
• The blind spot of creating a generation desensitised to violence and war
• How medical technology decreases murder and death rate, and thereby hides an increase in violence
• How otherwise good people come to do bad things, particularly in war
• ‘Killing enabling factors’ and how they can lead to atrocities
• ‘The virus of violent crime’ and its implications for our future
• The need to understand causes of violence, not means to carry it out
• The power and danger of information

Since I’ve barely scratched the surface of LTCOL Grossman’s extensive biography, you can find an extended version here. You can find a list of other books he has written over the years, including the two mentioned in our chat—'On Combat' and 'Assassination Generation'—here.

Repost of my chat with Gregg D. Caruso originally published on 11 Oct 2021.

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My guest today is Gregg D. Caruso, who is a Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning. He’s also Visiting Fellow at the New College of the Humanities, and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney. Gregg is also a Co-Director of the Justice Without Retribution Network housed at the University of Aberdeen School of Law.

His research focuses on free will, moral responsibility, punishment, philosophy of law, jurisprudence, social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, moral psychology, and neurolaw. He’s published numerous books, including Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (2021); Just Deserts: Debating Free Will (w/Daniel C. Dennett) (2021); Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012); Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013); Science and Religion: 5 Questions (2014) and others.

He joins me today to talk about free will, free will scepticism, moral responsibility, and our collective views on punishment. Some of the topics we covered are:

• Gregg’s journey into philosophy of free will
• Dominant positions in the free will debate
• Explaining free will scepticism
• Social determinants and their impact on outcomes
• The mythology of meritocracy and the idea of being ‘self-made’
• The illusion of the ‘self’
• Free will scepticism, justice, and geopolitics
• Impact of the situational factors, environment, and context on behaviour
• Importance of understanding causes that lead to genocide, atrocities, and crimes
• Gregg’s ‘Public Health Quarantine Model’ explained

This was a fascinating episode that will hopefully leave you with more questions than it answered. To find out more, you can visit Gregg's website here.

This is a repost of my conversation with Dr Douglas Fields, author of the excellent and important book 'Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain', originally published on 15 Nov 2021.

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Today, I spoke with Dr Douglas Fields, who is a neuroscientist and author of numerous books and articles about the brain. We discussed his excellent and important book, Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain, which focuses on the neuroscience that triggers rage and violence. It turns out, evolution has endowed every single one of us with nine neural pathways that, when activated, will lead to a violent and oftentimes involuntary and non-conscious response. During our chat, Doug explained these circuits—captured in the mnemonic LIFEMORTS—and how they relate to many important issues, including: their applicability to our interpersonal relationships; origins in threat detection; their unconscious nature and subsequent voluntary expression; impact of social media and technology; disproportionate effect of stress; power of genes and the environment; manifestations of violence in different genders; utility in peacebuilding; training of responses; role in PTSD and, perhaps most-importantly, geopolitics and war.

Several previous episodes that link to the topics we discussed include:

Role of the environment:

• Gregg D. Caruso - On the Illusion of Free Will, Myth of Meritocracy and the need to rethink our Justice Systems
• Arjan Verdooren - ‘Cultures don‘t meet, people do‘
• LTCOL Dave Grossman - On killing, combat, sleep, ‘blind spots’ and everything else in between

Geopolitics:

• John Blaxland and Qinduo Xu - On AUKUS, US/China relations and growing tensions
• Hasan Aygun - The Pragmatic Diplomat

PTSD and trauma

• Tom and Jen Satterly - The All Secure Foundation
• Steve Dennis - On getting shot, kidnapped and the court case that sent tremors through the humanitarian aid industry
• Will Yates and Joe McCleary - On Trial for War Crimes: A Soldier’s Experience
• Ashley Judd – On combat, mental health and the road to recovery

I also mentioned an article I recently published on the state of Western democracy, grey zone warfare by authoritarian states and how social media is contributing to a build-up of tension in our societies. You can view the article here.

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Full show notes:

My guest today is Dr Douglas Fields, who is a neuroscientist and author of numerous books and articles about the brain.  He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, University of Maryland adjunct professor, and Chief of the Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section at the National Institutes of Health.  He received advanced degrees at UC Berkeley, San Jose State University, UC San Diego, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and Yale University. 

He writes about science for Scientific American, Quanta, Outside Magazine, Huffington Post, Undark Magazine, Psychology Today, and similar prestigious outlets.  His neuroscience research has been featured on national television, radio, NPR, the National Geographic and others, and he speaks about neuroscience for the general public on mediums like NPR, World Science Festival, TEDex and Google Talks. 

He is the author of three books about neuroscience for the general reader, ...