The world As exit polls predict a big victory for the Conservatives in the British general election, read this Washington Post piece that captures the mood of the average British voter. This BBC article explains …
Recognising that the European Union is facing a number of vexing challenges on the world stage, Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, has promised to lead a ‘geopolitical’ commission. Echoing this sentiment, …
Vietnam has just released its new defence white paper, 10 years after the last one was issued in 2009. The 2019 document isn’t fundamentally different from the earlier one—there are limits on the extent of …
In September, Japan and the EU launched the EU–Japan Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure, partly in response to escalating tensions between the United States and China over trade. This significant agreement builds on …
Promoting maritime domain awareness has become an increasingly high priority area for many Southeast Asian governments. As a concept, maritime domain awareness essentially refers to gaining a shared picture and understanding of anything associated with …
In this episode, Mali Walker interviews Oriana Skylar Mastro, assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, about her most recent book, The costs of conversation: obstacles …
When David Nicolson and his fellow soldiers in Combat Team Alpha from the Royal Australian Regiment’s 2nd Battalion served in a remote outpost in Afghanistan’s Mirabad Valley, there was a standing joke in the unit …
The beat Calls to reform NSW strip-search rules Using data obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre under freedom of information laws, The Guardian reports that NSW police have carried out more than 300 strip searches …
Witnesses appearing before the US House of Representatives’ impeachment hearings have regularly connected Russian aggression in Ukraine with US national security. The overwhelming international consensus is that Russia’s annexation of Crimea and involvement in hostilities …
After Wang Liqiang’s request for asylum in Australia, some commentators have cast doubt on his claims. Some of these doubts are rooted in a misunderstanding about Wang’s role, casting him as a professional intelligence officer …
It’s time to structure the Australian Defence Force for this long, hot century. That doesn’t mean making it better suited to engaging in offshore climate-change-related activities, as the 2016 defence white paper discusses. Instead, it’s …
Mapping WPS in the UN Security Council The Working Group on Women, Peace and Security has published its annual policy brief evaluating the UN Security Council’s implementation of the WPS policy framework. The group found …
Making judgements about the state of cybersecurity isn’t easy. Much depends on the metrics we use to measure success and failure, where it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of doing things right …
It’s commonplace in commentary about the Australian Defence Force to say that its force structure looks today a lot like it did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. The structure remains largely the same, while …
Chinese and European aspirations to weaken the dominance of the US dollar as the global currency of choice have come to naught, with the latest global survey showing the greenback is on one side of …
Sea state The US Navy is developing a new network architecture with the US Air Force to better link all their platforms together. Named the ‘new Manhattan project’, the aim is to allow the navy …
The inaugural Tokyo Global Dialogue took place on 2 and 3 December to mark the founding of the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA), by Shigeru Yoshida, who served as the country’s prime minister from …
Could Australia defend itself independently from direct military attack by a major Asian power like China? That’s the key question I set out to answer in How to defend Australia. My answer was a cautious …
The rise of China as a high-technology competitor to the US is one of the underlying drivers of the return to great-power strategic and economic competition. It’s a phenomenon that has enormous implications for the …
Australian citizens are frontline actors in today’s national security challenges: as targets of malign interference and coercion, victims of collateral damage, and agents of national resilience. The establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into social media …