High inflation, rising interest rates, falling currencies and volatile energy prices, together with an economic slowdown and post-pandemic budget woes, may increase pressure on the ASEAN+3—the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, …
On this day 22 years ago, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1325 in recognition of the fact that women experience and are affected by conflict in different ways to men. Since then, a …
Critics of geopolitical non-alignment have long characterised it as a flawed and doomed policy, and in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, non-alignment is rapidly falling out of favour. After all, Ukraine was invaded …
Going into May’s federal election, the Australian Labor Party announced that it would undertake a defence force posture review if elected. Following the election and Labor’s win, the scope of the review increased dramatically. The …
In many Australian policy circles, nation-building is an archaic 1970s term—a throwback to a time when the federal government built infrastructure to encourage national prosperity. Today, cash-strapped federal, state, territory and local governments often have …
With China increasing the pressure both on land and at sea, Vietnam is facing a hard choice: should it continue its maritime tilt adopted since the early 2000s or should it pivot back to the …
Fixing issues at the expense of positioning Australia for the future is likely to be a theme of the 2022–23 federal budget to be released later this month. It’s a case of focusing on the …
As Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand gear up to host major world summits next month, the 55-year-old Association of Southeast Asian Nations is facing an existential crisis, owing to severe internal splits over Russia’s invasion of …
In 2016, I wrote a report on Australia’s defence and security partnership with Singapore, a few months after bilateral ties were upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership. I concluded then that the ‘lion and kangaroo’ …
As Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visits Canberra this week for the annual Australia–Singapore leaders’ dialogue and meets Anthony Albanese for the first time since the Labor leader became prime minister, the focus should …
When it comes to Australia’s policy in the Pacific islands, what’s first needed is a changed mindset. We need to recognise that the region is key terrain. It’s essential for US and Australian defence; it’s …
For decades, Australians’ faith in globalisation and economic liberalism ensured that discussions about resilience focussed on recovery from short-term disasters. But the impacts of Covid-19 and the exponential decline in global security in recent years …
