US President Donald Trump’s threat last week to respond militarily if Iran attacks ‘anything American’ is a clear warning to Iran’s leadership, and all stakeholders, that the US has now added lethal military action to …
For millions of years, monsoonal winds have cycled between Asia’s tropical seas and the Tibetan Plateau, delivering snow to its high-altitude mountains and rains to the plains below them. The melting snow and summer rains …
In part 1, we discussed how we ensure we get the right propulsion system for Australia’s Attack-class submarines. We argued that nuclear power is an inadvisable and improbable option and observed that lithium-ion batteries, and …
Back in the 1990s and 2000s, Australian perceptions of the bilateral relationship with China were marked by a surprising degree of unanimity. Without implying that the clustering of opinion was confined to Australia’s capital city, …
In Australia, the federal, state and territory governments have defined critical infrastructure as: ‘Those physical facilities, supply chains, information technologies and communication networks which, if destroyed, degraded or rendered unavailable for an extended period, would …
US strategic competition with China has triggered considerable debate about the implications for Australia. Thus far, commentators have judged US President Donald Trump’s approach towards China and the Indo-Pacific mostly negatively. Some analysts have feared …
Hugh White’s book How to defend Australia tries to square the circle that has become the global community’s critical security problem: reconciling China’s growing strategic power with the dramatic loss of US strategic authority. China …
US President Donald Trump’s recent tweet on the Strait of Hormuz, in which he said that Asian countries ‘should be protecting their own ships’ prompts some serious questions—setting aside some customary Trumpian bravado and factual …
The Wall Street Journal ran an article last week saying pessimistic investors were ‘short-selling’ the Australian dollar in anticipation of a disappointing outcome of the weekend’s G20 meeting. ‘Some money managers are bracing for a …
Sea state Two Canadian warships passed through the Taiwan Strait last week. During the transit, Canada alleges that two Chinese Su-30 fighter jets made a low pass within 300 metres of one of the vessels. …
You don’t have to be as pessimistic as I am about the future of American power in Asia to start seriously thinking about what we should do if it falters. You only have to accept …
Australia must massively reorganise its planned defence structure by selling off most of its surface ships, abandoning those still to be built and replacing them with a fleet of 24 or even 36 submarines and …
At the weekend’s G20 meeting in Osaka, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, agreed that their countries would resume economic and trade negotiations. Trump also said US companies could resume sales …
In the lead-up to 2019 federal election, Anthony Albanese, now leader of the Labor Party, announced a plan to build a strategic fleet of Australian-flagged merchant vessels that would be subject to requisitioning laws. The …
There’s a credibility problem in the South China Sea. When ASEAN states consider China’s commitment to dominating maritime Southeast Asia, its capability and the risks it’s willing to take, they undoubtedly come up with a …
‘Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow’ — T.S. Eliot, ‘The Hollow Men’ T.S. Eliot offers a raging lament at what the 1919 Treaty of Versailles did …
‘Man shall not live by bread alone’, says Jesus in Matthew 4:4. But biblical wisdom seems to have been lost on the organisers of the economic conference held on 25–26 June in Bahrain, where Jared …
Finally, after much prevarication, pressure and hesitation, ASEAN has decided that it’s time to acknowledge the ‘Indo-Pacific’. At the 34th summit in Bangkok last weekend, ASEAN released its much-anticipated contribution to the Indo-Pacific debate. The …
The world Australian student Alek Sigley is reported to have been detained in North Korea. The news came just hours before Prime Minister Scott Morrison sat down with US President Donald Trump in Japan. It’s …
Australian debates about the geopolitics of the Pacific islands in many ways represent the broad contours of discussions about Australia’s foreign and strategic policy, notably our relations with China. It’s possible to identify two dominant …