The most important point to make about the government’s proposed Home Affairs portfolio is that these new arrangements can be made to work. They will not harm our counterterrorism performance and could improve Australia’s underwhelming …
Articles by: "Peter Jennings"
I’ll defend to the death John McCarthy’s right, facilitated by The Strategist, to uphold the dignity of the Prime Minister in the face of insults from the American President. There’s no excuse for bad, belittling …
It’s often been claimed that terrorism doesn’t present an existential threat to the survival of the nation-state. Former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, took this view, which he claimed helped to keep …
The time has come for Australia and Japan to make an ambitious step-change in our cooperation. We have the potential to act as a centre of strategic and democratic stability in the Asia-Pacific. The region …
At ASPI’s recent State of the Region Masterclass (PDF) I detailed some “alternate futures” for the Trump administration. In truth no-one, not even Trump himself, can be sure how his presidency will evolve. The future …
It takes two people to make a phone call, but when it’s between Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull, the call doesn’t happen by accident. Usually when world leaders speak together, it’s only after advisers and …
Recent reporting in News Limited papers suggests that the government is considering reorganising several domestic security agencies into a super department like the UK Home Office. The aim would be to ‘bring together the AFP, …
In a week where we’ve looked back at ASPI’s first 15 years it may be useful to contemplate what the next 15 years might look like for the Institute. Will ASPI survive to 2031? Will …
The ruling delivered overnight by the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea under the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague is one that will deeply discomfort Beijing. Since the Philippines put its …
Imagine that Australia released a Defence White Paper that refused even in the most veiled terms to discuss China’s destabilising policies in the South China Sea, which didn’t mention Indonesia or Papua New Guinea, and …
This piece is drawn from Agenda for Change 2016: strategic choices for the next government. In the August 2013 version of Agenda for Change, I suggested four big reforms for the incoming government: Develop a …
Paul Dibb The former Secretary of Defence, Tony Ayers, who died last week aged 82, was truly the last of the Mandarins in Canberra. He served as a permanent head of five departments for almost …