India’s decision last month to revoke Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood, break it into two union territories and merge them fully with the Indian union caught everyone unawares. The changes give effect to the Bharatiya Janata …
Sea state The Department of Defence is scoping ways to modernise its submarine shipyard in Adelaide so that the navy’s Collins-class submarines can continue to be serviced there. This comes amid political and industrial tensions …
Back in 2016, Australia launched a new national cybersecurity strategy.* The strategy covers a four-year period to 2020, and given the changes in the security environment, an update is now clearly warranted. To that end, …
It is now 50 years since diplomatic relations were formally established between the Commonwealth of Australia and the Kingdom of Afghanistan. Superficially, the two countries might seem to have little in common. While each has …
On Saturday, Iran announced that it had begun feeding uranium gas into a cascade of 20 IR-6 centrifuges and a second cascade of 20 IR-4 centrifuges, both of which provide Tehran with a significantly faster …
My colleague Graeme Dobell declared recently that ‘Scott Morrison’s embrace of the “Pacific family” is goddamn genius.’ I have expressed a more cautionary view that claiming a place in the Pacific family could have unintended …
The Australian Defence Force has a heavy dependence on satellite communications for force coordination at long range. Satellites such as those that make up the US GPS network are critical for weapons guidance and joint …
With Britain as the mother country and the US as the alliance father, Australia has a dysfunctional family. Mum has gone nuts; dad has gone rogue. The anchors of the Anglosphere are angry and adrift, …
On 29 August 1919, Sergeant Samuel Pearse, an Australian veteran of Gallipoli and the Western Front, was killed in action fighting against Red Army forces in northwest Russia. He fell during a British Army attack …
The world One of this week’s biggest headlines was the withdrawal of the extradition bill in Hong Kong, the potential passage of which spurred the protests that have rocked the city for months. While this …
Welcome to ‘The Strategist Six’, a feature that provides a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. 1. How is your government coping …
Mass shootings such as those in El Paso and Las Vegas and terror attacks such as those in New Zealand and Norway, along with the rise of nationalist, anti-immigrant, populist political parties, have put the …
In How to defend Australia, Hugh White refers to the ‘deepest national objectives: security, prosperity and identity’, observing that states seem ‘willing to risk war to pursue these objectives, even at potentially appalling cost’. Security, …
In this episode, ASPI’s Michael Shoebridge and Marcus Hellyer discuss the pro-democracy protests rocking Hong Kong and the likelihood of a violent intervention from Beijing. Later on in the podcast, Renee Jones talks to Canadian …
The word on the street is that the government intends to make a decision by Christmas on whether to relocate full-cycle dockings of the Collins-class submarines from Osborne in South Australia to Henderson in Western …
The beat Top cop says UK risks becoming ‘Orwellian’ police state The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, has warned that the UK could become a ‘ghastly, Orwellian, omniscient police state’ if law enforcement …
US President Donald Trump’s behaviour at last month’s G7 meeting in Biarritz was criticised as careless and disruptive by many observers. Others argued that the press and pundits pay too much attention to Trump’s personal …
Domains of warfare seem to be proliferating rapidly these days. In Thucydides’ time, battles were fought on land and at sea—two domains. The combination of the two multiplied the complexity and confusion: at Syracuse (415–413 BC), …
Australia is one of the most outspoken and prominent supporters of the ‘rules-based international order’. Given its status as a modestly credentialled middle power with a limited capacity to influence the international order or the …
Samoa holds WPS summit On 22 and 23 August, New Zealand’s defence ministry and Samoa’s foreign affairs ministry co-hosted a summit on women, peace and security in Apia. Military and police personnel, government officials, academics …