On Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, a network of accounts is targeting the West Papua independence movement with memes and messages designed to shape international and domestic narratives about the separatist movement. The region has been …
Can US President-elect Joe Biden walk and chew gum at the same time? If walking is managing domestic pressures and chewing gum is pursuing a balanced foreign policy, the answer is far from clear. The …
The Australian government’s 2020 cyber security strategy is overwhelmingly focused on increasing the cybersecurity efforts of the defence organisation and law enforcement agencies. The mounting crisis in the United States from the hacking of software …
Recent analysis of Turkey’s foreign policy tends to focus on several complementary narratives. Ankara is seen to be slowly moving away from its NATO partners and towards Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to …
As China expands its reach around the globe, it is important to understand not only its foreign, economic and security policies but also its massive covert operations. Roger Faligot, an investigative journalist who specialises in …
In its negotiations with the European Union over post-Brexit trade relations, the British government has become entrenched in its demands for full sovereignty. In the future, it wants to determine all of the rules about …
Australia heads towards a dismal achievement: halving what it spends on diplomacy in only three decades. The Joe Biden rule (‘Show me your budget, and I will tell you what you value’) says Australia has …
In the final episode of Policy, Guns and Money for 2020, The Strategist’s Brendan Nicholson, Anastasia Kapetas and Jack Norton share their thoughts on the key events and geopolitical developments of 2020, and the areas …
Christmas sometimes brings presents you don’t expect—this year, for me, an excitingly titled ‘Request for expressions of interest’ that appeared on AusTender is one of them. It’s about Australia’s peak intelligence agency, the Office of …
While the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted attention away from Hong Kong’s fight for democratic freedoms, protests have made the city a focus of the Chinese government’s authority and stance on human rights. Recent events have …
Data has been referred to as the ‘new oil’ or ‘new gold’, but it’s more than that. Most organisations can’t function without it. That applies equally to governments. Australian government data creation, collection, storage and …
When the struggling street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, on 17 December 2010, he could not possibly have imagined how consequential his desperate protest would be. By sparking a wave …
To our national detriment, much of the public discussion on war crimes alleged to have been committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan is focusing on secondary, peripheral or irrelevant issues. Some public confusion has resulted …
The subsidiary of a Chinese defence conglomerate nicknamed ‘the Huawei of airport security’ is increasingly dominant in border-control and security-screening technologies globally. Last month, Canada’s foreign affairs department backflipped on its plan to buy security …
The Kingdom of Morocco has come full circle in its relations with Israel and its stance on the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence. It has revived its 1990s approach by recognising the Jewish state …
In an already acrimonious year for Australia–China relations, an ‘utterly outrageous’ tweet from a mid-level official at China’s foreign affairs ministry shows the extent to which the Chinese-language media environment is being shaped by the …
US President-elect Joe Biden has signalled that he won’t simply reverse Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and stated that the United States would rejoin the agreement if Iran returned to …
So, all Australian coal exports to China seem to have stopped. As usual, the Chinese government is keeping its actual decisions to itself and letting them leach out through state media and other sources. In this …
US President-elect Joe Biden has identified Antony Blinken as his preferred secretary of state. Challenges and opportunities abound to refashion outgoing President Donald Trump’s foreign policies that aggressively rolled back Obama-era commitments. The ‘America first’ …
Sea state The US Navy is planning to raise a 1st Fleet for the first time since 1973 in response to China’s naval build-up in the South China Sea. Under the plan, ships would likely …