The international order established at the end of World War II provided a framework for the management of global affairs that worked for nearly 80 years. However, the past few years have marked a turning …
Debate: "General"
Today, ASPI is expanding its globally-recognised data offering by launching the China Little Giants Tracker – a searchable database of the high-tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that Beijing has identified as capable of taking …
When I arrived in 1981 as a 12-year-old from Greece, I could not have imagined that three decades later I would return to the country of my birth as Australia’s ambassador. My family already had …
Building complete industrial chains for critical minerals is only one way to escape reliance on concentrated foreign supply. A faster way is to find substitute materials and get several of them ready for use. Substitution …
Future warfare won’t be entirely robotic. Yes, people will gradually disappear from battlefield environments where speed, endurance, distance, precision or physical danger overwhelmingly favour use of machines. But people will remain essential where warfare demands …
On 14 September, US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink publicly announced that the US Space Force had deployed ‘space control weapons’ in response to growing threats to American and allied space systems. The …
Sending Katherine Bennell-Pegg to space should be a small step forward for one woman that enables Australia to take giant leaps in the space sector. Australia has the chance to send Bennell-Pegg, its first female …
China’s propaganda is often mocked as blunt, loud and tone-deaf. But state-backed researchers are trying to make it more sophisticated. They are building AI systems that model the cultural and political values of foreign audiences, …
The Australian defence establishment should urgently work with commercial providers to deliver military and dual-use capabilities that can be deployed in months, not years or decades. Government procurement pathways alone cannot meet the demands of …
Scholars named in public for entanglement with a foreign regime, international research collaborations quietly binned, and institutional partnerships needing to be torn up by the government – such events are increasingly frequent. The external risks …
Australia can remain indispensable to steelmaking while making less money from it. In 2025–26 dollars, the government’s June outlook projects iron ore export earnings to fall from an estimated A$116.6 billion in 2025–26 to A$77.2 …
Berlin’s hurried shift to actively defending against hybrid threats shows the danger of cumulative under-reaction to hostile state-backed activity. Underreaction can leave democracies more vulnerable to sustained coercion, interference and sabotage, ultimately making them preferred …