While a great deal has been written about US President Joe Biden’s Iran conundrum, there hasn’t been enough discussion about his projected approach to Saudi Arabia, the other major power in the energy-rich Gulf region. …
Sea state A new law passed by China allows its coastguard to fire at foreign vessels within its waters, potentially setting the stage for armed clashes between China and nations that have competing claims in …
I don’t know whether US President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping and their foreign policy advisers have read Robert Axelrod’s classic book on international relations, The evolution of cooperation. But they should heed Axelrod’s …
Watch what ministers do, not what they say Discern what ministers mean, because ultimately that’s where they’ll head. The public service must manage and massage the zigzags. When what a minister proclaims gets too far …
Early replacement of the Australian Army’s 22 Airbus Tiger attack helicopters looks like a severe mistake. More defence capability—more urgently needed capability—could be bought by spending the money elsewhere. The Tigers don’t need replacing. And …
More than a decade ago, researcher Aaron Corn coined the term ‘Indigital revolution’ to describe the rapid take-up of technology across Indigenous Australia. Despite continued access issues, Indigenous Australians are highly technologically literate and reportedly …
The United States is suffering from a double crisis. Headlines in recent months have focused mainly on America’s crisis of democracy, but its crisis of global power may turn out to be more consequential in …
What began as a post on anonymous message board 4chan—home to trolls, internet shock-jocks and excursionists—has morphed into an international conspiracy theory posing a threat to Australia’s vaccination rollout against Covid-19. The QAnon movement has …
On 22 January, alleged drug lord Tse Chi Lop was arrested at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport as a result of an extradition request from the Australian Federal Police. Tse’s arrest would’ve been cause for celebration among …
The balance of power in the Indian Ocean is undergoing a significant change as countries from outside the region begin to establish a permanent presence there. In the past 10 years, the biggest change has …
America and China should cooperate in space. Although the United States can no longer take its extraterrestrial dominance for granted, it remains the leading player, while China’s space capabilities are growing fast. Most important, both …
‘We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill-defined borderless global community. And worse still, an unaccountable internationalist bureaucracy. Globalism must facilitate, align and …
The fate of Afghanistan has been a perennial issue, decided often by outside powers rather than by the Afghan people. As far back as 1908, British conservative statesman George Curzon declared at the annual dinner of …
ASPI’s executive director, Peter Jennings, has warned a United States congressional inquiry that China may trigger a major military crisis over Taiwan in the coming year as the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary looms and the …
American foreign policy tends to oscillate between inward and outward orientations. President George W. Bush was an interventionist; his successor, Barack Obama, less so. And Donald Trump was mostly non-interventionist. What should we expect from …
In a previous article, I made the case for Australia developing and launching its own interplanetary mission—a probe to the moon, or to Mars or other locations in the inner solar system—that exploited commercial small-satellite …
The most often quoted line of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu is that ‘supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting’. By that measure, the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation …
After months of planning, the World Health Organization team charged with investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic finally arrived in China on 14 January. The international scientists are in the city of Wuhan, where …
The big political questions of 2020 for New Zealand were could Jacinda Ardern earn a second three-year term in Wellington and could Donald Trump become a two-term president in Washington? While definitive answers have arrived …
A telecommunications company that operates in six Pacific island nations has reportedly received approaches from prospective buyers. This news has attracted considerable interest among security experts in Australia. Digicel was established by Irish businessman Denis …