Peter Dean and Ken Gleiman’s recent paper Beyond 2017: the Australian Defence Force and amphibious warfare is undoubtedly timely: first, because policy that will shape important decisions to be made within the ADF is expected …
In a rare moment of not talking about submarines or frigates at the recent PAC2015 meeting, we sat down for a talk with the good folk from MDBA, a multinational company that does a lot …
The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has been the subject of much discussion and not much action. The problem of transnational crime in Southeast Asia is severe—it’s expanding in scale and becoming more organised. Fuelled by …
Sea State On Saturday, naval warships, aircraft carriers and submarines from the US, India and Japan streamed into the Bay of Bengal as part of the Malabar exercises. A joint press release from the three countries claimed that …
Nuclear deterrence theory is often seen as the go-to solution to cyber instability. After suffering a sequence of alleged Chinese hacks on its corporations and government departments, the US prepared a suite of potential economic …
As final touches are applied to Australia’s new Defence White Paper, policymakers are being urged to ‘embrace’ ambiguity in international security policy. An elegant and deeply thoughtful paper by Singapore ambassador-at-large Bilahari Kausikan (PDF) suggests …
Last week’s revelation that the Pentagon had been briefing Asian allies that US Navy warships would soon conduct freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea has ramped up tensions in the world’s most …
Paul Dibb recently wrote on The Strategist that China has long-term systemic problems which will prevent its continued rise to Asian great power status, and that as a ‘brittle state’, China can’t afford to go …
Groucho Marx got the conundrum into one great line: ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.’ My argument that Australia should join the Association of …
Did Macbeth have PTSD? Back in the capital, my first pick is a provocative take by sociology professor Anthony King on one of Shakespeare’s most infamous characters. King’s analysis dissects Macbeth’s actions throughout the ‘Scottish play’ and relates …
Senior government officials met in Canberra this week to discuss how to ensure more young Australians don’t seek out or become drawn in to the militant Salafist orbit of ISIS, al Qaeda and other such …
Buried deep in the news about a tax bill of close to $6 million being served on three Victorian ‘racing identities’ was an even more important story: the Commonwealth, state and territory governments are close …
With a relatively small amount of media coverage, foreign ministers of five nations—Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia—met in New York last week for the sixth MIKTA ministerial meeting. The meeting resulted in a …
It’s becoming commonplace to drum up the military threat from China and belittle America’s military capabilities. Much of this commentary reminds me of statements in the mid-1980s that the former Soviet Union was poised to …
The Beat Australian Crime Commission heads East Members of the Australian Border Force and Australian Federal Police have been joined in Hong Kong by a transnational crime expert from the Crime Commission to help counter organised …
On the basis of experience and ability, Paul Hasluck should have been one of Australia’s greatest foreign ministers. Before he came to that post, he had been an notable journalist, writing influential articles on the …
Some recent contributors to The Strategist have championed the M4 over the EF88. Army is satisfied with the M4 for select Special Operations Command combatants. However, there’s no such a thing as the ‘perfect weapon’. …
Graeme Dobell and Matt Davies have both written engaging contributions respectively for and against Australia’s possible future membership of ASEAN. I’m grateful to Graeme for presenting so cogently the arguments for Australia’s seeking admission. But …
Following up on last week’s cliffhanger, the Safe Harbour agreement was deemed invalid by the European Court of Justice. For the last 15 years, this agreement has allowed the transfer of EU data across the …
On 6 October, Russian warships on the Caspian Sea fired 26 medium range cruise missiles at 11 targets in Syria. Washington has protested that these strikes have not only struck the forces of the self-declared …