Not for the first time, Australia is wrestling with the stance it wants to (or needs to) adopt towards the People’s Republic of China. Our economic wellbeing is more strongly linked to China than are …
If you were trying to design a low-cost strategy to constrict the operational horizon of an important US ally in the region, China’s ploys in the Pacific wouldn’t be a bad model to examine. China …
Late last week, the US Department of Justice filed a criminal complaint against a North Korean hacker—who allegedly acted on behalf of the North Korean government—in connection with a series of cyberattacks, including the cyber …
The shifting role of international media is akin to the changing-times tale told by the university economics professor retiring after 40 years of teaching. At his farewell, the prof confessed that for those four decades …
The world There has been mixed reaction to the publication of an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times by a senior official in US President Donald Trump’s administration. The author claims that many of …
Increasing data localisation—governments requiring certain data to be stored within a jurisdiction—threatens internet innovation and makes the development of digital goods and services more difficult, potentially slowing economic growth. India is thinking of joining the …
With Huawei’s aspirations to provide infrastructure for Australia’s 5G network dashed, attention must now shift to another major foreign investment proposal: the planned acquisition of APA Group, an Australian-owned and -controlled company, by Hong Kong’s …
Australia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne probably envied New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s welcome at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Nauru. During the leaders’ retreat lunch break yesterday, Nauru …
The beat Backflips over 3D-printed guns Defense Distributed, a US-based online organisation, is selling blueprints for 3D-printed guns despite a court injunction banning their online distribution. In July, blueprints were removed from a State Department …
Is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations resilient enough to thrive amid the regional and global transformations taking place today? While the global economy continues its broad-based expansion, disruptive economic, geostrategic and technological forces may …
The expression on Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s face as he fronted the media late on 9 August said it all: looking uncomfortable and cheerless, he announced flatly that the nation’s most prominent religious scholar, Ma’ruf …
In July, I joined 43 other scholars of international relations in paying for a newspaper advertisement arguing that the US should preserve the current international order. The institutions that make up this order have contributed …
What’s so important about WPS? The fact that women make up at least half the population should be reason enough to include them in peace and security processes, but the ‘emphasis on women’ continues to …
For someone who can sometimes elevate virtue-signalling above substance, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau betrays rare consistency in managing to offend a wide range of countries. Fittingly, the latest episode comes courtesy of Twitter, the …
Andrew Davies and Rod Lyon have had an interesting debate here recently about nuclear weapons. Andrew has argued that we need to take the risk of nuclear war more seriously and that we should therefore …
As the Syrian civil war reaches its denouement with the imminent fall of the Idlib enclave—the last stronghold of forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime—Iran’s presence in Syria has reached the top of the American agenda …
Sea state Australia’s largest multilateral naval exercise, Kakadu 2018, is underway, with China participating for the first time. The RAN’s fleet commander, Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead, stressed the importance of maintaining freedom of navigation in …
The Pentagon’s 2018 annual report on China’s military power puts into sharp relief the speed and scale of China’s ambitious military modernisation drive. According to the report, the People’s Liberation Army is undergoing the ‘most …
New army chief Rick Burr encourages his troops to embrace a new sport with a deadly serious purpose: drone racing. Various types of small ‘copters and fixed-wing aircraft blast around obstacle courses and through rugged …
As the weeks roll into months since the breathless spectacle of the US–DPRK summit in Singapore last June, it gets harder to believe that the event broke the issue out of the deep rut it …