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 …
Articles by: "Rod Lyon"
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, …
North Korea’s ballistic missile tests are indeed a roller-coaster ride. After a string of failures in its recent ballistic missile testing program, with some missiles failing almost immediately after launch, last Sunday it conducted what …
In his recent public address at ASPI (excerpted here on The Strategist), Senator Nick Xenophon argued for parliament to play a greater role in the authorisation of military action. His argument turned, in part, upon …
Imagine that you’re on a quest. You’ve journeyed, wearily, for decades. The bones of your dead horses describe a winding trail in the wilderness behind you. You come at last to a cross-roads, from which …
Despite last week’s cruise missile attack in Syria, the outlook for the strategic policy of the Trump administration is still deeply uncertain. After all, one missile strike doesn’t make a strategic policy. And US declaratory …
International relations sometimes turn on points of deep uncertainty. One of the hottest current debates concerns the capabilities of the AN/TPY-2 radar associated with the THAAD system being deployed in South Korea. The question of …
Finding a solution to North Korea’s accelerating nuclear and missile programs grows more urgent by the day. Our previous strategies—delay and denial—will no longer avail us. But the three standard options—diplomacy, sanctions or use of …
These days, when Australians turn to thinking about worrying nuclear weapons issues, they tend to look first to the alarming pace of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, second to the growing role of nuclear …
In a recent podcast for Foreign Policy, editor David Rothkopf interviewed Thomas Friedman about his latest book—essentially an argument for why, in 2017, we should feel optimistic about the future. Friedman’s core argument is that …
Originally published 7 July 2016. Recent tumultuous political events—including Australia’s election—seem likely to produce a troubling set of strategic consequences. Some of those consequences will be reflected in the strategic policies of key individual Western …
US allies around the globe have begun to contemplate a future in which America plays a more restrained role. Here in Australia, we’re acutely conscious of the recent surge of interest in the future of …