The existence or absence of an Australian ‘School’ of international relations is one of the billabongs in the river of argument about Australia’s place in the world. The academics have this specialist dispute to themselves. …
The title of this post sounds outrageous. How can there be any shortcomings of the next Defence White Paper (DWP) when it’s yet to be written? But the next DWP won’t emerge from thin air—it’ll …
This post is adapted from the authors’ paper Australian defence: challenges for the new government, published in the latest edition of Security Challenges. There’s a set of enduring policy principles that have guided the defence …
Ten days after street protests in Bangkok escalated into violence that killed five people and injured many, Thailand’s democracy hangs in the balance. Facing revived mass demonstrations by ‘yellow-shirt’ opponents in Bangkok following a brief …
This exercise showed we have made great progress in our amphibious capability and in joint effects. I know everyone involved has gained new experiences and skills, learned much about working with our sister services, and …
Over the past couple of days, I joined a couple of my ASPI colleagues at a second track ‘Quad plus’ dialogue convened in Canberra by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation. (A second track dialogue involves academics …
Ideas about the future lie at the heart of strategic thinking. As major capability acquisitions often take years to decide or implement, and countries are stuck with the results for decades, strategy is partly governed …
The puzzle that is the Chinese policy making process has been taunting analysts over the last few weeks. First, a handful of Strategist posts (here, here and here) discussed whether incidents involving China’s maritime law …
As the new Defence Minister and his team contemplate the task in front of them, we thought it might be worth dipping into the ASPI archives for useful tips. Back in 2011 we published a …
Last week, David Schaefer introduced an interesting new dimension to the big data debate developing on The Strategist, that of cybersecurity. With defenders of metadata collection hammering home the counter-terrorism angle, the future utility of …
Last week, Defence Minister David Johnston spoke at ASPI’s National Security Dinner. As usual, security pundits and journalists read between the lines of the Senator’s speech in terms of deeper meanings for Australia’s strategic and …
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has travelled to Jakarta to meet with her counterpart Marty Natalegawa to help mend a rift in Australia–Indonesia relations, which has come in the wake of a recent spying scandal that led to …
The effective management of the fish stocks in the Pacific is important for the food security, healthy ocean ecosystems and livelihood security for those regional states. In many ways, sustainable fisheries help to underpin regional …
To see what Tony Abbott might do with Shinzo Abe, look at what John Howard built with Shinzo Abe. The new Liberal Prime Minister in Australia can draw strongly on the lessons of Australia’s previous …
Defence faces years of budget discipline as broader financial pressures bear down on the Abbott government. That’s the implicit message from David Johnston in his most significant speech since he took office as defence minister …
The new government is looking hard at Defence’s equipment costs (about 22% of the budget) and operating costs (about 35%) but can’t ignore personnel costs (about 42%). Reducing the numbers of those in uniform may …
No rest for the weary as Australia is faced with another bout of damaging Snowden revelations. Latest documents suggest that the Defence Signals Directorate (now the Australian Signals Directorate) offered to ‘share bulk, unselected, unminimised …
China’s ADIZ extension certainly got everyone’s attention. Externally, the consensus was overwhelmingly negative and in encouraging other states to balance with the US against China, the ADIZ decision seems an ‘own goal’, at least to …
In last week’s post we presented a potted summary of two of the four main areas of difficulty within the Defence capability development process identified by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). Today we’ll finish …
I’m grateful to Peter Jennings and Karl Claxton for providing a superb example of the Phase Zero planning in their proposal for Bougainville. Their nine-point recommendation incorporates many of the features of a good Phase …