For ASEAN, the Philippines has become the canary in the mine in testing how much more poisonous the atmosphere with China can become in the South China Sea. By taking China before the bar of …
Defence White Paper 2013 breaks new ground in a number of areas—but at the big picture level, the most striking aspect of the paper is its revaluation of Southeast Asia. In place of the vague …
*Stop Press* In the still developing story of NSA’s Prism program (see Toby Feakin on The Strategist earlier this week if you missed it), the Guardian newspaper has published the classified ‘rules’ that NSA follows …
Let me reply to the Related Posts (linked below) in this lengthening conversation on amphibious operations. I’ll reply mainly without restating arguments. The DWP2013 gives weight to combat operations, seeing a role for amphibious ships …
In the Financial Review last week, Anthony Bergin put forward some ideas to ‘stop the boats’. Unfortunately, his immodest proposals for changes to Australian asylum laws aren’t evidence based. In particular, the suggestion that Australia …
Whichever party wins the upcoming Federal election is going to have to prioritise reform of Defence’s procurement processes and capability delivery to address looming problems, including capability gaps, base consolidation and upgrade requirements. It’s also …
Hope is blooming with the summer flowers in Beijing after the Sunnylands meeting between Presidents Xi and Obama. The hope is that the two leaders—Xi just installed and Obama secure in his second term— will …
Toby Feakin’s post the other day brought up the topic of oversight of government security operations. He’s right that a liberal democracy requires checks and balances to prevent excesses from government agencies. But it got …
As Indonesia pursues a policy of ‘a million friends and zero enemies’, Australia needs to ensure that it stands out from the multitude; that it isn’t merely a close acquaintance or an amicable neighbour, but …
When talking about current defence and security matters there seems strong agreement on at least one characteristic: that the future is uncertain. Of course that’s true, and many things could potentially happen but, even so, …
At Australian Defence Magazine’s 3rd Cyber Security Summit this week, members of the shadowy cyber world gathered to swap war stories and scare one another silly with worst case scenarios. The thought that every major …
Army Chief David Morrison’s robust condemnation of some of his officers’ appalling treatment of women has won him wide praise. Morrison’s YouTube speech (below) was a watershed moment, displaying leadership and clarity that cut through the …
Coming at a time when the US has been increasingly turning the screw on China about its persistent hacking of US computer networks, the revelation that the US government itself has been gathering metadata on …
We’d like to say a big thank you for the response to our survey. We got many useful suggestions and comments, all of which were read with great interest. You might notice a few changes …
ASEAN is ever in crisis or on the verge of calamity. The role of crisis in giving ASEAN a purpose, or even an identity, is part of the abiding mystery of Southeast Asian regionalism. The …
Welcome back for another round of new reports, developments in regional and international security and upcoming events. First for today is a new report by the Center for a New American Security that studies the …
For a while now defence officials and analysts on both sides of the Tasman have been looking for ways to re-energise the Australia-New Zealand relationship. It’s almost as if the two neighbours were becoming too …
I’ve recently started looking at the back catalogue of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s public addresses to see what the Indonesian President has chosen to talk about to an international audience. Since January of this year, he’s made 12 …
I liked Phil Radford’s piece on cyber security and the cloud this morning. In particular, I liked the parallel between cyber security and anti-submarine warfare (ASW), having spent a fair chunk of time in Russell …
Because I’m not prone to ‘all or nothing’ thinking, I’ve never subscribed to the view that Australia can’t advance a sensible agenda for arms control because of our alliance relationship with the United States. But …