Word: national
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...polls, he has an enormous lead over Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of the opposition Liberal Party - is at first sight surprising. After more than 17 years of sustained growth, Australia is flirting with recession; the economy grew just 0.4% in the first three months of 2009. And for a nation that often measures a leader by whether he's the kind of bloke with whom you'd want to have a beer, Rudd comes across as more buttoned-up than many of his predecessors. Talking to TIME, he dropped in a casual reference to Burke (that would be Edmund...
...there's his government's defense white paper, released in May. The 140-page document outlines Australia's military aims for the next two decades and specifically mentions China's ascendancy as a reason for an arms buildup. In all, $72 billion will be dedicated to bulking up the nation's armed forces, doubling the submarine fleet and adding up to 100 joint-strike fighter jets to its air force...
...makes you wonder: can a nation really welcome being economically yoked to China if it also sees Beijing's ambitions as a threat? In a recent speech on Australian foreign policy, Turnbull questioned whether it was possible to satisfy both of the Pacific's superpowers. "The risk of representing oneself as some kind of trans-Pacific interlocutor," he said, "is that one will be perceived by the Americans as overly sympathetic to China and by the Chinese as a bearer of other people's missions, rather than an advocate...
...rubs his eyes, then launches into a defense of international activism. "You can sit around quietly on the global diplomatic circuit and get nowhere," he says, "or you can ball up a few ideas, some of which have some prospects." It's not a bad blueprint for any nation navigating a place in this globalized world. Makes you wonder whether Australia couldn't export that having-a-go spirit along with its iron ore, coal and gas. The world might be better...
What each nation most wants from the other is plain enough. The U.S. would like Russia to endorse and enforce tougher action to combat the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea and to quit bullying democratic neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia. Russia would like the U.S. to recognize that it has its own sphere of influence in the "near abroad" - the territory of the old Soviet Union - and halt NATO's expansion to the east. More generally, Moscow would like some respect. "The Russians want to belong. They want to feel big," says Finland's Foreign Minister, Alexander Stubb...