When he announced his decision to remove the 2,000 US troops in Syria, US President Donald Trump tweeted, ‘We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.’ The …
In our final podcast for 2018, ASPI Executive Director Peter Jennings discusses the big issues of the year including Australia’s stance on China, US President Donald Trump, defence spending and Huawei with Michael Shoebridge, ASPI’s …
It’s a fantastic idea: given the government is spending some 36.4 billion taxpayer dollars on defence, much of which is in the 10-year, $200 billion investment program buying major weapon systems, it makes sense to …
The beat Neo-Nazis in the Frankfurt police? German state police are investigating the possibility that a right-wing extremist network may have infiltrated the Frankfurt police force. The investigation was prompted by a threatening fax containing …
As China and Russia stepped up their offensive cyber capabilities, Australia responded in the 2016 defence white paper by investing $400 million in improving its ability to protect its own systems and to respond to …
In February, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced a revised approach to the Pacific islands. Central to the coalition government’s ‘Pacific reset’ was a pledge to increase New Zealand’s diplomatic and development footprint in …
At the end of 2017, US President Donald Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans rammed through a US$1 trillion cut in corporate taxes, partly offset by tax increases for the majority of Americans in the middle …
As I noted in April, this year’s ASEAN chairmanship wasn’t going to be an easy one. Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong used every opportunity to remind people of ASEAN’s purpose and its fragile beginnings …
Observers outside of Papua New Guinea may find it a somewhat puzzling exercise to try to pinpoint PNG’s position on the current geopolitical manoeuvrings between the United States (and its allies) and China. What factors …
Over the centuries, Jews have been blamed for all sorts of ills in Christian and Muslim societies, from the Great Plague of the 14th century to the financial crashes of modern times. In 1903, The …
If the past two years haven’t already, the past two weeks have certainly shown that Brexit will be a complicated affair with the power to reshape European politics. The UK’s departure from the European Union …
In this podcast Lisa Sharland speaks with Major General Cheryl Pearce on her appointment as the next commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, Georgia Grice asks deterrence expert Dr Brad Roberts if nuclear …
Australia’s defence force structure has evolved over many years around defending the ‘sea–air gap’ as a perceived strategic moat. That construct dates back to the late 1980s, when the outlook was far more benign and …
The year 2018 has been marked by tremendous economic and political turbulence around the world. And yet, for future historians, it may well be the year when Africa started to claim its intellectual and economic-policy …
Sea state Australian shipbuilder Austal has won a $1.6 billion contract to build two littoral combat ships for the US Navy and is in talks with Trinidad and Tobago about a potential patrol boat deal. …
The killing of 16 workers on Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s trans-Papua road project shortly after demonstrations and mass detentions that marked the 1 December anniversary of Papua’s ‘independence day’ reminds us that Indonesia’s last …
As autonomous weapons become rapidly more lethal, the International Committee of the Red Cross is in a race to develop a legal framework for the use of ‘killer robots’. Netta Goussac, a legal adviser with …
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed by US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987 to give effect to their declaration that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won …
One feature of the Australian government’s 2017 foreign policy white paper was the balance struck between tough talk on China’s challenge to US hegemony in Asia and the message that regional military modernisation posed no …
Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australia will recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was sensible, balanced and well crafted. The prime minister avoided many of the pitfalls that could have come with such a …