Defence confronts the Media Age (part 3)

The communications demands of the Media Age are so diverse and complex that only a simple answer will suffice. This is back-to-basics meets back-to-the future. Head to the bedrock of first principles while everything else …

ASPI suggests

Welcome back, comrades. A fresh batch of new research has been served up in the past week. In time for Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration in Taipei, the Center for a New American Security has released a …

The Strategist Six: Andrew Shearer

Welcome to The Strategist Six, a feature that provides a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. 1. What are the prospects for deeper …

The ghost of communists past

It has been 50 years since the Indonesian military crushed the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) in a bloody pogrom that’s widely believed to have taken at least 500,000 lives—many of them innocent victims of …

Brexit and the Corbyn conundrum

‘If the world is increasingly divided between fire fighters and arsonists then Britain has, for centuries been a fire fighter. This is no time for Britain to join the ranks of the arsonists and there …

Letter from Washington: America’s Saudi dilemma

Washington has a serious long-term relationship dilemma with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And President Obama’s April visit to Saudi Arabia—the fourth one as president—was all about trying to shore up that relationship. Notwithstanding the …

Mr Obama goes to Hiroshima

The White House announced last week that President Obama would visit Hiroshima later this month, making him the first US president to do so. He won’t be apologising for the US’s dropping of the atomic …

Cyber wrap

In an interesting turn of events, it appears that the 2014 Sony hack, February’s Bangladeshi bank heist and the attempted breach of a Vietnamese bank last year may all be linked. Vietnam’s Tien Phong Bank …

National security leaking and the Farrell case

The other week, ASPI’s Cesar Alvarez and Simon Norton published a cogent argument for the greater protection of Australia’s private and public sector whistle-blowers. With startling statistics, Cesar and Simon highlight that: ‘…of the 80% …

Defence confronts the Media Age (part 1)

‘Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of “time” and “space” and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men.’         Marshall McLuhan, 1967. ‘The traditional factors of production …

ASPI suggests

The Associated Press has launched a strong interactive site, Ramadi in Ruins, which allows visitors to chart the devastation of the Iraqi city after it was captured by the Islamic State in May 2015 before being …