Australia and Fiji’s New Order

Australia’s long experience of dealing with a New Order regime in Indonesia provides only limited insights for engaging with Fiji’s New Order. The previous two columns (one and two) explored Canberra’s current headaches in trying …

Maintaining a steady path on Iran

On 22 May, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a new report on Iran’s nuclear activities. Nothing in it was particularly shocking, but like the many similar reports that preceded this one, it’s a …

The end of Suharto

This week marks 15 years since Indonesian cities erupted in violence in early May 1998. Burdened with economic hardship from the East Asian Financial Crisis and fatigued with political corruption, Indonesians took to the street …

A view from across the ditch

I’m in New Zealand at the moment, attending a public symposium on future security issues. It’s an interesting model for this sort of discussion. We have a room full—and I mean full as the forum …

Mao now

Mao Zedong is the only 20th dictator to have a resurgence of life-after-death that is largely benign. A heavy influence on the 20th century, Mao was a major force in the history of Communist ideas …

Putting the CAP into capability

Since the Defence White Paper 2013 emphasises the Defence of Australia, it’s useful to look at where we would be able to project force under the cover of our own airbases by having a standing fighter …

What’s an Australian defence industry for? Part I

The Queensland government has recently appointed a defence envoy to bolster defence industries in the state. In this it joins other states and the federal government in actively adopting defence industry sector strategies. But for …