Pivot 2.0

As we enter US President Barack Obama’s second term, one of the key strategic questions for Australia is what happens to America’s ‘pivot’ towards the Asia–Pacific. Announced in late 2011, it signalled a renewed US …

Reader response: Reserves, force structure and need

Like so many people with very little firsthand experience of creating and using defence capability at any sophisticated level, Nic Stuart has effortlessly come up with yet another answer to the financial problems of Defence—Reserve …

ANZUS, Article 8 – has its time come?

On 5 September 1952, Richard Casey, the Minister for External Affairs, provided the Australian House of Representatives with a report on the first meeting of the ANZUS Council in Honolulu about a month earlier. The …

Schisms and backtracking in embracing Myanmar

The world should be thinking twice about lauding Myanmar’s nascent reforms. Recent air strikes directed at Kachin rebels in Shan state by the Myanmar government exacerbate one of the longest-standing civil wars in the country’s …

Force Structure 102: getting the balance right?

The next White Paper’s conclusions on the overall force balance will be closely studied. While whether current or future wars receive priority and the numbers of wars to be fought concurrently might be big strategic …

ASPI suggests

Happy 2013 to all our Strategist readers! Welcome back for another round of new articles and links in the security, strategy and defence world. Mali Mali is heating up with the deployment of French troops …

AUKMIN: awkward Anglos

Later this month Perth will host the fifth meeting of AUKMIN, the annual gathering of Foreign and Defence ministers from Australia and the United Kingdom. It will be a curious gathering, overshadowed by a doubt …