In this episode we talk about the likelihood and dangers of interference in the Australian election with the head of ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre, Fergus Hanson. After that our two grumpy strategists, Michael Shoebridge …
The world Australia’s phoney election campaign has finally turned into the real thing. Voters will head to the polls on 18 May—joining the citizens of a number of countries that are holding elections now or …
Mention the term ‘space coast’ and the image of launch pads and gantries at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida come to mind. It’s a true spaceport that not only launches rockets but …
This article is part of a series on women, peace and security that The Strategist is publishing in recognition of International Women’s Day. Diseases don’t know borders. That maxim is often invoked to remind countries of their …
For more than a year, debate has raged over allegations that the Chinese military is taking advantage of Google’s research and expansion into China. General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, …
As though Afghanistan’s problems couldn’t get any worse, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s most recent Afghanistan opium survey (released in November last year) was a stark reminder of the challenges facing the war-torn …
The beat Sudanese police ordered to step aside amid protests Protests calling for the resignation of President Omar al-Bashir are ongoing in Sudan and police have been ordered not to intervene. Interior Minister Bishara Gomaa …
Most now agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, using social media manipulation to support its preferred candidate. In Australia, China has been engaging in old-fashioned influence operations. To address concerns about …
It’s Bibi again. Having unapologetically allied with a racist, Jewish-supremacist party, Benjamin Netanyahu has secured a fourth consecutive term as Israel’s prime minister. The Union of Right Wing Parties says Netanyahu promised it both the …
‘The only way to deal with these people is to bring them to justice. You can’t talk to them, you can’t negotiate with them.’ —US President George H.W. Bush, 2003 Negotiations between the US and …
In the military clashes between India and Pakistan in February, the international press was fixated on the ‘military gossip’ of casualties: who shot down how many planes and who won the battle of global media …
The issue of mental health is one that police across Australia have become all too familiar with. The deinstitutionalisation and movement into the community of people with severe mental illness have resulted in the police …
Australia’s counterterrorism architecture is complex, embracing hard and soft power, and it’s challenging to determine where it begins and ends. It also includes initiatives that the government rightly can’t publicise. My latest ASPI report, 18 …
As I discussed in part 2 of this series, the Anzacs are high-quality frigates. They will likely age gradually but gracefully over the next 24 years on their journey to eventual retirement. But the issue …
Sea state A Royal Australian Navy task group joined the Indian Navy last week in Visakhapatnam for the third iteration of the biennial Australia–India naval exercises. This year’s AUSINDEX goes until 14 April and will …
For more than two years, China has waged a campaign of unparalleled repression against its Islamic minorities, incarcerating an estimated one-sixth of the adult Muslim population of the Xinjiang region at one point or another. …
In the past few months there have been several Strategist posts on a Plan B for Australia’s national security, the most useful of which have asked questions related to grand strategy. Here I explore how …
Back in the late 1990s, Ashley Tellis characterised South Asia’s nuclear balance as ‘ugly stability’—a condition, he believed, that would probably last for a decade and perhaps longer. This peculiar form of stability derives substantially …
Commission on the Status of Women wraps up The United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women focused its session this year on social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender …
As it turns 70, NATO is facing its most severe challenges since the Cold War ended nearly three decades ago. The alliance has been rocked by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and its invasion of …