Sea State In an effort to tackle the worsening European refugee crisis, the UN Security Council is considering allowing European naval forces to intercept boats arriving from the Middle East and North Africa. If the …
Debate: "General"
Hugh White has yet again kicked the hornet’s nest by questioning the government’s naval ship-building program. In doing so, he’s aroused a swarm of strident defenders of Sea Control, which is the ability to keep …
Tony Abbott’s decision to join US-led airstrikes in Syria brought a degree of legal and military coherence to Australia’s role in the fight against Islamic State (IS). Confining military action to the territory of Iraq has …
There’s an unfortunate truth about nuclear disarmament: it’s further away now than it was in 1995 when the NPT was indefinitely extended. NPT extension capped a number of positive milestones, not least the end of …
China last week celebrated the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Japan in what could only be described as an ostentatious display of military power and glory. Every aspect of the event was planned down to …
If we wait for Australia and India to develop a common regional vision, we’ll wait forever. Some things will never happen. At least, though, the astigmatism that’s long afflicted the Oz–India ‘views’ of each other …
Military engagement can’t be devised or judged in isolation from its strategic objectives. It is tactical—a means to a strategic or political end. And this places a necessarily weighty responsibility on decision makers to have …
Recent news that the US is considering targeted sanctions against China for economic cyber espionage is unsurprising. However, any sanctions imposed are unlikely to discourage future Chinese cyber espionage, but instead will only serve to …
‘Things are seldom what they seem’—so wrote the librettist W.S. Gilbert in HMS Pinafore. The current refugee crisis in Europe looks like a humanitarian tragedy on a large scale, the biggest in Europe since WWII. …
For the past couple of years I’ve been keeping Strategist readers updated with the status of USAF planning for procurement of the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter at each pentagon budget cycle. (See here for 2013 …
The Beat Dismantling people smuggling networks With the current number of refugees arriving in Europe unseen since the end of WWII, European police are using social media to piece together people smuggling networks, utilising similar …
The beheading of 82-year-old archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad by Islamic State (IS) was met with universal disgust. Asaad worked as the chief archaeologist of the Roman temples, tombs and theatre at Palmyra for over 50 years …