Standing strong year after year, from sunrise to sunrise, silent sentinels unmoved by summer's raging typhoons and winter's crashing ice floes.

Not sure what to think of tetrapods? Not even sure what they are? Well, fear not, you're probably in the majority.

But what you don't know may surprise you.

Among those who do know and care, tetrapods inspire passionate and widely divergent opinions.

“How we defend our sovereignty, our citizens and our interests – and our success in doing so – shapes the future of our nation.”

The opening words of Brendan Nelson's Preface to the 2007 Defence Update are the most accurate of all those in this seriously flawed document - though quite likely not as Nelson had in mind when he wrote them. The Defence Update 2007 comes after a decade of constant and still unfinished increases in defence spending, a tripling of domestic security spending, huge weapons systems orders, Australian defence Forces deployments from Lebanon to the Solomon Islands, three large and extremely demanding deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor, and world politics turning on the hinge of a massive strategic miscalculation by Australia's closest ally. The Defence Update is a deeply flawed policy document, shaped by double standards and selective learning, shortsightedness and botched use of realism, the aggressive demands of alliance maintenance, and an almost complete failure to consider the real and salient threats to Australian security - both the state- and human- versions – of global problems such as climate change, health and poverty.

Mount Paekdu (Korean), meaning “White-Topped Mountain”, or Changbai (Chinese), meaning “Forever White Mountain” straddles the border between North Korea and China. It has long flared as a hot spot in claiming national history, identity and territory involving China, Korea and earlier kingdoms in the region. It has also emerged as a source of contention between China and the two Koreas, North and South. China has recently moved aggressively to develop the Changbai area in Jilin Province on the Chinese side of the border. Plans include economic and infrastructural development including the Mt. Changbai Airport and the Mt. Changbai Eastern Railroad, both under construction. The railroad is a key to linking China's largest nature preserve to Changchun and to the promotion of domestic and international tourism. China has also filed a claim to make the mountain a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is even momentum behind a Chinese proposal to hold the Winter Olympic Games there in 2018. In addition, Chinese actions like the torch-lighting ceremony for the 2007 Asian Winter Games atop Mt. Changbai, the naming of schools after the mountain, and military operations in the area have exacerbated tensions between China and the two Koreas. The Asia Winter Games' official song includes a paean to Changbai. The pressroom for the Games at Changchun in February 2007 provided pamphlets on Changbai Mount. All these activities lay foundations for claims that the landmark is Chinese.

For many years Umebayashi Hiromichi from Peace Depot in Yokohama has been prominent in both the use of the US Freedom of Information Act as a research tool and the analysis of United States and Japanese missile defence policy and operations in East Asia. In 2006 Umebayashi published a major study of US naval operations testing capacity to detect and track North Korean missile launches in the Sea of Japan. That research was based on a careful scrutiny of US Navy ship decklogs and command histories, available at the US Naval History Center in Washington.