ASPI suggests

The world Imran Khan claimed victory in Pakistan’s controversial elections. The BBC has a great explainer on the former cricket star and the challenges he’s set to face. DW offers a pessimistic view of Khan’s …

Fostering a culture of disaster preparedness

The devastating floods we’ve recently seen in Japan are an indicator of the kinds of challenges we’re facing as a result of a changing climate. The landslides and flooding across much of western Japan killed …

Summing up the Trump summits

US President Donald Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki are history, as is the G7 summit in Quebec and the NATO summit in Brussels. …

China and Africa: the Zimbabwe file

Sino-African relations have been of increasing interest to analysts since the turn of the century—in large part because the relationship is a measure of how the Chinese hope to use their burgeoning economic power in …

From Deraa to Deraa

The flag of the Syrian government was raised again over central Deraa on 12 July, more than seven years after the first popular demonstrations against the Assad regime broke out in the city in March …

Huawei: lessons from the United Kingdom

The UK government released the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre oversight board’s 2018 annual report on 19 July. HCSEC is a Huawei-owned facility that was created seven years ago to deal with the perceived risks …

Europe for itself

Donald Trump is the first US president to think that the US-led world order is undermining US interests. Though the current order obviously benefits the United States, Trump is convinced that it benefits China even …

Between the US and Iran: the Indian dilemma

While US President Donald Trump has been busy bending over backwards to placate the authoritarian rulers of Russia and North Korea, his visceral animosity against the Iranian regime remains undiminished. His threat to impose sanctions …

Policing illicit drugs: what works

Earlier this month, I wrote in The Strategist that despite law enforcement’s operational successes in terms of the number and weight of drug seizures, little progress is being made in reducing the supply. The article …

Rewriting Europe’s narrative

When the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, was established by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, the narrative that defined it was that economic integration would encourage growth, strengthen democracy and bury …

New security reality demands new Australian policy

Australia’s international security outlook is starting to look very threatening. The White House is undermining the international order, has started a trade war with China and the EU, and is threatening the unity of NATO. …

Why the World Cup mattered

The 17th-century philosopher and satirist Jean de La Bruyère once quipped that, ‘Corneille portrays men as they should be, Racine depicts them as they are.’ For Europeans, and even more so for the French, the …