US President Joe Biden has done what Barack Obama and Donald Trump wanted to do when they were in office but couldn’t—get a plan in place for a total US and partner military withdrawal from …
Turkey withdraws from Istanbul Convention, sparking protests and legal challenges On 20 March, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew the country from the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and …
In French President Emmanuel Macron, the United States has the best ally it could hope for in the Élysée Palace. In fact, Macron may now be the only US allied leader with a genuine liberal-internationalist …
The war in Afghanistan has profoundly changed the Australian Army and had a significant impact on the whole defence force. Around 30,000 ADF personnel served in Afghanistan and 41 died there. The vast majority of …
Myanmar’s military coup and the ensuing mass civil unrest have been presented as a litmus test of ASEAN centrality. Some observers have even portrayed the coup as ‘the most serious threat to the importance of …
On 11 April, Iran’s nuclear reprocessing facility at Natanz suffered a major sabotage attack that has probably set the country’s nuclear enrichment program back at least nine months. On the same day, the Israeli public …
In Adelaide’s The Advertiser newspaper on 7 March, former defence minister Christopher Pyne said, ‘Then there is the nonsensical argument that the Attack Class submarines are no good because they aren’t nuclear. Almost all of …
In 1503, Niccolo Machiavelli warned, ‘One cannot always rely on someone else’s sword. One must be prepared to fight for one’s own cause. And to be ready for this, one must have the means.’ More …
Australia has a new national action plan (NAP) to guide its engagement on women, peace and security (WPS) over the next decade. After more than two years without an updated or revised NAP, the government …
Sea state The Royal Australian Navy has commissioned a new auxiliary oiler replenishment (AOR) ship, HMAS Supply, which replaces the retired HMAS Success. One of two AORs built by Spanish company Navantia, Supply will be …
A flurry of assaults on freedom of the press in recent months has raised troubling questions about the state of India’s democracy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India has long had a free and often …
US President Joe Biden is very familiar with both Poland and Ukraine. His decades of service as a United States senator and his eight years as vice president under Barack Obama taught him that the …
Anyone seeking to isolate the burbling quintessence of Indonesian foreign policy need look no further than at what took place on 2 April in Fujian, China. The episode in question was a visit by Indonesian …
Artificial intelligence is changing the world we live in. It will redefine the workplace and have significant implications for everything we do, probably by the end of this decade. Some AI applications are already a …
One of the most crucial early tests for US President Joe Biden concerns Afghanistan. An emboldened Taliban have escalated their campaign of assassinations and terrorist attacks since reaching a deal with the Trump administration that …
‘When nations go to war, the nation with better technology will win,’ India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in 2019, and perhaps taking that cue, the country’s defence planners are embarking on their next-generation modernisation …
Half of Myanmar’s population is under the age of 30, and many of these young people have benefited from their country’s fragile, imperfect democratic transition over the past decade. They know the military’s return to …
Scientists have long predicted that climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, like tropical cyclones, in the Asia–Pacific region. Now, with four decades of observable data, it’s clear that the …
Covid-19 has wounded almost every developed country, but the truth is that living standards in many of them had been stagnating or declining for years. Many metrics highlight this trend, but perhaps the most telling …
‘As one of many Pacific Island nations, Australia is historically and indelibly linked to its neighbours in the region. Our shared history of endurance and mutual assistance during times of major international conflict, natural disaster, …