Competition and confrontation build between China and the US. The era of engagement fades. Superpower rivalry returns. Great power challenges great power. The world’s biggest economy faces off against the second biggest. The descriptor of …
Keeping the nation safe requires the Australian Defence Force to maximise the advantages of closely working on operations with a broad range of government agencies and allies, says the ADF’s new chief, General Angus Campbell. …
The world US President Donald Trump’s next target in a growing list of international agreements is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Commentators in the Washington Post and The National Interest contend that Trump is right …
America’s greatest error was not the Iraq war, calamitous self-inflicted wound though it was. Rather, it was adopting Francis Fukuyama’s now discredited idea that the end of the Cold War marked ‘the universalization of Western …
‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ This aphorism, often attributed to Albert Einstein, seems to be the inspiration for US President Donald Trump’s North Korea policy. Trump’s …
The release earlier this month of a major UN-sponsored scientific report on the significant impacts expected from 1.5°C of global warming—the aspirational limit countries adopted in the Paris climate agreement—generated widespread media interest. Much of …
In this special podcast, we consider the state of counterterrorism in the UK and Australia. Sir Paul Stephenson, who was commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police from 2009 to 2011, gives his views on the situation …
Much has been written about Russia’s ambitions in Syria and the Middle East, and there are numerous elements to Moscow’s strategy in the region. President Vladimir Putin has made clear his desire to restore Russia …
The beat Losing the war on drugs Ten years after it was adopted, the United Nations Political Declaration and Plan of Action on illicit drugs has failed to reduce demand and production despite global efforts …
The German Social Democrats’ (SPD) existential crisis can no longer be treated as a typical party crisis. The party captured a mere 9.7% of the vote in regional elections in Bavaria this month and it …
For a risk manager, few metaphors resonate more than that of a ‘black swan’ event. Equally interesting is the historical link between this term denoting low likelihood but extremely significant disruptive events and Australia. Europeans …
The alleged murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi Arabia is one of four big events in our world this year showing that human rights and hard-edged national security have converged. It’s not …
Some 25 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Harvard professor who in the course of his career served as United States ambassador to the United Nations and a US senator from New York, coined the …
In India, Australia and other Indo-Pacific countries, we have been regularly inundated with commentary about the ‘Quad’, the informal name for a grouping of countries comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia. There are …
One year ago, a gruelling five-month house-to-house, room-to-room battle ended a campaign by Islamic State–inspired militants to turn Marawi into the capital of ‘wilayat sharq Asiyya’, a Southeast Asian province of their imagined empire. The …
A long-overdue shift in America’s China policy is underway. After decades of ‘constructive engagement’—an approach that has facilitated China’s rise, even as the country has violated international rules and norms—the United States is now seeking …
President Donald Trump’s statement over the weekend that the US plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia underlines the current pace of strategic change. A nuclear order forged primarily during …
Sea state The European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) and the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted the first joint exercise at China’s base in Djibouti. The medical evacuation exercise followed EU NAVFOR’s operational commander’s visit …
The escalating trade feud between the United States and China is increasingly viewed as the opening campaign of a new cold war. But this clash of titans, should it continue to escalate, will cost both …
The debate about the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue revived as Quad 2.0 has been centred largely around perceived negatives: the harm it could cause rather than what it can really contribute to regional security. Those assumptions …