On 14 July, Indonesia released its new official map. During the press conference, Havas Oegroseno, Indonesia’s deputy coordinating minister for maritime affairs, highlighted several changes to the old map, including the renaming of the waters …
If much of the commentary on the recent announcement of a new Home Affairs portfolio has been misleading, that’s largely because the government has issued only broad statements about its intentions. In the press release …
The recent six-month mark of Donald Trump’s presidency serves as a reminder not only of how little his administration has accomplished domestically, but also of how his meandering foreign policy has created a geopolitical landscape …
The list of crises plaguing the Middle East is growing. In Yemen, a civil war rages amid an uncontrollable cholera epidemic. In Jerusalem, religious violence is intensifying, while in parts of Iraq and Syria, sectarian …
Senator John McCain walked back into the US Senate last week and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. It was an unexpected event, as all knew of the terrible diagnosis of cancer of …
When a new institutional beast rises up in the Canberra jungle, peer at it through the usual lenses: people, policy, politics and power. Then ask the key questions: Who wins? Will it work? Can it …
Welcome to a guest edition of ASPI suggests (sug-guests?)—I will be your guide. Two tech industry billionaires spent a significant portion of this week debating how best to deal with the threat of killer robots. …
China denies mixing business with politics, yet it has long used trade to punish countries that refuse to toe its line. China’s recent heavy-handed economic sanctioning of South Korea, in response to that country’s decision …
How Australia’s intelligence agencies contribute to counterterrorism (CT) efforts is a key focus of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review at a time when the rapidly evolving threat underscores the need for the regular reassessments recommended …
During my recent engagement with the Australian National University’s National Security College, I was asked whether Australia would benefit from having a Director of National Intelligence, similar to the position I held in the United States from 2010 …
In the broader debate over the nuclear ban treaty and whether it’s a good or bad thing, there are a couple of ‘wrinkles’ that merit attention. Those wrinkles concern current US extended nuclear deterrence arrangements, …
North Korea has produced a number of nuclear warheads and is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them around the world. Many governments are debating how to prevent or slow further advances in North Korea’s …
The beat Copy-catting in Jakarta? By now, we’re all familiar with Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte’s harsh crackdown on drug pushers, which has left thousands of alleged drug dealers and users dead since last year. Now …
I recently wrote about Vietnam’s sentencing of a blogger to 10 years in prison, sending another back to France permanently and non-uniformed ‘thugs’ cracking the skulls and assorted bones of many others. Another blogger, Tran …
France was a significant stopover in Malcolm Turnbull’s tour of Europe. The Australian prime minister visited France two weeks ago to hold his first bilateral meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron and to inspect the …
The most obvious response to the Chinese intelligence-gathering ship snooping around in Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Coral Sea would have been to put a RAAF P-3 maritime patrol aircraft right over the top …
Two of the largest marketplaces on the dark web, AlphaBay and Hansa Market, have been taken down by a joint US and Europol operation. By Europol’s count, AlphaBay alone had over 200,000 users, 250,000 listings …
At the 2017 Munich Security Conference, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov announced the end of the post–Cold War world and Russia’s aim to build a ‘post-West’ world order. That caused a huge outcry, mostly among …
Peter Jennings accurately described the contrast between two examples of structural policymaking last week, the announcement of the new Home Affairs portfolio and the release of the unclassified version of the 2017 Independent Intelligence Review. …
In March, President Trump claimed that Germany owed ‘vast sums of money’ to the US and NATO for failing to meet NATO’s aspirational (but not enforced) defence spending standard of at least 2% of GDP. …