As the curtain comes down on this series of posts surveying the Asian strategic landscape, the final scene sets us up a lot more drama to come. Southeast Asia’s great fear is that it faces …
For ASEAN, the Philippines has become the canary in the mine in testing how much more poisonous the atmosphere with China can become in the South China Sea. By taking China before the bar of …
Defence White Paper 2013 breaks new ground in a number of areas—but at the big picture level, the most striking aspect of the paper is its revaluation of Southeast Asia. In place of the vague …
In the Financial Review last week, Anthony Bergin put forward some ideas to ‘stop the boats’. Unfortunately, his immodest proposals for changes to Australian asylum laws aren’t evidence based. In particular, the suggestion that Australia …
Hope is blooming with the summer flowers in Beijing after the Sunnylands meeting between Presidents Xi and Obama. The hope is that the two leaders—Xi just installed and Obama secure in his second term— will …
As Indonesia pursues a policy of ‘a million friends and zero enemies’, Australia needs to ensure that it stands out from the multitude; that it isn’t merely a close acquaintance or an amicable neighbour, but …
When talking about current defence and security matters there seems strong agreement on at least one characteristic: that the future is uncertain. Of course that’s true, and many things could potentially happen but, even so, …
ASEAN is ever in crisis or on the verge of calamity. The role of crisis in giving ASEAN a purpose, or even an identity, is part of the abiding mystery of Southeast Asian regionalism. The …
Welcome back for another round of new reports, developments in regional and international security and upcoming events. First for today is a new report by the Center for a New American Security that studies the …
Canada played an unexpectedly large role at this year’s Shangri La dialogue, and in a way that shows the challenges of building closer defence ties in the region. Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay has …
Tony Abbott’s ‘stop the boats’ promise is going to test Australia’s relationship with Indonesia in several important ways. Not least in this looming test will be the issue of which side has the ability to …
In his recent post, Graeme Dobell described Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s comments on Chinese cyber intrusions at the Shangri La dialogue as ‘pulling back the Chinese veil and jabbing’. This is certainly a great …