The Pentagon’s recent decision to freeze small grants to Australian rare-earth miner Lynas and its US rival MP Materials highlights the difficulty of breaking China’s stranglehold on the global supply of critical minerals. Despite years …
As election season descends on the United Nations headquarters in New York, the most notable vote is for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council for 2021–2022. Membership of the council, the paramount body for …
The conspicuous absence of American leadership during the pandemic has emboldened the narratives about the United States’ decline and the weakening of the international order. The result has been a proliferation of commentary on the …
There’s a wrestle underway between Australia’s universities and the government over funding, priorities and the future. Right now it looks like a Mexican standoff, not a negotiation. There are grounds for a deal, although getting …
Earlier this month, I completed my posting in Iraq as head of delegation with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC is an organisation that addresses the humanitarian consequences of conflict and violence, …
Sea state The US Navy has stepped up its presence in the Indo-Pacific, in a rare deployment of three aircraft carriers to the region. USS Theodore Roosevelt has been deployed near Guam, USS Nimitz near …
The United States finds itself confronting several daunting challenges simultaneously. There is the Covid-19 pandemic, which has already claimed nearly 120,000 American lives and shows little sign of abating in large swaths of the country. …
Long waits can let cooler heads prevail and reverse hot-headed decisions. In January, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines threatened to terminate the 1998 Philippine–US Visiting Forces Agreement—a treaty-level pact that provides the operational framework …
On 29 May, The Times reported that the British government was set to propose reforms to the G7, an organisation established in 1975 to coordinate policy between the world’s largest and most advanced market economies. …
Australia’s parliament is considering a bill that will, among other things, lower the age at which a minor can be questioned by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation during a terrorism investigation from 16 to 14. …
The Australian government must take very seriously the threat to the Manus Island joint naval base project outlined recently by a senior minister in Papua New Guinea’s government. The fact that the man concerned—Foreign Minister …
I read Burn-in—the follow-up novel to Ghost Fleet by Peter W. Singer and August Cole—using an artificial-intelligence-driven app that converted PDF text to speech, which I listened to through wireless ear pods. Occasionally I’d pause …
The public history of Australia’s intelligence community involves isolated moments of creation by political leaders and long periods of silence behind the secrecy curtain. The public way stations in the history—in which the agencies were …
In this episode, ASPI’s Genevieve Feely speaks to Robert Baird of Tatoli news agency in Timor-Leste about political developments in the country, including the challenges posed by a failed budget and the Covid-19 pandemic. Senior …
On 5 June, China’s National Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a travel alert to visitors to Australia warning of ‘a significant increase’ in racial abuse and violence. Four days later, the Ministry of Education …
The beat Demands to reform US policing Minneapolis City Council’s decision to ‘dismantle’ its policing system has provided momentum to the ‘defund the police’ movement in the United States. Proponents advocate major changes to policing …
In my study of 14 presidents since 1945, Do morals matter?, I found that Americans want a moral foreign policy, but have been torn over what that means. Americans often see their country as exceptional …
It isn’t news that diverse workforces are a key to producing high-quality, innovative and competitive results. There’s no shortage of evidence from both the private and public sectors that diverse teams solve problems more effectively, …
At times of political crisis, the Chinese government has demonstrated a willingness to deploy disinformation and influence operations to achieve its strategic goals. The regime has mobilised a long-running campaign of political warfare against Taiwan, …
This article is part of ASPI’s 2020 series on women, peace and security. The unanimous adoption of resolution 1325 by the United Nations Security Council two decades ago constituted a landmark achievement for gender equality …