Articles by: "Mike Scrafton"
A relaxed Russia

Russia’s likely to be pleased with the outcomes of the NATO meeting in Warsaw and will certainly not regard their strategic position as weakened. Russia will welcome signs of discord and posturing within both NATO …

The EU, trade and the breakdown of unity

Major geopolitical shifts can be unexpected, such as the once unthinkable situation of European unity crumbling. This prospect may have delighted some observers, but it’s worrying for many others. The European Union (EU) has been …

Marching in China’s boots

Imagine yourself walking down the long corridor to the briefing room of the Chinese Central Military Commission (CMC). What would it be like to be providing strategic policy advice to the Chinese government? What would …

Reader response: straddling the divide

As someone who has straddled the public servant/ministerial adviser divide I found that the first two parts of Graeme Dobell’s series on the Canberra Minder caused me to reflect on my own experience. During my …

Wars of necessity: naive militarism

Jim Molan’s polemical article in Quadrant (March 2013) (and his précis on The Strategist last week) presents a target-rich environment. Putting aside what I’ll describe as Jim’s robust style of argument, he addresses the two …

Reader response: prudence in indeterminacy

For a sovereign democratic nation, Andrew Davies’ contribution ‘The who, what, where, and why of the future submarine’ posits some alarming notions. The first relates to an assumption that irrespective of a direct threat to …