The new Oz–China icy age blows through many Australian worlds: security, economics and trade, social, diplomatic and political. The orbits of these worlds converge, shifting political tides and disrupting social weather. Traditionally, dragon slayers worry …
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph left no one in any doubt as to its view of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin on 5 March 1953. ‘Stalin Dead – Hooray!’ ran the headline on Frank Packer’s tabloid. This …
The Cambridge Analytica scandal and recent testimony by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg before the US Congress has reacquainted millions of people around the world with the issue of privacy. The scale of the controversy is itself …
Since the 27 April summit between South Korean President Moon Jae‑in and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong‑un, US President Donald Trump has sought, unsurprisingly, to portray himself as the mastermind behind inter-Korean diplomacy. But, despite …
The world Last Friday’s historic Kim–Moon summit happened as quickly as it vanished from the headlines. ASPI provides a short video explainer, while The Diplomat calms high expectations and explains why we’re still a long …
In an earlier post, we argued that with the forging of the Turnbull government’s Home Affairs portfolio, the time was right to question the policy assumptions underpinning Australia’s domestic security strategies. And with that, we …
This is the eighth in our series ‘Australia in Space’ leading up to ASPI’s Building Australia’s Strategy for Space conference in June. Australia depends on satellite data for everything from defence surveillance and weather forecasting to restocking …
A recent article in The New Daily raised the issue of Australia’s role in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Dr John Blaxland criticised the ‘remarkable amount of ignorance’ about the network. He attributed that ignorance …
The hard part of running the Defence organisation is the trade-offs—lining up capability, strategy and resources to work out what can and can’t be done, says Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty. ‘A challenge I’ve …
The surging optimism about the imminent end of the Korean peninsula’s long reign as a global flashpoint is overwhelming the legions of realists and pessimists around the region. The new Kim Jong‑un is charming and …
The beat Ergonomics of police body cameras Victoria Police have begun distributing body cameras to 11,000 frontline officers. Officers won’t be required to tell the public when the cameras are filming. Footage will be kept for …
This week, a senior German official pointed out to me that, ‘The Iran nuclear deal is the last firewall preventing military tensions in the world’s most combustible region from spilling over into thermonuclear war.’ That …
