A key challenge facing President-elect Joe Biden will be whether the United States should rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was intended to persuade Iran to abandon its plans to develop nuclear weapons. …
Much has been written about the changing international order and the ‘crisis’ of multilateralism in recent months. The winds of change have been howling, indeed. International treaties and the multilateral system, with the United Nations …
Last month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a £16.5 billion (A$29 billion) increase in funding for the British Armed Forces, on top of an increase of 0.5% above inflation per year announced in the …
The impact of Covid-19 and Australia’s rapidly evolving strategic environment have highlighted the requirement to invest in a sovereign defence industry. The Australian government clearly articulated its ambition for a strong and sustainable capability in …
Two adages come to mind as I write this: ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’, and ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.’ Taken together, the two maxims sum up …
In the first part of this series we saw that Australia’s Defence Department is increasingly reliant on a large number of contractors that are costing a lot of money. Should we be worried about this …
Morocco is the latest Arab country to formalise a relationship with Israel that has been an open secret for decades. There were Moroccan and Israeli liaison offices in each other’s capitals until 2002 when Rabat …
On 1 December, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, gave a 15-minute television interview with journalist Stan Grant on the ABC. In the interview, Wu robustly described coercion from Beijing, including incursions from military aircraft, the …
Thailand has a long history of political instability and civil strife, with democracy having been repeatedly disrupted by a strong culture of military intervention and monarchical overreach during the past century. Against this backdrop, the …
Nobody wants to pay for good foreign policy, but everybody pays for bad foreign policy. Join that truth to a reality that rules the public service tribes of Canberra: your foes must also be your …
The European Union is facing an existential threat, and yet its leadership is responding with a compromise that appears to reflect a belief that the threat can simply be wished away. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s …
In this episode, Leanne Close, head of ASPI’s counterterrorism program, speaks with Peta Lowe, who has over 15 years’ experience working with young people involved with the justice system. They discusses countering violent extremism in …
Violent disturbances over nickel production, with implications for Australian security, in our close French neighbour, New Caledonia, have attracted attention in Paris, but not here. Only Nic Maclellan, true to excellent form, has written about …
Amid the cranky grey-zone conflict with the People’s Republic of China, members of Australia’s elites are displaying eagerly their whateverist credentials. The first iteration of whateverism emerged from a notorious editorial jointly published by the …
Climate change is presenting Australia’s Defence Department with new challenges on the domestic front. One of the more pressing is the need to safeguard defence installations across Australia as climate-driven natural disaster events become increasingly …
For the past six weeks or more, both the political system and day-to-day government operations of Papua New Guinea have been paralysed by the impact of divisions within the Marape government, and attempts to remove …
As if the raging Covid-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment and massive farmers’ protests besieging the country’s capital weren’t enough, India’s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a …
Here’s a priority list for Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s foreign arrangements taskforce to apply the Australian government’s new veto power over states’ engagement with foreign governments: Victoria’s Belt and Road Initiative memorandum of understanding with …
Scott Morrison demanded three things in his emotionally charged press conference about ‘that tweet’ last week. One: an apology, two: that the Chinese government remove foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian’s post, and three: that Twitter …
Joe Biden will have a lot on his plate after his inauguration as US president on 20 January 2021. The most pressing concern will be dealing with Covid-19 and establishing a path back to economic …