Occasionally Australian strategic defence policy has moments of enlightenment when it breaks free from the evasions, platitudes and niceties of normal diplomatic discourse. Such a moment occurred last week when Prime Minister Scott Morrison released …
Hugh White sees the US–Australia military alliance weakening, possibly disappearing, as China’s rise undermines US hegemony in East Asia and as US relative power wanes. ‘We will really be on our own’, he observes in …
Managing relations with China is the most challenging foreign and security policy problem facing Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his re-elected government. It will demand a rigorous whole-of-government response coordinated by the prime minister’s department …
‘Friends with both; allies with one.’ Thus the Richardson doctrine seeks to define Australia’s most appropriate relationship with the United States and China. We can be sure that Dennis Richardson, one of Australia’s great public …
Australia’s decision to spend $50 billion on 12 French diesel-electric Shortfin Barracuda submarines reflects a long-established government preference for non-nuclear submarine forces. But will this preference remain strategically credible in future years if our strategic …
The prospect of huge financial and currency collapses inevitably dominated initial concerns over Britain’s decision to leave the EU. But greater stability now seems likely as world markets adjust to the changed circumstances. More worrying …
Momentous global and domestic events between 1963 and 1975 revealed the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be deeply flawed as it struggled, often in vain, to combat subversion in a changing world. John Blaxland’s second …
As final touches are applied to Australia’s new Defence White Paper, policymakers are being urged to ‘embrace’ ambiguity in international security policy. An elegant and deeply thoughtful paper by Singapore ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan (PDF) suggests …
The human, economic and political consequences of going to war are familiar and terrible. Hardly less onerous, but much less familiar, are the problems of restoring a nation when the guns fall silent. How to …
In my first post yesterday I set out the case for a radical reappraisal of our alliance with Washington. My argument doesn’t reflect a neutralist or anti-American disposition. Rather it’s an attempt to advocate a …
For 64 years the ANZUS alliance has been the holy grail of Australian national security policy—the alliance on which Australia relies in the event of an armed attack which it can’t repel alone. But there …
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have provided manna from heaven for the army of journalists and editors besotted by spy stories. Sensational disclosures of government secrets and spying activities are splashed all over the media …
