For decades, Australia assumed economic power flowed from geology. Resource wealth delivered export earnings, government revenue and strategic confidence. The emergence of China Mineral Resources Group (CMRG) over the past four years suggests otherwise. In …
The UN General Assembly has just strengthened the case for minilateralism, the gathering of small coalitions to act when international institutions fail. On 3 June it had a chance to do what we argued for …
After a bruising tussle inside his administration, President Donald Trump has gone for a decidedly non-committal approach to AI safety and security that’s unlikely to survive sustained contact with reality. He issued an executive order …
On 3 June in New York, the UN General Assembly faces a choice: will the institution charged with enforcing international rules include a voice that’s prepared to call out their breaches? The General Assembly will …
With the ‘signature project’ on payloads for uncrewed undersea vehicles (UUVs) announced by Australia, Britain and the United States on 30 May at the Shangri-La Dialogue, AUKUS Pillar Two transitions from scientific potential to realising …
Governments still organise around discrete shocks, yet the operating environment increasingly delivers continuous, concurrent and cascading pressures across economic, social, technological and environmental systems. Australia needs to shift from managing shocks to managing interacting risks, …
International rules still matter. That was the common theme at this year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, particularly for Indo-Pacific nations. Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, told the conference, ‘The international rules-based …
A new element has just appeared in Australia–Japan defence and security cooperation: strategic depth. But the two countries, having mentioned it, haven’t gone far to explain what they mean by it. Nonetheless, some fairly safe …
China appears to be playing the long game in pursuit of its interests in the Indo-Pacific. In this series of Strategist articles, Joe Keary, Raji Rajagopalan and Linus Cohen discuss how China is pursuing its regional …
China is no longer a rising power that’s seeking accommodation within the existing international system. It is increasingly acting like a state that believes history has turned in its favour. Beijing is confident it can …
ASPI has published The cost of Defence every year since 2002. The series has, year after year, assessed what governments said they would do against what the books showed. It’s the type of scrutiny that …
Australia’s 2026–27 budget commits the federal government to daily spending around A$181.9 million on defence. That headline sits on the cover of our 2026 The cost of Defence report, released today. The number is sobering. …
