For a long time, I thought that nuclear weapons were a tolerable evil. I bought into the argument that they played a positive role in some circumstances by deterring nations from going to war because …
In this podcast, we discuss Australia’s reset with China, the true cost of our new submarine fleet, big tech companies and online censorship, and Madeleine Nyst interviews Indonesia expert Natalie Sambhi.
In part 1, I considered the implications of sustaining and upgrading the RAAF’s F/A-18F Super Hornet fleet (alongside the E/A-18G Growler) as an alternative to buying an additional squadron of F-35s. It’s the next big …
The world It’s well known that China is always on the lookout for opportunities to extend its reach. The New York Times went to Patagonia to investigate where Latin America sits on Beijing’s list of …
Good policymaking, including strategic policymaking, requires a number of steps. There has to be an objective reason why the government should or shouldn’t act. The options then need to be identified and assessed for efficacy, …
In October 2016, before the US presidential election, I suggested that Australia was entering a foreign-policy crisis period—given the relative decline of American power in the Asian region, the likely withdrawal of the US from …
Rod Lyon’s thought-provoking article in The Strategist concludes with a sobering choice for Australian defence planners considering a post–San Francisco world without US extended nuclear deterrence, and suggests two basic choices for Australia, Japan and …
As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defence Minister Marise Payne get ready for next week’s annual Australia–US Ministerial Consultations with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, their biggest …
No one yet knows what deals US President Donald Trump may have struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private two-hour meeting in Helsinki. But it is already clear that Trump’s self-congratulations for striking …
The execution of Shoko Asahara, the former leader of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, is a reminder of one of the most unsettling chapters in modern terrorism. Asahara, who was hanged last Friday alongside …
Is Donald Trump’s deal with Kim Jong-un towards ‘denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula’ falling off the tracks already? US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang over the weekend certainly suggests that’s the likely …
The 2016 Defence White Paper stated that the nine new future frigates will be ‘optimised for anti-submarine warfare’. According to the Turnbull government, they will be ‘one of the world’s most advanced anti-submarine warfare frigates’. It …