This year marks the 50th anniversary of the strategy cult classic film by Stanley Kubrick, ‘Dr Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb’. Over at The New Yorker, Eric Schlosser looks …
International aid for the Philippines after last November’s devastating typhoon has had some security consequences. Changes have occurred in the Philippines’ relations with the United States, with Japan, with China, with Hong Kong and with …
Just before Christmas, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) put out an interesting report Process over platforms: a paradigm shift in acquisition through advanced manufacturing (PDF) by Aaron Martin and (expat Australian) Ben …
As the mood of crisis that surrounded the Indonesia–Australia spying scandal recedes into the past, debate continues about what lessons Australia should learn from the affair. While the episode certainly provides instruction on how we …
Netizens are in an uproar as a DC Federal Court has come down against the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. Verizon, the lead plaintiff in the case, petitioned for its right to ‘manage’ …
The 2014 Madeleine Award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs goes to Margaret Thatcher. Some winners just stand up and demand the prize through sheer force of personality …
Australia has a vital interest in preventing its region, defined as the Indo-Pacific in the 2013 Defence White Paper, from becoming an arena of great power rivalry. This includes between India and China. Developing a …
The last day of 2013 marked more than the close of the year: it signalled the end of one of the most important global sources of publicly-accessible intelligence. Through a low-key notice, the United States …
In his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke relates an incident when in 1993 he was attempting to persuade President Clinton to ‘snatch’ a terrorist (a practice nowadays known better by its more formal tag …
Roll out the red carpet and chill the champagne! A truly minor annual moment has arrived: the Madeleine Award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs. This’ll be the …
Welcome back to another wrap-up of suggested reading from the defence and security world. I’m currently in Jakarta so I’ll kick off with some Indonesia news. The Indonesian military is set to get some short-range …
Smart, measured and energetic, Colonel Gilbert Toropo seems a good choice to be Papua New Guinea’s next Defence Force Commander. He’ll need to be. Even the circumstances surrounding the announcement of his selection highlight difficulties …
In January 2012, the Obama administration released a new Defense Strategic Guidance (PDF) that explicitly enunciated the need to re-engage the Asia-Pacific. Two principal questions have since arisen as a result of this reorientation. First, …
Last week I participated in a workshop on ‘Regional Views on Asia’s Multipolar Nuclear Future’ in Singapore, jointly organised by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. My …
If you weren’t living as a hermit in the desert, you’d have been well aware that 22 November 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. But the wall-to-wall …
This week in cyber, the media is abuzz with news of President Obama’s impending announcement of NSA reforms. Tucked into the Friday news dump, the general consensus is that the January 17 announcement will be …
Last month, the Japanese government released the country’s first National Security Strategy (NSS). For Australia, this strategy is of considerable interest now that Japan’s seen as our ‘best friend in Asia’ and a strong ally. …
With another Defence white paper in the offing, opinions abound on what that document should prescribe for the ADF’s force structure. As always, the challenge is setting a structure that meets Australia’s defence needs without …
The theme of partnership is a growing one in Australian strategic policy. In some ways, it’s a useful qualifier to the emphases placed in an earlier era on ANZUS and self-reliance. And it’s probably not …
Last January, after an extensive period of testing, the British Army announced that their venerable Browning Hi-Power Mk III pistols would be replaced with modern Glock 17 Generation 4 pistols, as a result of hard-won, on-the-ground, …