It has been just five years since China initiated its major land reclamation in the South China Sea, and the country has already shifted the territorial status quo in its favor—without facing any international pushback. …
The first priority is to manage great power competition in the Indo‑Pacific. — Australia’s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne Optimists see the glass as half full, while strategists worry that it’s actually a coffin that’s half …
Europe Britain attempted something right out of Australia’s political playbook: a leadership spill (without years of practice, though, this one was unsuccessful and Theresa May remains PM). Vox, CNN and Carnegie get into the details. …
Over the last decade, maritime security concerns have featured prominently in ASEAN member states’ individual and collective agendas. Issues as diverse as China’s aggressive maritime strategy, piracy, terrorism, transnational organised crime, and illegal, unreported and …
It was not all that long ago—just a few years, as hard as that it is to believe—that Europe appeared to be the part of the world most closely resembling the end-of-history idyll depicted by …
China’s growing military power has recently found expression in its popular culture. Highly nationalistic movies extol the virtues and capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army in a clear move to establish evacuation operations as the …
Australian security and defence experts now grudgingly acknowledge that the world has never been so uncertain strategically since the end of World War II. What’s not as widely acknowledged is that our major security ally, …
The beat Treatment of student protesters causes outrage in France Footage of students being forced to kneel with their hands on their heads after being detained during the ‘yellow vest’ riots has caused outrage in …
The arrival of the information age has created both opportunities and challenges for the United States, its allies and our defence organisations. In the information age, warfare has changed from kinetic to non-kinetic attacks. Adversaries …
Since the Cold War ended, the West has invested huge amounts of resources in efforts to induce political liberalisation in China, including through programs to promote the rule of law, civil society, transparency and government …
The recent advice from the chief of Australia’s navy that the first Shortfin Barracuda may not come into service until the mid-2030s is sobering news given Australia’s deteriorating strategic circumstances and the critical role the …
As China’s national and international economic interests have steadily grown, so has the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to protect them. China’s expanding, social-media-savvy middle class now expects the military to protect the country’s citizens overseas. …
It is perhaps indicative of our times that the peaceful transition of power by means of a democratic election is a candidate for ‘disruption of the year’. The outcome of the Malaysian general election in …
Seven years after its last major terrorist attack, Morocco’s multifaceted strategy for dealing with Islamist extremism appears to be paying off security-wise—but at the expense of liberal reforms. Morocco lies in an unstable region with …
US President Donald Trump’s policy of putting economic pressure on Iran to force regime change by inciting a domestic revolt seems to be failing. There is little doubt that renewed sanctions have hurt Iran economically, …
Under the administration of the incontinently mendacious President Donald J. Trump, everyone should worry about the integrity of America’s official statistics. They should worry about much more under Trump, particularly the fate of democracy in …
Sea state Amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow, the US Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell conducted a freedom-of-navigation exercise near the disputed Peter the Great Bay off Japan to challenge Russia’s ‘excessive maritime claims’ …
Earlier this month, Islamist groups held a major rally in Jakarta to call on Muslims to shun political parties and candidates that had backed the now-imprisoned former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahja Purnama, or Ahok. The …
In an incident that has attracted relatively little media attention in Australia, the modern 5,300-ton Norwegian frigate KNM Helge Ingstad sank in a Norwegian fjord after a collision with the large Maltese-registered oil tanker Sola …
The Indonesian government’s long and difficult task of developing Papua just got a lot harder after Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels slaughtered at least 16 construction workers who were building a 4,320-kilometre highway that will …