Having debarked from ports in western Sweden, military convoys from various NATO countries are crowding Swedish streets and prompting the police to issue traffic warnings. They are on their way to Norway, where some 50,000 …
At the beginning of October, US Vice President Mike Pence delivered arguably the most significant policy statement produced by the Trump administration. His speech to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, on ‘the administration’s …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcements of a possible move of our embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and of a review of our support for the Iran nuclear deal threaten seriously to prejudice …
Nine months after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein wrote: ‘The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.’ Have we met …
In Stephen King’s apocalyptic horror novel The stand, the accidental release of a biological weapon, a super-flu nicknamed Captain Trips, caused a global pandemic that wiped out 99.4% of the world’s population. King masterfully paints …
There are more than 120,000 licensed security guards in Australia. No one knows the exact number as each jurisdiction has a different way of defining security operators and determining who should be licensed and how. Some …
Populists get a bad name. They are accused of riding the wave of public sentiment to disrupt and overturn good, sensible things. Populists can, however, sometimes spot changes before others do—and there are times when …
Saudi Arabia’s relations with the United States seem to be heading towards a crisis in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s alleged murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. President Donald Trump has been reluctant to …
Sea state A Moroccan navy ship fired at a migrant boat headed to Spain, injuring one person on board. The incident occurred as the boat allegedly performed hostile manoeuvres and attempted to collide with the …
With an estimated two-thirds of women in Papua New Guinea subjected to domestic violence, business, civic and military leaders are working with a formidable Australian couple to deal with a practice that’s devastating the social …
Australia’s rapidly deteriorating strategic circumstances have caused me to review my earlier stance on the navy’s future submarine requirements and the case for nuclear propulsion. As Hugh White wrote in response to Paul Dibb and …
In late August, Indonesia and Australia signed a new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement during Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s visit to Jakarta. The document provides a new long-term framework for the bilateral relationship as part of …
The 2017 foreign policy white paper makes much of Australia’s values. Malcolm Turnbull’s introduction to the white paper says that ‘Australia’s values are enduring’. Turnbull has now moved on, but the focus on Australia’s values …
Within a decade, Australia must anticipate greater economic, political and military competition in the Indo-Pacific and, as power balances shift, the ADF will struggle to sustain the technological advantage it maintained during the Cold War. …
Australia is witnessing an explosion of blind spot exposures, as important institutions are blindsided by their own shortcomings. The blind spot eruption reveals big organisations with incomplete vision, unable to see key elements of what …
It might sound odd, but interstate behaviour turns out to be something that can be understood by modelling it as a complex system. Our modelling of interstate interactions over a very long timeframe seems to …
The world Saudi journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi vanished while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and is thought to have been killed on the premises. The Independent has the details and the …
On 3 October, the secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, received overwhelming support from the party’s central committee for assuming the role of the country’s president, which has been vacant since the …
There’s no doubt US President Donald Trump’s renewed sanctions will hurt Iran, but it is not a given that they will halt its nuclear and missile programs, or its other activities in the region. The …
Bob Moyse’s recent piece for The Strategist raises a number of issues that are vital for the future of Australia’s security. He argues that debates about force structure have, until recently, largely been focused at …