China has dominated the world’s supply of rare-earth elements for decades. Over the past year, however, there has been a growing recognition among the US and its allies (including Australia, South Korea, Japan and India) …
The Strategist on: "North of 26° south"
The government’s continuous shipbuilding program has provided a fillip for defence industry in South Australia and Western Australia, but benefits are also set to flow to other parts of the country. Importantly, Australia’s north, particularly …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison released the 2020 defence strategic update to define Australia’s evolving challenges and provide guidance on defence policy, capability and force structure. The new strategic objectives are to ‘shape’, ‘deter’ and ‘respond’. …
Development and industry investment in the Northern Territory has long been hampered by the cost of energy. The territory’s focus on natural gas and liquefied natural gas for almost all of its energy exports has …
It isn’t news that diverse workforces are a key to producing high-quality, innovative and competitive results. There’s no shortage of evidence from both the private and public sectors that diverse teams solve problems more effectively, …
I read with interest the recent Strategist posts by John Coyne and Graeme Dunk in which they apparently took different stands on the importance of northern Australia for our defence. With better definition of how …
Most Australians have no idea how quickly they’ll be running on empty if our fuel supplies from overseas are cut in a crisis. For decades, the nation has relied on risky, just-in-time deliveries of the …
Walter Cronkite, the American broadcast journalist, was an avid sailor and explorer of the United States coast. He wrote books of his voyages and, in his twilight, returned to familiar haunts along the northeastern seacoast …
The Australian government has been quick to defend its record on energy security by arguing ‘supply chain resilience has meant that during Covid-19 pandemic, we have not faced shortages’. Despite these claims, the government has …
The global spread of Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of having a health security strategy that extends way outside of Australia. The Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade …
Over the coming decades, climate change will have serious and pervasive impacts on human security across the Indo-Pacific region. From supporting regional disaster-assistance missions to responding to sudden climate-change-related mass migration, Australia’s north will need …
In October 1942, Edward Ward, the minister for labour and national services, accused the Australian government of having planned to abandon the country’s north in the event of a Japanese invasion. While the ‘Brisbane Line’ …