Early on 2 September 2015, 16 Syrian refugees on a remote Turkish beach hopped onto a small boat built for eight passengers. Each had paid a people smuggler around US$6,000 for passage from Turkey to …
Articles by: "John Coyne"
The 23rd ASEAN Transport Ministers meeting on 12 October ended on a high note with the signing of an agreement on cross-border transport of passengers by road vehicles. The pact makes it easier to facilitate …
Earlier this week, the minister for justice, Michael Keenan, formally released the Commonwealth Law Enforcement International Engagement Methamphetamine Disruption Strategy. The Australian Federal Police (AFP)–led strategy is meant to provide ‘the framework for the Australian …
I’d like to thank Rolando Ochoa for his response to, and overarching support for, my recent research report on Mexican organised crime (MOC) in Australia and the ASEAN region. Before responding to Ochoa’s specific comments, …
Last month in The Strategist, Mark Gilchrist put down a wager that computers will ‘be unable to provide any greater certainty than a team of well-trained and experienced analysts who understand the true difficulty of …
Last month, Kate Grayson provided us with a good descriptive analysis of the problems faced by public sector agencies that rely on the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency (AGSVA) to process applications for Top Secret …
In June, Andrew Davies produced a pair of Strategist pieces (see here and here) on the encryption challenge to security, in the process succinctly explaining why our telecommunications intercept (TI) capability is ‘going dark’. Andrew’s …
If our domestic security agencies’ past operational achievements (see, for example, here and here) are anything to go by, the success of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Home Affairs portfolio seems inevitable. Turnbull could be forgiven …
The media commentary that followed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s 18 July Home Affairs portfolio announcement (see here, here and here) almost exclusively concentrated on Australia’s counterterrorism (CT) arrangements. Despite the announcement, Australia’s continued success in …
On 2 January 2010, street gang member Hugo Hernandez was kidnapped in the state of Sonora, Mexico. Seven days later, pieces of his body were found spread across several locations in the town of Los …
The Abbott era ‘mega department’ thinking might be passé, but there are still more than a few bureaucrats and politicians advocating the creation of an Australian department of homeland security. While Peter Jennings and I …
While Australia faces complex prickly national security challenges, our Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers continue to paradoxically announce quick fix policy measures in response to terrorism and crime. From cement bollards in Sydney and …