Indian legislators woke up in the new year to two realisations. First, the annual winter session of parliament, from which they should just have been emerging, had not taken place at all. And, second, New …
If you need cutting-edge skills and technology—high-tech gears for satellite systems, top-level secure communication systems or a deep knowledge of artificial intelligence and machine learning—you can find them in Australia. ‘What this country has is …
Is President-elect Joe Biden’s administration set to go soft on China? That seems to be the view of officials in outgoing President Donald Trump’s administration, who in recent days and weeks have been implementing a …
Wildlife criminologists celebrated a rare success in December. A global interagency investigation resulted in money-laundering charges being brought against a Chinese man who allegedly ran a US$2.2 million international illegal trade in endangered turtles from …
Cabinet created the Australian Strategic Policy Institute as a small body with a big brain—and, most importantly, a strongly independent voice. Creation stories tell much. And the release of the cabinet records for 2000 by …
This morning, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds announced that the replacement for the much-troubled ‘Aussie Tiger’ armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) would be the Boeing AH-64E Apache Guardian. Australia will acquire 29 of the advanced Apaches from …
The United Nations ‘was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell’, the UN’s first secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjöld, once said. The hell he had in mind, of course, was World …
Of the many parting shots that US President Donald Trump’s administration has fired, few can have summed up its characteristics better than its reported offer to increase its development financing to Indonesia by billions of …
Uganda is heading to the polls today, after a heated campaign between the East African nation’s president, Yoweri Museveni (aged 76), and opposition frontrunner Robert Kyagulanyi (38), known more commonly by his stage name, Bobi …
On 9 January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rescinded a range of restrictions on US government interaction with the government of Taiwan. These restrictions had been in place, with periodic revisions, since the US …
Analysts are expecting China’s economic output in the first three months of 2021 to be 15% to 18% higher than in the same period in 2020 when the coronavirus struck, highlighting the enormous power and …
Australia’s strategic outlook in 2021 holds both an unhappy certainty and a deep anxiety. The unhappy certainty is that China’s intent to punish us for failing to bow to its domination will continue and probably …
The attack on the US Capitol on 6 January has been interpreted in multiple ways. The most common interpretation asserts that President Donald Trump’s narcissistic obsessions and highly inflammatory rhetoric were responsible for the sordid …
Covid-19 has offered some tough but useful lessons about governance. Many wealthy countries didn’t manage the crisis as well as anticipated, whereas many poorer, more populous and vulnerable countries exceeded expectations. The difference raises important …
The US government has just declassified one of its most sensitive national security documents—its 2018 strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was formally classified SECRET and not for release to foreign nationals. The full text, …
The diplomatic and economic blockade of Qatar led by fellow Arab state Saudi Arabia is over after more than three and a half of years of acrimonious exchanges. It has occurred at Riyadh’s initiative, with …
Critics of nuclear weapons have long pointed to two sets of risks. First, deterrence stability depends on all fail-safe mechanisms working every single time in every bomb-possessing country. That is an impossibly high bar for …
We can finally state with confidence that US President Donald Trump will leave the White House, however reluctantly, on 20 January. As his four years in office come to an end, it’s not too soon …
Australia’s star in the global space firmament is rising steadily. The Australian government signed the Artemis Accords in October, one of eight nations to commit to the agreement setting out principles for cooperation in civil exploration …
The Chinese government’s newly launched antitrust probe into Alibaba is probably warranted. The e-commerce giant undoubtedly has a dominant market share and engages in monopolistic practices, such as forcing merchants to make the company their …