Articles by: "Sofia Patel"
ASPI suggests

The world The Economist published two excellent pieces that provide the context for President Trump’s growing Iran problem. The first explores the prospect of Iranian regional hegemony and nuclear ambitions. The second examines the mess …

ASPI suggests

Welcome back to our weekly digest of current affairs. To get the difficult bit out of the way first, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation has published a diagram showing the seismic signals of the six …

ASPI suggests

Kicking off with the thematic side of things this week, different facets of identity politics are stirred up in two pieces about President Trump. First, The Economist warns that Trump’s divisive ‘us versus them’ rhetoric …

ASPI suggests

There’s been a lot going on in Australia’s near region this week, the closest of which is the continuing conflict in the Philippine city of Marawi. RAAF Orion surveillance aircraft are already providing intelligence support …

Prison radicalisation: security outweighs reform

The risk of prison radicalisation has been a complex challenge to national security for decades. Whether arising from ethno-nationalist, separatist or jihadist inmates, the threat of extremist ideas and beliefs spreading inside prison walls is …

Saudi Arabia holds the Trump card

Since President Trump’s visit to Riyadh last month, the events that have played out on the ground in the Gulf have exposed long-standing rifts between powerful Sunni monarchies that belie the simplistic logic of sectarianism …

Fighting terrorism with satire

Satire has long been a friend to those wishing to expose the absurdities inherent in extremist ideologies. During the 1930s, British fascists were lampooned by the literary satire of P.G. Wodehouse, Nancy Mitford and Joseph …