Dancing alone. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: Alan Ryan (October 2001) has written a welcome rejoinder to my "Twelve Questions for Paul Dibb" (April 2001). He remarks that my own essay "represented a fairly rapid turn-around for the beginning of a debate about Australia's strategic direction", given that such "exchanges" generally wither and die. He goes on to remark that "Unfortunately" my essay was "more of an invitation to dance than a dance itself", since I had provided few of my own answers. Both observations merit a response.

It is certainly striking that my own essay should be seen as a "fairly rapid turn-around for the beginning of a debate", given that it came out ten months after Dibb's essay. I had expected other responses to his reflections and finally wrote my own lest the chance for a debate "wither and die". In order that there might be a debate, rather than a mere airing of divergent opinions, I put twelve questions to Dibb. It was my belief that a close intellectual engagement would be more likely to yield useful insights than would the usual "academic stoush", to borrow another of Dr Ryan's phrases.

For this reason, my twelve questions were very much "an invitation to dance rather than a dance" in themselves. As the old saying has it, however, it takes two to tango--or waltz or quickstep. Alas, Dibb has not taken up the invitation to a dance. I had ...