On the first anniversary of the Chibok girls’ kidnapping, Nigerian activist Hamsatu Allamin told the UN Security Council that efforts to prevent violent extremism will not succeed without women’s participation. She said women in northeast …
Debate: "General"
In October 1996, only 10 days after the fall of the Afghan capital Kabul to the extremist Taliban movement, an article appeared in the Washington Post titled ‘Afghanistan: time to reengage’. The writer, an Afghanistan-born senior strategist at …
As alcohol is an operational fluid of defence and diplomacy, it’s natural that this Wednesday’s debate on new cold war versus hot peace is a champagne challenge (the winner buys the champagne). At the Canberra …
The world President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address stole the limelight this week. This short piece from CNN summarises the highlights, and the Financial Review argues that the speech was a sign of …
After foreshadowing the move late last year, President Donald Trump confirmed on 1 February that the US was leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The 1987 agreement banned the US and Russia from having …
In early January, Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati inaugurated the new Tawiri Ambon naval base near Ambon Bay with direct access to the Banda Sea. The base will support the navy’s major warships and …
The human cost of illicit drug use in Australia—whether from heroin overdoses in the 1990s or, more recently, from methamphetamine (ice) and MDMA (the main ingredient in ecstasy)—makes the headlines because it personalises the issue. …
Australian policymakers’ attitude to the role of northern Australia in the nation’s defence mimics a cicada’s life cycle. For a brief period, it’s out in the world, flying around and making a huge amount of …
The beat Encryption laws already yielding results The Australian Federal Police says that criminal suspects are already feeling the effects of new encryption laws, despite continuing controversy over their implementation. Under the new laws, people …
On 9 January 2019, the director of the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Gregory B. Poling, reported on China’s undocumented fishing activities in the South China …
Following the first meeting in November 2017 of the resurrected Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, the US has been consistent in discussing the security objectives it seeks to promote through the consultations. However, US interactions …
Of all the credible contingencies facing Australia in the foreseeable future, the most challenging would undoubtedly be our involvement with the US in countering a major Chinese attack on Taiwan. For obvious reasons, our politicians …