Choosing not to choose

Hugh White writes ‘I don’t believe that Australia must make a choice between America and China’ and adds another perilous twist to his ‘China-Choice’ journey. Well, you could have fooled me! Hugh and I agree …

Vigilantism on the cyber frontier

Cybercrime is presenting law enforcement agencies worldwide with new and evolving legislative problems and operational challenges. Identifying and stopping nefarious online actors, many of whom are based thousands of kilometres away on foreign soil, is …

Honour, prestige and restraint

This energetic debate began with Peter Jennings taking issue with Hugh White’s gloomy prognostications about where Australia’s enthusiasm for closer strategic cooperation with Japan might lead. For Peter, the basic structure of the current order …

ASPI suggests

I’m kicking off today with biosecurity: Ebola outbreaks in West Africa have raised fears it might spread to other continents. In a new video interview (7mins), CSIS Senior Vice President and Director, Global Health Policy …

A realistic future submarine—at last

At the Defence and Industry conference this week, we got an official update on the status of the Future Submarine project (SEA1000) from the project head, RADM Greg Sammut and DMO’s General Manager of Submarines, …

Putin is not a strategic grand master

The destruction of Malaysian flight MH17 could hardly have come at a more inopportune moment for Russia, already reeling from Western sanctions and isolation. A growing body of evidence suggests that pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine …

Reflections on Indonesia’s presidential election

The election of Jokowi is a good result for Indonesia, for Indonesia’s neighbours and for democracies in particular. State visits to democracies by a President Prabowo would have been dogged by protests. It’s also an …

The elephant in the conference room

The worst-kept secret at the DMO Defence and Industry conference this week was the government’s active consideration of buying submarines from Japan. Although it was never mentioned in any presentation, Option J, as it has …

Cyber wrap

With this week marking 100 years since the start of World War I, the Australian Army’s release of its Future Land Warfare 2014 report (PDF) is a timely consideration of what war means in the …

China’s choices in a more contested Asia

Hugh White and others are right to worry about a drift toward antagonism among Asia’s great powers. China’s recent assertiveness in local maritime disputes should moreover disabuse anyone of the comforting conceit that China will …

On the merits of avoiding stark choices

Strategic analysts have a poor record of anticipating the future shape of international relations. Most famously, apart from a few obscure French historians, no-one seriously foreshadowed the demise of the Soviet Union and subsequent end …