President Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly has attracted considerable media attention—though mostly for his comments about North Korea and Iran. But I’d urge readers to examine the full text. That’s not because …
Articles by: "Rod Lyon"
North Korea’s sixth nuclear test is easily its most impressive. The fifth—in September last year—involved the detonation of a device similar in yield to the bomb the Americans dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The latest …
In recent days, Wilton Park—the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s discussion forum—released a report (PDF) on its June workshop on nuclear deterrence and assurance. The report’s not overly long, but bears a close reading given …
President Trump’s excitable rhetoric about US military options in relation to North Korea—‘fire and fury’, ‘locked and loaded’—has attracted considerable media attention in recent days. But look behind the rhetoric. Allied decision-makers are starting to …
As some readers will probably recognise, the title of this post is a phrase drawn from Herman Kahn’s On thermonuclear war, one of the more depressing texts of the 20th century. Kahn, writing in 1960 …
In the broader debate over the nuclear ban treaty and whether it’s a good or bad thing, there are a couple of ‘wrinkles’ that merit attention. Those wrinkles concern current US extended nuclear deterrence arrangements, …
Too often, current tensions in Northeast Asia are seen through one of two dominant lenses: either the growing strategic competition between China and the US—‘destined for war’?—or the sharper and more immediate concerns posed by …
We wrote an ASPI report on ballistic missile defence (BMD) back in 2014. We set out to assess whether the time was right for Australia to make a bigger investment in BMD than the ‘watching …
North Korea’s latest provocation—a successful test of an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM)—brings the long-building crisis on the Korean peninsula to a dangerous flashpoint. For one thing, it’s clear evidence that North Korea aspires not merely …
In New York, negotiations towards a nuclear weapons ban treaty—involving approximately 130 countries plus sundry civil society groups—are drawing rapidly to a close. A second draft (PDF) of the text is already under discussion. In …
Prime Minister Turnbull’s keynote address to the recent Shangri-La Dialogue turned upon one critical question: what kind of peace does Australia hope to see in the 21st century Indo-Pacific? That’s not a small question. Turnbull’s …
Recent media reports suggest senior US officials have told Julie Bishop that if North Korea’s nuclear weapon program can’t be reversed, South Korea and Japan will likely pursue their own indigenous nuclear arsenals. In fact, …