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ASPI’s official blog, The Strategist, has been providing fresh ideas and considered analysis of Australia’s strategy and defence issues since July last year. To help us keep bringing you the best quality analysis, please take …

Transnational crime: a mammoth problem

A couple of weeks ago my colleague Toby Feakin, wrote on The Strategist about the recently released United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s assessment on Transnational Organized Crime in East Asia and the Pacific, …

HADR: in search of low-cost innovative solutions

In financially-constrained times we need to think of innovative ways to promote useful but low-cost security cooperation in our region. Developing Australia’s capacity to provide emergency food relief would enhance our international reputation and support …

All at sea

There was a time back in the 1990s when the Defence Annual Report listed not just the availability of the Navy’s various platforms for deployment, but also the actual number of days at sea for …

Myanmar’s Rohingya exodus

Early last month, 80 Muslim Rohingya from Rakhine state were detained by local police on an island off Sumatra as they made their way to Malaysia. On the previous day in East Java, Rohingya were …

In for the krill

Guest editor Anthony Bergin The Southern Ocean contains the largest underexploited fishery in the world – the krill fishery. While little known, this might become a source of conflict between conservationists and the fishing industry, …

ANZUS and the new Defence White Paper

Last Friday’s Defence White Paper (DWP) rightly drew a lot of praise from (most) of the analytical community and the media. Many commentators, including myself, welcomed the more cautious tone regarding China’s military rise and …

The Defence White Paper’s vague hope

The Defence White Paper gives an excellent description of the Asia Pacific but is calm about its dangers. It is heartening on the ADF’s capacity to defend the nation and its near neighbourhood and rightly …