At his speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday and in an article in the Australian Financial Review in September, former prime minister Paul Keating gave the strong impression of being a sleepwalker who …
Articles by: "Paul Dibb"
It’s taken many decades for Australia to come to terms with American expectations that we should be able to defend ourselves, short of nuclear war or a conventional attack by a major power. Those expectations …
In the face of an increasing torrent of abuse from Beijing, Canberra should seek a much clearer commitment from Washington that its United States ally will retaliate if China launches a missile attack against Australia. …
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a landmark speech on 23 July titled ‘Communist China and the free world’s future’ in which he made it plain that China was now America’s main national security …
Since the announcement last week by Prime Minister Scott Morrison of a radical shift in Australia’s defence policy, the question arises whether this marks a return to the defence of Australia doctrine that became official …
Russia has published an official executive order (ukaz) titled ‘Basic principles of state policy of the Russian Federation on nuclear deterrence’. It entered into force on 2 June when it was signed by President Vladimir …
The coronavirus pandemic will affect the power of countries in different ways. The biggest impact will be reductions in the economic, and therefore military, strength and relative power of competing major states. The American historian …
Two important military developments recently should give China pause for thought. The first one is the announcement by Prime Minister Scott Morrison of a $1.1 billion upgrade to the Royal Australian Air Force base at …
We are in an era when the risks of major-power conflict are growing. The most likely contenders are commonly seen to be China, the rising power, and the US, the formerly dominant power that’s now …
Australia’s international security outlook is starting to look very unpredictable and potentially threatening. Our defence planners must now deal with a world which is markedly different from any they’ve known before. The United States is …
The idea of the north of Australia being central to the new concept of the defence of Australia in the 1970s derived from the key strategic fact that the only country in the region with …
At a time when the two revisionist powers, China and Russia, are of rising geopolitical concern, the West seems to be in some sort of a crisis. In the United States and Europe there’s a …