This year marks the 15th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security (WPS), which provides an opportunity to reflect on its progress. The realisation of the WPS agenda …
Washington is abuzz with the Iran deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was agreed upon last month between the P5, Germany and the EU on the one side, and …
Policy reform in Australia has slowed so much that institutional causes should be considered. The effectiveness of the political adviser needs some thought because they touch most of the messages, reactions, decisions, budgets, policies and …
Indonesia’s Cabinet Secretary Andi Widjajanto has foreshadowed the introduction of new cyber security legislation, stating that new cyber laws will be released by President Joko Widodo in October. He also confirmed earlier reports that Indonesia …
It’s time for Australians to come to grips with their more troubling security outlook and debate how best to strengthen their deterrence and defensive capabilities. That’s the core message in my essay Game Plan: The …
In Australia, we typically don’t consider trade relationships and trade agreements as contributing to national security. Yet, there’s an important strategic economic dimension. If two or more economies are prospering because all are able to …
With the minimum of fanfare, the US Army has made an announcement that challenges a long-standing prohibition in international humanitarian law: the banning of ‘expanding’ or hollow point ammunition from the battlefield. The announcement came …
Sea State Last week Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced a new $89 billion domestic shipbuilding program, which includes the continuous build of surface warships in Adelaide. Here on The Strategist, Andrew Davies and Mark Thomson …
Indonesia’s religious affairs minister, Lukman Hamid Saifuddin, is a breath of fresh air. He’s a break from a long line of ineffectual predecessors who did nothing to defend minorities and showed extreme cowardice in facing …
Japan has appeared to surrender, and we are waiting this weekend to hear whether this will become effective. If so, this horrible war will be at an end, but many of its ill-effects will be …
Australia is offering India a renewed geostrategic embrace and an economic deal—notable efforts by Canberra to strengthen geostrategic convergence with India and to deepen geo-economic linkages. The bilateral effort with India feeds the regionalist understanding …
Yesterday marked 70 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Newsweek has a photo series on the commemorations, and the BBC tells the story of one survivor through a short animation. Here …
For generations the Australian public has associated Gallipoli with a beach and a dawn landing. In recent years, books, documentaries and television series have repeated a story that leap-frogs over the campaign’s stereotypical events and …
Andrew Davies and Mark Thompson have pointed out problems with the Government’s recently announced $89 billion naval shipbuilding programme. In an earlier piece on naval shipbuilding, they thought the Government had ‘the tail wagging the …
As Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, approaches the end of his first year in office, some Indonesians are looking back nostalgically at his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Yudhoyono ruled Indonesia for ten …
It’s been 70 years since a nuclear bomb was detonated in anger, a remarkable achievement given that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki both happened within one month of the Trinity test. Another 840 months …
With the Abbott government’s announcement of a new ship building program in Adelaide, there will be plenty of argument over the logic and strategic basis of the decision, on top of the ongoing domestic shipbuilding …
The Beat Organised criminals target Australia Post The Australian Federal Police are expected to charge a Melbourne criminal syndicate formerly contracted to Australia Post with fraud, conspiracy to influence a Commonwealth official and dealing with …
In a Strategic Insights paper released today, Creative tension: parliament and national security, we argue that enhancing parliament’s role in national security will reinforce executive accountability, expand public access to policy processes, improve the quality …
I recently spoke at the third ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) workshop on cybersecurity held in Beijing. In the following two posts I’ll look at the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure in the Asia–Pacific, and examine some …