It has been nearly 60 years since the philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn wrote his influential book The structure of scientific revolutions. Kuhn’s thesis was simple but heretical: breakthroughs in science occur not through the …
Sea state Today marks the 70th anniversary of the formation of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy. Beijing has invited more than 10 countries to take part in a fleet review and is expecting naval delegations …
People were chanting, praying and crying, or just frozen in total disbelief, as the flames engulfed ‘their’ cathedral of Notre Dame, the object of their individual and collective memory. The emotions of those who witnessed …
‘Relations with Indonesia have provided the crucible of modern Australian foreign policy.’ —Bruce Grant, 1972 The great Australian scribe, Bruce Grant, penned that thought about Indonesia–Australia tests and trials in the year of a seminal …
We’re taking a couple of days off from publishing duties over the Easter break. We’ll return to our normal programming on Tuesday, starting with Graeme Dobell’s look at two neighbours that have been going through …
Exploiting Kashmiri disaffection and the transnational jihadist movement, Pakistan is waging a deadly guerrilla war against India in Kashmir. Usually, of course, sponsoring an insurgency in a more powerful neighbouring country would provoke a very …
The beat Millions of New Zealanders flagged in police database An investigation by the Otago Daily Times has revealed that 40% of New Zealand’s population has been flagged in a police database—that’s nearly 2 million …
Five years ago this month, a small force of ‘little green men’—soldiers wearing no national insignia—seized control of a police station in Sloviansk, a small village in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Thus began the second …
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has come a long way in a short time in its embrace of digital tools and technology. DFAT, and most of our embassies around the world, now have …
China is determined to be a leading space power, able to influence events from above in the 21st century. Part 1 of this two-part series examined the importance of military space capabilities to the People’s …
Lou Jiwei may not be a household name in the West, but the former Chinese finance minister is well known and highly respected among financiers and economic policymakers. Yet, earlier this month, China’s government announced …
In December 2018, former Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz established Hosen L’Yisrael (Israel Resilience Party) and rocked the Israeli political landscape when many started seeing him as a viable replacement for Benjamin Netanyahu. Gantz …
Huawei is perhaps the most enigmatic company on the planet. The Chinese communications firm is not publicly listed, and despite being one of the world’s largest firms, basic information about its structure, ownership and business …
When Joko Widodo came to power in 2014, he promised as Indonesia’s seventh president to usher in a different style of politics to anything the country had seen before. He exuded humility. The son of …
Sea state Chinese media have reported that the People’s Liberation Army Navy is testing a tactical laser system similar to the US Navy’s laser weapon system. They say that the weapon will be deployed on …
It was John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, who characterised his office most pithily and dismissively. The formidable Texas Democrat, ‘cactus Jack’, declared that the vice presidency of the United States was ‘not …
In my initial analysis of the 2019–20 Defence budget, I suggested that in the four budgets since the 2016 defence white paper, the actual funding that the government has provided to Defence has come remarkably …
Since the days of Jiang Zemin, Chinese military-strategic guidelines have emphasised the requirement for the People’s Liberation Army to focus on ‘informatisation’ as a key component of its modernisation efforts. The essential requirement for informatisation …
Days out from the world’s biggest single-day elections and the polls in Indonesia show President Joko Widodo holding an almost unassailable lead over challenger Prabowo Subianto, in contrast to the surprisingly tight contest the same …
On 4 April, a group of international buyers’ associations from the garment, footwear, sporting and travel goods industries sent a letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to express their concerns over abusive labour practices …