Originally published 11 September 2015. Picked by Patrick Walters and Natalie Sambhi. ‘Things are seldom what they seem’—so wrote the librettist W.S. Gilbert in HMS Pinafore. The current refugee crisis in Europe looks like a …
Articles by: "Allan Behm"
The refugee crisis currently confronting Europe is the harbinger of things to come. An unpredictable cocktail of prolonged drought and civil war in Syria has generated over six million internally displaced people, with another four …
It’s puzzling that mixed messages appear to be the new preferred means of signaling our strategic intent. And it’s even more puzzling that the Australian government, grappling with the delivery of a new Defence White …
Seemingly random events can cause surprising discontinuities. Strategists commonly monitor bellicose national leaders, military arm-wrestling and armed provocation as the harbingers of strategic discontinuity. But, as Philip Bobbitt demonstrates so cogently in his Shield of …
‘Things are seldom what they seem’—so wrote the librettist W.S. Gilbert in HMS Pinafore. The current refugee crisis in Europe looks like a humanitarian tragedy on a large scale, the biggest in Europe since WWII. …
Surprise, surprise! The US has asked Australia to bomb ISIS targets in Syria. The Australian government is to give this request deep reflection and consideration, and will respond in a couple of weeks. And surprise, …
The plethora of commentary on parliamentarians’ entitlements has pointed to systemic failure (a lack of clear guidance and rules) as a more fundamental cause of the problem than simple venality and carelessness on the part …
The recent ANU–CSIS paper The ANZUS Alliance in an Ascending Asia is a welcome addition to contemporary thinking on the Australia–US alliance and its prospects over the next couple of decades as China looms ever …
The secret of success is constancy to purpose—at least that was Disraeli’s view. It is a pity that recent prime ministers and foreign ministers, Liberal and Labor alike, have failed to see ‘constancy to purpose’ …
The unfolding humanitarian and political disaster in Iraq and Syria is ultimately a consequence of confusion, impetuosity, a preoccupation with tactical issues at the expense of strategic ones, and an ignorance of the political, communal, …
This post has been adapted from a recent ASPI panel discussion ‘Australia and Indonesia: getting back on track’. The full video of the event is available here. Notwithstanding the evident abilities of our foreign service officers—and …
Sir James Plimsoll was a strategist. While his illustrious foreign service career might suggest that he was more an implementer than a crafter of policy, those of us who were privileged to see him at …