Over the next decade, the Australian Government is planning to acquire seven MQ-4C Triton unmanned maritime surveillance aircraft, which will operate alongside between eight and 12 manned P-8A Poseidons. Together, they’ll replace the RAAF’s 18 …
Fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, entitled Globalization and its Discontents, describing growing opposition in the developing world to globalizing reforms. It seemed a mystery: people in developing countries had been told that …
Some big strategic brains fit the proof about why journalists shouldn’t run things—merely watch five of ‘em decide where to lunch. Robert O’Neill shatters that proof. Here’s a big strategic brain that can think and …
It was a good week for women in Japan, with the country’s first female Defence Minister (2007), Yuriko Koike, breaking through another glass ceiling to become the first female governor of Tokyo—despite sharp opposition from …
It’s difficult to keep track of disarmament fora. So readers could be forgiven for overlooking the fact that the UN’s Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations will hold its third …
Now everyone’s had their say. Some branded the decision to not nominate Kevin Rudd for UN Secretary General as puerile and pathetic, while others preferred to pretend the decision was simply a ‘difficult’ one on …
The Australian Department of Defence has a continuing attraction for the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) office. The attraction can readily be seen in the ongoing trend towards an ever-increasing commitment of the defence budget …
Welcome to The Strategist Six, a feature that provides a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. 1. Since Narendra Modi became the prime …
The Beat Money, money, money, must be… laundered? Last week, the Basel Institute on Governance released its 2016 Basel Anti-Money Laundering Index, an annual ranking of 149 countries on money laundering and terrorism financing risks. …
The sudden death of Professor Jeffrey Grey of the University of New South Wales, Canberra—the academic component of the Australian Defence Force Academy—at the age of 57 has profoundly shocked not only the relatively small …
During the festive season of 1978, in an underground corner of the Pentagon, a group of Defense Intelligence Agency analysts was burning the midnight oil. For some months, they’d been monitoring the deployment of Chinese …
As a long term critic of the ‘silver bullet’ approach to military capability development, Gareth Robinson’s recent piece on the Third Offset Strategy got me thinking. Given the wealth of technical capability and capacity within …
President Obama released a new Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on US Cyber Incident Coordination last week. The document laid out who’s in charge during ‘significant cyber incidents’ targeting the US, with significant incidents rated at …
The United States’ presidential campaign, already long and tumultuous, will no doubt become even more so in the coming months, as the two parties’ nominees, now officially selected, face off ahead of November’s election. But …
Electronic computer technology has moved from valves to transistors to progressively more complex integrated circuits and processor designs, with each change bringing higher levels of performance. Now the advent of quantum computers promises a huge …
While the recent ruling by an Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague addressing the dispute between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea has been hailed as a ‘game changer’ (PDF) and a ‘heavy …
Sea State China’s Defence Ministry announced on 28 July that it will hold joint exercises with Russian forces in the South China Sea. The air and sea drills are expected to occur sometime in September …
For students of incomprehensible behavior by otherwise apparently intelligent leaders, Australian politics is the gift that keeps on giving. The latest example is the decision by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government, just re-elected by a …
She’s back! Six years after being run out of town over the 2008 Bank Century bailout debacle, Sri Mulyani Indrawati is back as finance minister in a newly-reshuffled Indonesian Cabinet that provides further evidence President …
The 12 July judgment by the Hague-based Arbitral Tribunal on the South China Sea constituted a near-total defeat for China. While it was widely expected that the Philippines would win, it wasn’t expected that China …