Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has a Chinese-government-proposed text for a security agreement between his country and China, which is apparently being considered by his government. The draft agreement leaked to the media is …
The fictional British prime minister Jim Hacker once opined that summits were public relations circuses offering less scope for negotiating solutions to international problems than state funerals. That might be harsh. But a spate of …
Sea state As Russia’s costly invasion of Ukraine grinds into its second month, what was framed as an ‘imminent’ plot to launch an amphibious assault on the port city of Odessa seems to have more …
While Russian troops in Ukraine have been bogged down, Ukrainian forces have started regaining territory. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence issues daily reports on how many military assets Russia has lost. Three weeks after Russian President …
On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison held the second India–Australia virtual summit. At the meeting, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the India–Australia comprehensive strategic partnership and …
The 2020 defence strategic update states that the Australian Defence Force is ‘to deploy military power to shape our environment, deter actions against our interests and, when required, respond with military force’. It’s less certain …
Weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, but when it was still constraining gas supplies to Europe amid soaring demand and prices, Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested Australia could step in and help, given its huge liquefied …
The time-honoured American tradition of assessing a government’s first 100 days has found its way to Germany, where pundits are scoring the performance of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Ampelkoalition (‘traffic light coalition’), comprising the Social Democrats …
The widespread view in the West is that Russia is applying the same scorched-earth approach to Ukraine as it did in Syria and Chechnya, destroying cities, killing, terrorising and dislocating populations, and creating a massive …
The head of the Australian Defence Force’s new space command says she wants to focus on speed and doing things differently to meet the challenge of ensuring Australia can maintain access to space in uncertain …
It’s disturbing to see $18–27 billion of Australian government money about to be spent on more than 400 heavily armoured ‘infantry fighting vehicles’ when we’re busily watching yet another conflict in which military vehicles like …
During the 2020 Nagarno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijani forces used expendable drones to target Armenia’s conventional forces and destroy their tanks, artillery and air-defence systems. The conflict provides a broad example of how a competent irregular or …