Mark Beeson’s latest post, speculating about the future of the ANZUS alliance under a Trump presidency, quietly champions the idea of an ‘independent, non-aligned Australia’. Such an Australia, Mark argues, wouldn’t have to make difficult …
The last time I saw David Hale was at a dinner in a restaurant at the Griffith shops in Canberra. He was passing through Australia on one of his regular visits and suggested we get …
There’s something odd about the Australian view of the power and aims of China’s President, Xi Jinping. We’re told that he has unprecedented and centralised authority. He’s using that power to, among other things, maintain …
When the Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011, demonstrations in support of political freedoms, anti-corruption measures and democratic governance were met brutally by the Assad regime. Having interviewed dozens of Syrians who were part of …
Today we’re celebrating Australia Day with a public holiday and some good barbecue fare, but we’ll be back tomorrow as normal with our usual considered analysis and debates. In the mean time, check out last …
The authors of the new Defence White Paper deserve our sympathy. They have to address the widest range of challenges to our national security that has ever been faced. We may be out of the …
The end of 2015 witnessed three seemingly unrelated developments: the establishment of a space hotline between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (Space Act), and the positive decision on jurisdiction by …
The Canberra ministerial adviser—the Minder—is 43 years young. The Minder is the strongest new creation of Oz politics, often more important than the public service in the way policy and politics gets done. The idea …
It’s all happening over in Davos, Switzerland, as the World Economic Forum hosts its 2016 Annual Meeting. As The Economist mused earlier in the week, ‘The scope for Davos satire is boundless: billionaires fretting about …
Fighting the war on drugs has never been easy. But 2015 was a particularly brutal chapter in Australia’s illicit drugs history. The methamphetamine crisis and its countless headlines pushed the country into uncharted waters. Many …
Part of my summer reading has been British naval historian Geoffrey Till’s excellent 2014 book Understanding victory: naval operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands. At first glance it doesn’t seem to offer much to anyone …
As widely expected, the Taiwanese presidential and legislative elections on 16 January produced a landslide victory for the pro-independence, opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DDP) under the leadership of Tsai Ing-Wen. The first female president in …
The Beat The costs of crime ICYMI: The Australian Crime Commission released their latest report, ‘The Costs of Serious and Organised Crime in Australia 2013–14′ over the holidays. Their findings show that serious and organised …
Dr Albert Palazzo, the Director Research at Army Headquarters, has just published a thought-provoking short monograph entitled Forging Australian Land Power: A Primer. His stated objective is ‘to assist those tasked with thinking about the …
At the White House today, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a new Cyber Security Dialogue between Australia and the United States. The initiative will be co-convened by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre and the Centre …
This year will see the end of the seemingly interminable process that decides who’ll become America’s next president. The conventional wisdom is that despite being the most popular candidate, Donald Trump won’t be the Republican …
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in Washington DC this week, and cyber issues have featured prominently on his agenda. During a poignant address on regional and international security at CSIS, Turnbull pushed several international cyber …
Indonesia’s worst terrorist attack in six years may have set Jakarta on edge and introduced a troubling new tactical dimension to Southeast Asian terrorism, but the pistol-wielding militants failed to live up to what’s normally …
ASPI lost a good friend and long-time supporter in the Hon Jim Carlton AO, who passed away on Christmas Day 2015. Jim was the personal nominee of then Prime Minister John Howard when appointed to …
Australia’s response to the emerging centrality of cyber space in the conduct of future war has been slow and fragmented. That’s true in different ways of the government, the armed forces, the private sector, and …