Some confusion has emerged (see here and here, for example) over strategic strike, where a threat to an adversary’s key war-making assets produces a deterrent effect, and tactical strike, where an effect is sought on …
Articles by: "Mike Scrafton"
The important institutions of constitutional democracy and international law have recently suffered serious damage. The long-term prospects for peace and stability have been undercut as a result. The US Senate’s failure to fulfil its constitutional …
The future international environment is now coming into focus. It doesn’t look promising. Government approaches to defence and human security will need to undergo a radical reassessment if they are to ameliorate the adverse effects. …
Witnesses appearing before the US House of Representatives’ impeachment hearings have regularly connected Russian aggression in Ukraine with US national security. The overwhelming international consensus is that Russia’s annexation of Crimea and involvement in hostilities …
Until China’s emergence as a genuine military great power, conventional military threats to Australia were considered remote, yet there had to be some rationale for developing strategic policy. In practice, the Australian Defence Force prepared …
The impeachment process instigated by the US House of Representatives has the potential to produce significant international consequences. As the administration’s attentions and energies are absorbed by the process, there’s a real danger that the …
In How to defend Australia, Hugh White refers to the ‘deepest national objectives: security, prosperity and identity’, observing that states seem ‘willing to risk war to pursue these objectives, even at potentially appalling cost’. Security, …
The strategic risks for Australia are large in a post-CCP China. China’s domestic regime operates in ways that are repugnant to Western conceptions of democratic and human rights, and the Chinese Communist Party employs power …
Much is made of values in the rhetoric of Australia’s foreign and defence policies and in particular the consonance between Australian and American values as underpinning the ANZUS alliance. Presumably these values include racial equality; …
President Donald Trump’s position on the value of the US’s alliances predated his inauguration. Recently, Uri Friedman drew attention to Trump’s consistency on this issue. Australia’s newly re-elected Coalition government might find itself at a …
The geopolitical aspects of David Goodhart’s The road to somewhere have been raised by Paul Dibb. The changes taking place in domestic politics and societal norms in Europe and the US are likely to be …
Enough time has passed for the presumptions about the international environment, the strategic logic and the national objectives of the 2016 defence white paper (DWP 2016) to be assessed. This record of Australia’s strategic policy …