The government’s new international development policy, released last week, has some interesting implications for defence. In particular, it completes the process of aligning messaging across the different arms of statecraft on their important and complementary …
The technical requirements of AUKUS, and the time strictures and innovation challenges laid out in the defence strategic review, all implicitly increase the demands on Australia’s defence industry. How can the government most effectively support …
The Philippine Coast Guard’s highlighting of China’s harassment of its vessels near Second Thomas Shoal has undoubtedly boosted sympathy for Manila in its David-versus-Goliath struggle to maintain jurisdiction and sovereignty in the South China Sea. …
Defence Minister Richard Marles will soon receive a report from Admiral William Hilarides on the future of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet. The additional analysis was initiated by the authors of the defence strategic …
Recent research from ASPI finds that Philip Flood’s 2004 inquiry into Australian intelligence agencies proved an inflection point in the national intelligence community’s development. In addition, the Flood report grappled with a matter at the …
It’s well known that China has the world’s largest navy and coastguard—the result of a tenfold increase in military spending since 1995—which it uses to advance its pugnacious revisionism. But there are also numerous lesser-known—indeed, …
Planet A UNESCO has delayed its decision to place the Great Barrier Reef on a list of ‘in danger’ World Heritage sites despite remaining under ‘serious threat’ according to a recent report. Climate-change-related threats such …
In his recent article, ‘Pivoting back north’, Allan Dale argues that reforms are needed to pave the way for progress in northern Australia. Reflecting on the challenges of the northern Australia development agenda since the …
Misogynist ideology, beyond individual criminal behaviour, has fuelled violence against women worldwide. Predominantly English-language, open-source data suggests that these attacks may have led to or been associated with 58 deaths—63 deaths if attacker suicides are …
US President Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘A good navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace’. Those poignant words were uttered in 1902 but they have a distinct relevance …
Last weekend, China’s coastguard and maritime militia carried out dangerous and aggressive manoeuvres against a small Philippines boat, blocking and blasting it with a powerful water cannon. The vessel was trying to resupply a remote …
‘I can’t wait until these stupid elections are over and we can just get on with our lives.’ Those were the words of a Zimbabwean acquaintance—and they reflect the attitude of many, perhaps the majority, …
In the latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs, the Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen makes assertions about the priorities of China’s nuclear targeting of Australia, as well as what he claims will be Australia’s missile targeting …
Some 178 states are parties to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT); another eight have signed but not yet ratified. Adopted on 10 September 1996 and signed two weeks later, its birth was protracted and painful. …
Australia has never really had a coherent diplomatic or political strategy in the Middle East, which is puzzling given that we’ve been engaged there in one way or another for a large part of our …
Maritime security is a term that can mean almost anything. For many, it conjures images of big-ticket ‘hard security’ issues like military modernisation, island-building, freedom-of-navigation operations, maritime surveillance, grey-zone tactics and maritime militia. But maritime …
Last month, in my article ‘To corvette or to not corvette: the defence strategic review and the Tier 2 surface combatant’, I outlined some of the debates and one specific option for the independent analysis …
In the US, the ‘Washington consensus’ of fiscal stringency, deregulation, trade liberalisation and disdain for industry support is dead. It was killed by a new politics capitalising on the anger of a hollowed-out middle class, …
This month marks two years since the US and allied retreat from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s resumption of power there. Amid all the depressing news about the brutal, misogynistic rule of the Taliban, in July …
On the night of 31 May 1942, my grandfather was a young boy hiding under the kitchen table as Sydney went into a panic. The Pacific War, a distant thought to many Sydneysiders, had come …
