Most Australians would say that they are patriotic, proud to be Australian, and proud of their nation’s history, even for all of its shortcomings. True, self-denunciation of the nation and its history is in vogue …
In October 2017, Xi Jinping declared that the world is experiencing ‘great changes unseen in a hundred years’. He often uses this signature phrase, the century-ago events being the tumultuous ones at the end of …
In his second term, Donald Trump will be determined to pursue a foreign policy that more closely resembles how the US engaged with the world for the first 170 years of the republic: pursuing abundance …
Under a new US president, will the United States stand by Ukraine, potentially risking war with Russia? Will it stand by its NATO treaty obligations? Will it support Israel to properly defend itself, potentially risking …
In his first autobiography, My Early Life: A Roving Commission, Winston Churchill set down a timeless formula for thinking about war odds: however sure one might be of victory, there would not be a war …
Australians sees themselves as a peace-loving people. Far from distant troubles, Australia is not surrounded by enemies. Geographical isolation is seen as a source of security. Strategy and defence are not top of mind in …
One does not have to agree with those who think that AUKUS is an abomination to be similarly concerned about AUKUS cost and schedule uncertainties, and the significant trade-offs that will have to be made …
There is a common idea that is contained in many of the written constitutions that derive from British constitutional theory and practice. That is, laws and their administration are concerned with the ‘peace, order, and …
Henry Kissinger made his name in the 1950s as a scholar of ‘statesmen’, always using the masculine noun. He was especially interested in the intellectual ‘conceptions’ that guide the actions of statesmen, and how they have …
There has been much discussion recently in Australia of the expiration of ‘strategic warning time’. In the absence of significant shifts in policy, such discussion runs the risk of being performative rather than substantive. It …
CIA Director William Burns said on 2 February 2023 that the CIA knew ‘as a matter of intelligence’ that President Xi had ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to conduct an invasion of …
The problem of dealing with a belligerent communist China is the geopolitical challenge of the age. Its favourable resolution will open the door to global amity. The alternative is enduring global instability, confrontation, and the …