‘Global strategic focus has shifted to the Indo-Pacific. How the region handles the next few years will determine if it becomes the cradle of crises or solutions.’ — Cleo Paskal, Indo-Pacific strategies, perceptions and partnerships, …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
It’s 1988 and Australia has only a handful of women ambassadors, with just four women serving as heads of mission. Making a program on the emerging feminine side of Oz diplomacy 33 years ago, 60 …
‘We strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion.’ — Quad leaders’ joint statement, ‘The spirit of the Quad’, 13 March 2021 The leaders’ meeting of …
The pandemic has geopolitical and geoeconomics equivalents. Disruption all around, amid the end of the old global order. The central truths that set the topography of Australian grand strategy in Asia—the four compass points—haven’t fallen, …
The term ‘grand strategy’ is usually too grandiose for the practical types who run Canberra. Australia does baling-wire diplomacy—pragmatic and proudly makeshift—fixing stuff with a bit of wire and keeping it going. Big powers do …
‘Australia’s strategic environment has deteriorated more rapidly than anticipated … Our region is in the midst of the most consequential strategic realignment since the Second World War … The Indo-Pacific is at the centre of …
‘Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange) Ch-ch-changes Don’t want to be a richer man Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (Turn and face the strange) Ch-ch-changes There’s gonna have to be a different man Time may change me But I …
An impeached president departs Washington in disgrace. The peace deal in America’s longest war crumbles and defeat looms. US politics is polarised. A nation, both angry and agitated, grapples with racial and social divisions. The …
‘We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community. And worse still, an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy. Globalism must facilitate, align and …
Australia gives security guarantees to two nations that have land borders with Indonesia—Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. The word ‘guarantee’ rightly makes Oz politicians, diplomats and lawyers cautious, even nervous: never say forever, never say …
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 …
In the Covid era of gloom, doom and Zoom, Australia’s prime minister went to summit meetings while doing 14 days quarantine. And the lockdown PM fronted the cameras with board shorts and thongs just out …