Recently, the US and Japan released the Interim Report on the Revision of the Guidelines for US-Japan Defense Cooperation (PDF). The revision’s the first since 1997 and occurs in the context of Asia-Pacific power shifts. …
Gough Whitlam helped Australia think about finding its security in Asia, not to seek security from Asia. Not least of Whitlam’s achievements was to make Australia colour-blind, in both word and deed. Harold Holt’s government, …
I was pleased to be invited to speak at the South Australian Government’s Defence Industry Policy Summit (PDF) earlier this week. I was invited in my role as a member of the Defence White Paper Expert …
It has been a busy week for those on the international cyber circuit. ICANN51 wrapped up in Los Angeles on Thursday and the three week ITU Plenipotentiary (PP-14) in Busan kicked off on Monday. Those …
Late last year, as the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia struggled with the revelations of the spying scandal, Colin Brown, an adjunct professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, described the history of the relationship …
Gough Whitlam was a physical giant with an intellect to match. His flaws were pretty sizeable, too, and the pygmies who beset him were often from his own party. His self-mocking humour was immensely appealing, …
In memory of Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) and his contribution to Australian foreign policy, we republish here a brief excerpt from Ross Terrill’s ASPI Strategy paper, Facing the dragon, on Whitlam’s 1971 visit to China: Zhou …
Iran’s securing nuclear weapons would destabilise a region already suffering from mass upheaval, in addition to having dire security implications for the rest of the world. Multilateral efforts to deter the sadistic actions of ISIS, …
Three years ago the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) celebrated its 40th birthday, an anniversary that sparked a flutter of international curiosity about this most eclectic of regional security frameworks. By way of animal analogy, …
Australian Defence white papers have long identified the strategic import of ‘a secure South Pacific and Timor-Leste’. As renowned strategic thinker T.B. Millar once reflected, Papua New Guinea is an ‘an exposed and vulnerable front …
The first thing that Joko Widodo will think about when he wakes up today, the day of his inauguration as president, won’t be Indonesia’s relationship with Australia. Nor, for that matter, with the other countries …
Here’s Canberra lore—or three rules of an Unholy Trinity—explaining how politicians operate. When nothing makes sense, rely on the Trinity pulsing beneath the surface of party, parliament and government: It’s always personal There’s always a …
On Monday, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will hand over the keys to the world’s fourth most populous country and Southeast Asia’s largest state to the president-elect, Joko Widodo aka Jokowi. To find out what that means …
The government’s offer of a 1.5% p.a. pay rise for each of the next three years in exchange for a reduction in leave entitlements and other allowances has been met with dismay. This is one …
When it comes to cutting a nuclear deal, Tehran has to be convinced that Iran will be punished if it reneges on a deal and rewarded if it complies. The solution to that problem rests …
On Monday 20 October Joko Widodo (Jokowi) will be inaugurated as Indonesia’s seventh president. Australia–Indonesia relations will shift to a new and more mature plane due to differences in character between Jokowi and his predecessor, …
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has developed an impressive array of land-based anti-ship missile systems, which are part of a robust sea-denial capability. That growing capability is forcing the United States (US) and Australia …
The Indian Ocean littoral region’s resources and economic growth are attracting greater political attention. So it’s surprising there wasn’t more press coverage of last week’s meeting in Perth of the 20 member-states of the Indian …
Defence analysis is my core business, so I thought I’d share my views about Australia’s decision about going to war again in the Middle East. As I’ll argue below, I think we’re doing the right …
Last week the government launched the third update to its cloud computing policy. In what’s being dubbed the ‘Cloud First’ policy, agencies and departments are now required to first consider cloud computing before traditional storage …