Three weeks before Christmas 2001, the energy company Enron went bust. It was the largest bankruptcy in American history. In 2002, Malcolm Gladwell told the story of what went wrong: on the advice of bright …
Almost a year ago, Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith wrote an important ASPI paper in which they acknowledged, for the first time, that China’s growing power and ambition constitutes a major shift in Australia’s strategic …
In a recent Strategist piece on the utility of nuclear weapons, Andrew Davies argued that an international treaty banning thermonuclear weapons and limiting yields to the kiloton range could allow nuclear deterrence to hold while …
The transition from the Collins-class submarines to the future submarine fleet will be longer and more complex than any previous capability transition the Department of Defence has undertaken. Today ASPI released a special report, Thinking …
Australia keeps getting listed among the nations that should form an angel coalition to the save the world as we know it. Or, perhaps, the world as we used to know it. Flummoxed, fazed and …
The world In the US, all eyes were on the hearings on sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The BBC provides a quick overview of the case. The New Yorker explains why …
The announcement that prominent Indonesia Ulema Council chairman and cleric Ma’ruf Amin will be President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo’s vice-presidential running mate for the 2019 election has stimulated fresh debate about the ‘Islamisation’ of Indonesian politics. …
Victoria Police’s recent release of its new counterterrorism strategy for the next three years was timely. There have been seven terrorist attacks and 18 disrupted attacks in Australia since 2005, and Melbourne was the target of nearly half of …
The key strategic issue in East Asia is the rise of Chinese power. Some analysts believe that China will seek a form of hegemony in East Asia that will lead to conflict. Unlike Europe, East …
In July, I submitted to the then prime minister a report on an India economic strategy out to 2035. The overwhelming focus of that 500-page report was trade and investment, but a key message was …
The signs are ominous—especially in Israel and its neighbours, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Violence, both actual and rhetorical, has been escalating on all three fronts. Gaza could become the immediate flash point as the Palestinians’ …
To watch the debate play out in America’s news media, it would seem that the opposite of ‘America First’ is American interventionism: a chronic penchant for leaping, to no apparent end, into wars of choice …
The beat UK tackles ‘county lines’ drug trafficking British MP Victoria Atkins has called on Uber and Airbnb to help crack down on the exploitation of children by ‘county lines’. Her comments come just weeks …
India and the US held their inaugural 2+2 dialogue in New Delhi on 6 September. The meeting set the scene for their bilateral ties to reach new heights. The commonalities of their security interests are visible …
Australia’s deteriorating strategic outlook raises the question under what conditions should we develop a nuclear weapon of our own? This option was seriously considered by Australian governments in the 1960s, and the Department of Defence …
Whether South Africa is teetering or slowly crumbling is moot. But one thing’s clear: the country faces a raft of intersecting crises that it is ill-equipped to solve. And the world’s inattention doesn’t mean it’s …
Has populism won? It would be easy to conclude that it has, especially in light of what is happening in the heart of Europe. Italy, one of the earliest supporters of European integration, is now …
The gender scorecard Women in International Security has released its gender scorecard for foreign policy and international security think tanks in Washington DC, which reveals a high disparity between male and female staff members. The …
There’s a problem at the core of the digital revolution: getting our heads around the nature of the challenge. The term ‘cyber’, in particular, has become associated with the dark side of security and technology. …
The training and intelligence support the ADF provided to help Philippine forces drive the Islamic State terror group out of the city of Marawi demonstrated how Australia can back its regional allies, says the new …