The Beat International tax cooperation high on the agenda Six months after the scandalous Panama Papers leaks, the Republic of Panama has signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, becoming the …
France has a deep and abiding relationship with nuclear technology. French policy-makers have based France’s energy and military independence around nuclear programs. However, as the French government attempts to justify its budget policies in the …
In the wonderfully-titled ‘From Hollywood to Bollywood’, Andrew Phillips questions the utility of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept. He thinks it’s less than the sum of its parts. Australian strategists, he argues, need to acknowledge the existence …
It was announced late last week that Australia’s biggest data breach to date had affected donors to the Red Cross Blood Service. A back-up database of 550,000 donor records (including names, contact details and behavioural …
In announcing a separation from the US, the Philippine’s President Duterte recently flagged a closer relationship with China, stating, ‘America has lost…I’ve realigned myself in your [China’s] ideological flow’. Although Duterte subsequently walked back from …
British Prime Minister Theresa May once warned her fellow Conservatives of the perils of being known as the ‘nasty party.’ But after 100 days in office, she is in danger of going further, turning the …
Sea State The search is officially underway for Canada’s new major surface combatant. Last week, the Canadian government requested off-the-shelf design and combat systems integration proposals from 12 pre-qualified bidders for its Canadian Surface Combatant …
The Asia–Pacific’s digital potential offers enormous development and trade opportunities that, if effectively harnessed, will benefit the economies of Australia and the United States. Indeed, the region’s increasing importance to the economic and strategic interests …
US President George W. Bush once claimed to be ‘misunderestimated’—a term of art that left journalists perplexed but, in retrospect, was perhaps best defined as ‘underestimating by mistake’. In similar vein, I think a number …
In conjunction with the Begin-Sadat Center of Strategic Studies, ASPI has released a new report, The Wattle and the Olive: A new chapter in Australia and Israel working together. The cover photo of the report …
In the post-Cold War era, western navies have continued to seek the highest levels of technology and capability in an environment of declining defence budgets. This has caused a reduction in overall fleet sizes as …
The Middle East’s tragic tale of two cities—Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Iraq—speaks to a fundamental lack of consensus in the region and within the broader international community. The lack of order in the …
In Asia’s slow-motion power shift, the Philippines has just lurched towards China’s orbit. Now to work out a sense of the import and meaning of the shift. President Rodrigo Duterte goes to Beijing to declare …
There are only a couple of weeks left until the New York City presidential derby. The read of the week unfolded in the Fairfax press, with Peter Hartcher’s three-part series United Fates, which covers off …
France and India have further deepened their military and economic relationship through India’s purchase of 36 French “Rafale” fighter jets at a cost of almost €8 billion. This order is France’s largest aeronautic contract ever …
The long-anticipated battle to wrest Mosul from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is underway. Sitting on an ethnic fault line between Turkish, Kurdish and Arab spheres, the city affords a prism …
‘The main element of any US policy towards the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment,’ the US diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1947 in a Foreign Affairs …
The ongoing presidential campaign in the United States stands out for its lack of civility and the vast differences between the candidates: the anti-establishment businessman Donald Trump on the Republican side and the polished politician …
The Beat Where there’s smoke, there’s crime CID Gallup, a Latin American public opinion and market research company, has just released a report detailing an alarming surge in the illicit tobacco trade worldwide (PDF). The …
Mark Thomson and I have been following the status of the Collins class submarines for some years now, and we’re happy to see the upbeat new installment of the Coles review (PDF). There’s some good …