Archive: Arena Quarterly

One More Turn of the Revolving Door

Arena Quarterly no.26

Michelle Fahy

Jun 2026

What wasn’t explained, or even mentioned, was how Defence intends to ensure Lockheed’s adherence to its undertakings.

The Unraveling of US Power

Arena Quarterly no.26

John Hinkson

Jun 2026

What is distinctive about this world disorder is the degree to which it has occurred as an oscillation between vast contending powers and the narcissism and caprice of a man elevated to the US presidency.

Responding to the Crisis of the Left

Arena Quarterly no.26

Colm Mcnaughton

Jun 2026

Through giving people a taste of what is possible we can overcome the decades of defeat and paralysis that the radical Left has suffered.

Labor’s Nuclear History

Arena Quarterly no.26

Sybilla George

Jun 2026

AUKUS may be paradigm-shifting, normalising the spread of militarised if not weaponised nuclear technologies towards the periphery of the global nuclear order.

The Pentagon Model

Arena Quarterly no.26

Clinton Fernandes

Jun 2026

Trump, like his predecessors, but now in overdrive, uses the Pentagon model of state-assisted capital formation because it facilitates US global military presence…

In the Shadow of a Desert Tower

Arena Quarterly no.25

Guy Rundle, Arena Publications Editors

Apr 2026

The new system of death that is rapidly being assembled is an expression of what one might call the master process of human ‘civilisation’ at its most concrete and abstract levels: a tendency to take for granted the given frameworks of social life while abstracting from what it has meant to be human.

The Bots Are Not What They Seem: On Superintelligence

Arena Quarterly no.25

Timothy Erik Ström

Apr 2026

There seems to be a growing consensus among AI experts that if a ‘superintelligent’ machine were made, it would initiate a feedback loop by reprogramming itself in ways beyond human comprehension. If this proves possible, what happens when the means of abstraction are automated into posthuman territory?

The Safety Club

Arena Quarterly no.25

Guy Rundle

Apr 2026

From such a reflection comes the only possibility for a critical Left, which is a pluralism: tolerating the most vociferously argued attacks of one’s foes, without seeking the agency of the state to discipline or control them.

Three Days in the City of Toys

Arena Quarterly no.25

Gerry Simpson

Apr 2026

‘What Europe can’t forgive Hitler is not the crime in itself, the crime against man, it is the fact that he applied European colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for Africa.’

The Disenchanted Games

Arena Quarterly no.25

Scott Robinson

Apr 2026

The flaws of sports with no drug-testing are clear to many. What are its advocates missing? What is the meaning of sport for us?

Liberation, Not Uberisation

Arena Quarterly no.25

Belinda Robson

Apr 2026

Beyond Blue include in their submissions many economic and social drivers of mental ill health. Cooper has cherry-picked the submissions to the Productivity Commission that, naturally, focus on mental health and productivity.

Birds of Paradise Lost and Found and Lost Again and So On

Arena Quarterly no.25

Ali Schnabel

Apr 2026

This is what I mean by Birdwatching: the ecstatic joy of looking and seeing is only available if you go in with a sense of openness. You cannot go on an excursion desiring to see a particular kind of bird, even if you know that they are nesting in that place right now, even if they were registered on BirdLife just yesterday...you have immediately sucked the life and possibility out of the thing by focusing…