ALBO JUST WANTS ‘PEACE FOR OUR TIME’ … HOW SWEET !

By Cliff Reece

“Peace for our time” are the infamous words of former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

On September 30, 1938, Chamberlain received a warm welcome from a cheering crowd when he returned to London after negotiations in Munich with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain had just left a summit where he and the Prime Minister of France, Edouard Daladier, agreed to Hitler’s demands for Czechoslovakia to cede a portion of its territory known as the Sudetenland to Germany. In return, Hitler assured the Western Allies that he had no further territorial ambitions.

Standing on the airport tarmac, the prime minister read from a statement he and the German Führer signed that morning, pledging that their new agreement was “symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”

Speaking later that day outside the Prime Minister’s Office at 10 Downing Street in London, Chamberlain proclaimed, “I believe it is peace for our time” (see photo below).

Well, we all know how that ended !

At the time and in the years since, Chamberlain’s actions were denounced as “appeasement,” a policy of reducing tensions with one’s adversary by removing the causes of conflict and disagreement.

And we are seeing exactly that unfold now with our equally inept Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Not only is he refusing to acknowledge reality when it comes to communist China’s stated intentions to rule the Indo-Pacific region – he is also refusing to adequately defend our nation and demonstrate commitment to our allies, especially the USA.

While he aims to deepen trade relations with China, he is ignoring the far more important issue of defence & national security and our relationship with our most important ally, the USA.

The Trump administration’s undersecretary for policy, Elbridge Colby, is already leading a review into the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the USA and the UK, and increasingly pushing for firmer commitments concerning how we would act in any future conflict with China over Taiwan.

Colby, in a post on X, said: “Some among our allies might not welcome frank conversations. But many - now led by NATO after the historic Hague summit - are seeing the urgent need to step up, and are doing so.”

Pressed about those conversations in a media conference in Shanghai, Albanese said: “We support the status quo when it comes to Taiwan. We don’t support any unilateral action there.

“What’s important when it comes to international relationships is that you have a stable, orderly, coherent position going forward … we want peace and security in our region,” he said.

He ‘wants’ peace and security – but offers no practical plan on how to achieve that noble objective except to kowtow to Xi Jinping … just as Chamberlain did to Hitler!

US President Donald Trump and his defence officials have been pushing allies, including those in Europe and Asia, to increase their military spending.

Last month, NATO countries agreed to increase their spending on defence to 5% of GDP by 2035.

The Albanese government is only undertaking to lift defence spending from the current measly 2% to just 2.3% of GDP by 2033.

That is totally inadequate in terms of both financial commitment and timing, given our current level of defence capability is practically zero.

Organisations like Strategic Analysis Australia and Australian Strategic Policy Institute – together with numerous other expert bodies and individuals in this field – have been warning our government for a long time that we are inadequately defended and need URGENT additional military resources like missile systems and drones.

To make matters worse, most of the money spent on defence is being allocated to nuclear submarines that may or may not eventuate late in the 2030s when it will clearly be too late. China’s president Xi Jinping is not going to wait until we’re ready!

In fact, he has publicly instructed his military to be ready to attack Taiwan and possibly other nations - including Australia - by 2027. How much more incentive do we need before we act?

Surely, even our incompetent government, can see what this means and what is required in order to effectively manage China’s belligerence and hopefully avert war?

We know appeasement doesn’t work – only strength and courage will stop wars.

Albanese and his government lack both strength and courage – and we are the ones who will likely suffer as a result.

The old Latin adage still applies: Si vis pacem, para bellum …. if you want peace, prepare for war!

Thanks to News.com.au, The Epoch Times, and Johannes Leak for his cartoon