I think the Option J scenario has finally reached some equilibrium – competitive evaluation it is. But I do wonder at suggestions that we should do a hybrid build or build overseas and then fit …
Submarines were the big story in Australia last week, and there was a great deal of coverage focusing on the political dimensions of that story in the Aussie press. The Prime Minister ruled out an open tender …
Trend stories are always about the warmth of the water and the health of the frog. How close to boiling is the water, how much capacity does the frog have to respond? Asia’s darkest trend …
We’re keeping your Black Friday screens bright with infographics of the conflict in Syria, private military security companies, China’s military, India and Australian uranium, Fatboy Kim and more. The Institute for the Study of War …
The government doesn’t seem to understand the words it has been saying on submarines. It has committed to a ‘competitive evaluation process’ for the future submarine project—a term not used in defence circles—and some seem …
A soap opera typically has a number of common features: forced characters, somewhat unbelievable; a plot in which dramatic events occur frequently but the story itself doesn’t reach any sort of conclusion; a familiar setting …
It’s hard to fathom how the extremist’s sales pitch works when we continue to hear reports of daesh atrocities against innocent civilians, including enslavement and rape of women, mass executions—including of their own fighters who’ve …
We’re rapidly getting down to the endgame in the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. The end of March looms as a real deadline—at least for a political agreement which would subsequently have to …
Of the many issues raised in Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s address to last week’s summit on how he intends to manage the headwinds buffeting Papua New Guinea’s social and economic progress, six sentences on West …
This week on The Beat, we look at the fast-tracked treaty concerning MH17, the Silk Road conviction, more cybercrime, collaboration to counter organised crime and transnational terrorism, the US National Security Strategy and developments in …
Late last month, Ben Schreer introduced ASPI’s upcoming international conference on Australia’s Future Surface Fleet. In doing so, he observed that many factors—strategic, operational, international and industrial—will shape decisions about the Navy’s future surface fleet. …
We’ve written a lot about the future submarine project over the years. Last year, Mark Thomson and I surveyed the possible range of acquisition strategies the government could opt to pursue. We made the observation …
US President Barack Obama expressed last June his concern about a possible influx into the US of European extremists who’d returned from Syria, taking advantage of the fact that they don’t need a visa to …
Greetings from Kuala Lumpur! The ICPC team is in Malaysia seeking Asia–Pacific perspectives on the Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) to be held in The Hague later this year. The GCCS is the fourth …
The dramatic hostage crisis in Syria ended tragically with the execution of two Japanese hostages and a Jordanian pilot by ISIS militants. Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat, described the crisis as a ‘9/11 for …
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, came to power amid great expectations. He was seen as a reforming president, one who would break through the self-serving façades of vested interests hobbling the economy …
Fairfax Media’s Deborah Snow points out that, while the federal government has made much of its commitment to programs aimed at diverting young Muslims who might be on the path to radicalisation, the Lebanese Muslim …
A lot has happened since September 2013 when Tony Abbott promised to boost defence spending to 2% of GDP ‘within a decade’. The economic outlook has deteriorated, government revenues have fallen, and the Senate—like many …
Many Australian observers of Indonesian politics may have assumed that the election of Joko Widodo as Indonesia’s seventh president would augur well for the bilateral relationship. After all, the former municipal governor came not from …
There was a fascinating blip on the radar this week—a branch of Chinese local government accidentally let slip that work on China’s second aircraft carrier is underway. Boasts that a local company in Changzhou, Jiangshu …