Critical minerals supply chains are shaped as much by geography as policy or finance. Yet much of Australia’s national debate still centres on regulatory frameworks and capital markets rather than the physical places where processing …
Paranoia about fuel supplies has suddenly entered Australia’s mainstream debate, as Canberra wakes up and starts counting how many frigates and destroyers the Royal Australian Navy actually has. It is a familiar pattern. Australia rediscovers …
When Baghdad’s night sky erupted in tracer fire and explosions in 1991, it meant more than just Operation Desert Storm’s commencement. The resulting CNN effect—whereby 24/7 news reporting covered events in real-time—threatened centuries-old modes of …
Tuesday’s meeting between the foreign and defence ministers of Australia and New Zealand was a nicely poised display of strategic alignment and statecraft. It balanced an ambitious plan to build an ANZAC platform of joint …
The economic and social costs of the war in Iran, particularly its effect on global food security and agricultural production, are a reminder for Australia to strengthen food-security resilience at home and abroad. The blocking …
Australia’s military drone pilots are internationally competitive, and the army is beginning to benefit from skills that service personnel are developing privately. Nonetheless, the Australian Defence Force is still a long way from fielding drone …
As China pursues greater heights in frontier technology, it is also reckoning with the persistent problems of domestic demand, debt and demographic change. This was clear in the documents released after the National People’s Congress …
The pressures facing regional universities are commonly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of international student markets. But the financial and structural fragility now visible across northern Australia’s university sector began well before …
India imported 53,748 metric tonnes of rare-earth permanent magnets in the year to March 2025, and its demand is projected to double by 2030. That’s the mine-to-magnet problem in one line: India wants the clean-energy …
Strategic surprise rarely occurs because there is no warning. Signals accumulate, intelligence reporting circulates and analysts identify emerging risks. Strategic surprise occurs when institutions cannot quickly integrate those signals to act on them. In a …
When Australia and Indonesia signed the Jakarta Treaty on Common Security in February, the central question was never whether it sounded historic. It did. The real question was whether it would matter once a genuine …
China’s military budget increases keep painting a picture that’s inconsistent with the country’s claims to a defensive policy. The rise for calendar 2026 would be 7.0 percent, Chinese Premier Li Qiang told the annual meeting …
Replacing vulnerable but nationally critical information-technology systems takes too long. Australia should follow the United States and subsidise their replacement. While old systems of national significance (SoNS) remain in place, they’re magnets for foreign powers …
Australia can deploy forces to northern Australia quickly. But sustaining them at scale still depends on a handful of freight corridors, limited fuel depth and commercial logistics networks that Defence hasn’t clearly incorporated into an …
China’s latest five-year plan enshrines artificial intelligence as a key driver of economic growth and technological innovation. While the United States still leads in frontier AI research and the most advanced models, China has focused …
Neodymium and samarium may sound like something from a Hollywood superhero film, but they aren’t. These obscure elements drive modern tech and are buried deep inside modern missile systems, and they give China a quiet …
Coalition warfare has always been messy. Different procedures, systems, standards, doctrines, and operational caveats complicate and slow coordination at every level of conflict. AI may finally cut through that dynamic to become the connective tissue …
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s enthusiasm that the country might soon overcome its reliance on rare-earth imports drew attention as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) sought public support before the 8 February lower house …
The evolution of defence cooperation between India and Japan will hinge on how Tokyo responds to New Delhi’s growing expectations of it as a defence partner. New Delhi is likely to expect Tokyo to encourage …
Australia’s defence strategy now points north, but the nation still lacks the systems required to fight and sustain operations there. Strategic documents have identified northern Australia as the decisive geography for deterrence and denial, yet …