When Australia thinks strategy, it quickly comes to Indonesia. So it was when the Howard Government was mulling the 2000 Defence White Paper. The National Security Committee of Cabinet was grilling the defenceniks: ‘If Indonesia …
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New Caledonia, our French neighbour, sits just off the Queensland coast, but well off our strategic radar screen. Our Defence White Paper 2013 doesn’t mention it, nor even France’s role in the South Pacific. However, France’s 2013 …
Indonesia can direct Australia’s regional dreams or dominate its nightmares. Just as Papua New Guinea shapes the way Australia thinks about the South Pacific, Indonesia frames Australia’s view of Southeast Asia. In those key regional …
While the nation’s attention is on the difficult operation being undertaken by Australian Federal Police officers in the Ukraine, it’s worth reflecting on the other major international missions that our police are performing overseas today. …
Much has been written of late about the potential for Australian citizens to go to the Middle East and take up arms with one militant group or another. Recent commentary about an Islamic State fighter, …
The rapidly-warming strategic relationship between Australia and Japan has drawn considerable attention this week. Some are for it, some are against it. Some see it as a mechanism to reinforce the growth of a responsible …
‘Wine is serious … we all like wine’, explained ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade in response to a French complaint ahead of last week’s ICANN50 meeting in London. Heralded as the largest-ever ICANN meeting, ICANN50 was …
Indonesia has just had its third presidential debate in which both Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto outlined their respective foreign and defence policies (you can watch the English-dubbed version here). As Michael Bachelard has observed, …
The fifth Australia–Japan Foreign and Defence Ministerial (2+2) Consultations in Japan in early June 2014 led to another significant step forward in the growing strategic relationship between the two countries—the signing of the Defence Science, …
A simple question about what China has been doing to its neighbours keeps recurring: How is that smart? The question came up in dozens of conversations at the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific …
China has gone from peaceful rise to rising by pieces, as it smashes the nascent regional security order. Not much peace in prospect as China forcefully asserts its ownership over pieces of the East China …
China has shifted from salami slicing to ramming in the South China Sea. Having created a new ‘fact’ by shifting an oil rig into Vietnam’s proclaimed EEZ off the disputed Paracel Islands, China is ramming …