Sea state Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Ballarat, deployed in the Middle East as part of Operation Manitou, took part in a successful anti-narcotics operation in the Arabian Sea. More than 2 tonnes of hashish …
In January, at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, Foreign Minister Marise Payne enunciated her government’s pitch to develop closer relations with India. Her speech was an attempt to reassure India and the broader region …
On 20 May 2018, the People’s Liberation Army Daily reported that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), the China Coast Guard (CCG) and local authorities had staged five days of joint patrols for the first time …
The stoush between Beijing and Washington over Chinese telco Huawei shows that countries no longer compete only by using military or economic might. ‘Law enforcement power’—the use of a country’s internal law and justice systems …
Japan has taken up the G20 presidency at a key time in global economic affairs and has the opportunity to shepherd the global economy through a period of greater uncertainty than there has been in …
The support from Italy’s populist leaders for the ‘Yellow Vest’ protests in France is a sad first in the history of the European Union. Never before has one of the six founding countries of the …
Part of a leader’s magic is to spin a few words into political gold, capturing the moment and proclaiming the future. Think Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘new deal’, Winston Churchill’s ‘iron curtain’, or Ben Chifley’s ‘light …
Whether or not one realises it, 2018 may have been a historic turning point. Poorly managed globalisation has led to nationalist take-back-control movements and a rising wave of protectionism that is undermining the 70-year-old American-led …
Welcome, dear readers, to our first ‘ASPI suggests’ for 2019. The world Fears of a no-deal Brexit continue to grip the UK. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt opened the year with a speech in Singapore filled …
When US President Donald Trump meets again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the end of the month, he will be staging the second act in the comedy of manners that now passes for …
My previous post looked at the greater value for money Australia will derive from the program of continuous warship design and construction it is commencing compared with the stop–start method of the past. This part …
One of the proudest boasts of the Coalition government is that it takes national security seriously, and it does. Over the next 10 years, Australia will spend $200 billion on defence in the nation’s largest …
In our second episode for 2019, we hear from John Coyne about the recent drug fatalities at music festivals and what we should be doing about it. Danielle Cave and Tom Uren from our International …
A vast, mostly empty industrial park just outside of Minsk, Belarus, might seem like an unlikely locus of high-tech Chinese innovation. In January, however, it was announced that the China–Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park will …
The terrorism threat level in Australia in 2019 is likely to remain at ‘probable’—the middle of five levels. While there can be no ironclad guarantees with counterterrorism, the current level of generous resourcing should allow …
After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power, thereby eliminating a key nexus of international terrorism. But now, a war-weary US, with a president seeking …
Huawei’s behaviour, coupled with the Chinese government’s wide-ranging commercial espionage, is eroding trust in the global supply chain. Rebuilding that trust will take work. Two sensational US indictments unsealed on Tuesday paint a picture of …
‘We would be deaf and blind without Pine Gap.’ — Kim Beazley Now in its sixth decade of operation, the Pine Gap facility, outside Alice Springs, is a remarkable element of Australia’s alliance with the United …
Managing an economy is not for the faint of heart. Policymakers must constantly monitor the ever-evolving global economic landscape, and anticipate lightning-fast changes that can breed volatility and uncertainty. As today’s political and economic turbulence …
In terms of Australia’s first, and primary, strategic defence objective—‘to deter, deny and defeat any attempt by a hostile country or non-state actor to attack, threaten or coerce Australia’—it seems that Paul Dibb’s 1986 review …