National security wrap

The beat Krone laundering in Estonia Danish and Estonian authorities are investigating Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank, over allegations of money laundering. The bank’s Estonian branch was allegedly used to launder around 53 billion kroner (US$8.3 billion) …

Pivoting to the Pacific

Over the past year, there’s been a frenzy of public interest—in Australia and beyond—in the Pacific region. The concern has, of course, been focused on China’s growing activities in the Pacific islands. All of the …

Syria: what if?

US President Donald Trump has been widely criticised for his supposed fawning performance in Helsinki at the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But a minority of commentators have made three countervailing arguments to explain …

White House of lies

By 1 June of this year, US President Donald Trump had made 3,259 false or misleading claims, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker’s database, which tracks and categorises every suspect statement uttered by the …

Der Schwarze Tag: 8 August 1918

On 8 August 1918, the British Fourth Army, with French support, attacked astride the Somme River on the Western Front. Germany’s de facto commander-in-chief, General Erich Ludendorff, famously labelled the Amiens offensive, as it is …

Space force on the horizon … maybe

Moves to develop a US space force, which is being strongly pushed by President Donald Trump, are quietly gathering pace, even though funding for the force has been pushed back a year. A draft of …

China chases Africa’s resources

The gun barrels had barely cooled after fighting in South Sudan a year ago when a tentative truce coincided with the arrival on Juba’s streets of Chinese workers in their high-vis vests. In cars or …

How Anzac was fought, soldier by soldier

The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, volume I, The story of ANZAC from the outbreak of war to the end of the first phase of the Gallipoli campaign, May 4, 1915, …