Ready for the weekend? We’ve got your good reads and podcasts covered. Southeast Asia’s big news this week was the death of Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, aged 91. A towering figure in Singapore’s politics and …
Karl Claxton’s recent Strategist post suggests that Operation Pacific Assist to cyclone-damaged Vanuatu could provide an opportunity to ‘reset regional cooperation’. As ‘practical avenues for reviving habits of cooperation’, he suggests that humanitarian assistance and …
Like many capability debates, LAND 400 runs the risk of becoming a multipolar web of false dichotomies and choices. The systems proposed for acquisition under LAND 400 are too large and heavy, and they come with …
There’s a lot of talk about submarines again this week thanks to the SubSummit conference in Adelaide. Perhaps not surprisingly given the venue, much of the focus was on the local versus offshore build aspect. …
This week on The Beat; terrorism financing in Indonesia from Australia, ACC report on ‘ice’ use, cybercrime to cost US$400 billion, witness in Alexander Litvinenko inquiry, and metadata. Indonesian terrorism funding from Australia New reports …
This week in Counterterrorism (CT) Scan, we look at Australian foreign fighters, Jabhat al-Nusra’s quiet rise, the Tunis and Yemen attacks, terror threats in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, how terrorist groups work, Boko Haram and …
Much of the commentary on Malcolm Fraser portrays him as the politician who moved most dramatically from the right to the left of the political spectrum. The man denounced by the left for his role …
The world’s media and international leaders have responded to the passing of Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew by recounting his eventful life and lauding his remarkable achievements. There is no need—or space—to enumerate …
In news that won’t shock anyone, word came this week that China has established extensive offensive hacking units within its military and civilian government set-ups. But it’s the source of these reports that makes …
This week in Rapid Fire we see the end of Australia’s longest war, more on women in combat, arming Ukraine, Yemen’s civil war, Iran’s role in Iraq, the Tikrit offensive, Boko Haram, and children during …
Australia’s border enforcement agencies have a new opportunity to advance a ‘forward of the border’ strategy to disrupt the flow of heroin from Vietnam. On 17 March, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Prime …
Karl Claxton has done an admirable job sustaining logical and informed debate on the future of the Australian Army on The Strategist. His most recent piece, Armour, Army and Australia’s future strategy corrals a number …
In this week’s update, we review the aerial response to Cyclone Pam, drones in Syria and Europe, the potential for space war, Afghanistan’s close air support capability, and miniature air launched decoy jammers. The destruction …
A useful history of Australia’s actions, apprehensions and aspirations in Southeast Asia over the last 75 years could be written using Lee Kuan Yew as actor and commentator. As a young translator, working for the …
In the 1990s, an American scholar wrote a famous paper called ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’. The central argument was that little in international politics is pre-ordained and how we think about issues …
At the launch of the Australian Cyber Security Centre in November 2014, Prime Minister Abbott underlined the importance of cybercrime in the Government’s thinking, estimating that cybercrime costs Australia around $1.2 billion per year. That …
With ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference now less than a week away, Sea State this week will continue last week’s examination of design options for the future frigate fleet. We’ll also take a look at …
Australian politics has grafted presidential habits onto a system of cabinet government. And recently, the Oz body politic has rejected the graft. The mismatch between presidential aspiration and parliamentary power introduces stutters and stuff-ups into …
Welcome back for another dose of defence and strategy links, this week coming to you from the ISCS–RIS conference on India and the Indian Ocean in Bhubaneswar, India’s ‘City of Temples’. Kicking off with the …
This post is a contribution to a series leading to ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet Conference from 30 March to 1 April 2015. Registration closes 23 March. A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready, the long-awaited …