Critical minerals now sit at the centre of Australia’s strategic future. But geology alone will not secure national resilience or regional transformation. Australia must decide whether it will build a governance architecture capable of sustaining …
The Strategist on: "North of 26° south"
Concrete and ribbon-cutting events don’t sustain wars; fuel, power, logistics and people do. Australia has invested significantly in northern basing and alliance posture, yet our strategic debate still leans toward visible infrastructure rather than the …
In critical minerals policy, one of the costliest things we can say is ‘we signed a memorandum of understanding’. Public announcements can signal intent, but they don’t build processing plants, turn ore into usable materials …
On 19 February 1942, Japanese aircraft attacked the harbour and town in what remains the largest single assault ever mounted on Australian soil. For much of Australia, it’s a historical reference point. In Darwin, it’s …
The 13th Australian Defence Magazine Northern Australia Defence Summit will return as part of NT Defence Week 2026 on 28 April. That timing matters. The 2024 National Defence Strategy is explicit: Australia’s strategy of denial …
The speed of critical-minerals policy evolution has been unmistakable. In the past year alone, governments across the Indo-Pacific have tightened export controls, expanded sovereign investment vehicles, announced new agreements, and redirected defence industrial policy toward …
While Australia’s defence strategy has moved north at speed, its permanent workforce has not. The latest analysis product from ASPI’s Northern Australia Policy Centre maps the distribution of regular Australian Defence Force members across Australia …
Northern Australia is where economic security stops being a slogan and starts being tested. What sounds abstract in Canberra becomes brutally practical in Darwin, Tindal and the Barkly, where distance, infrastructure, workforce and sustainment constraints …
Since the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, the government has spoken often and loudly about the strategic importance of northern Australia. The language has been consistent: a more dangerous region, a need to operate from Australia’s …
A greater emphasis on subnational diplomacy, particularly regional Australia’s links to the Pacific, presents a significant opportunity for Australia’s regional foreign policy. When Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape met with Cairns Mayor Amy …
In 1940, with much of Europe under fascist domination, US president Franklin Roosevelt declared that the United States must become ‘the great arsenal of democracy’. US industry mobilised, producing ships, aircraft and ammunition on an …
Australia’s northern air bases are vital to national defence, yet improving their resilience remains a work in progress. And the progress is incremental.