ASPI suggests: special edition

The latest issue of the Kokoda Foundation’s Security Challenges journal is a special edition that collects contributions on ‘The Defence White Paper 2013’. ASPI is well represented, and the abstracts of our papers are reprinted …

Law and society in Africa

Obama’s first stop in Africa was Senegal. While there, he met with several key members of the judiciary from across Africa (pictured above), at which the discussions centered on law in Africa. Obama told the …

Do we need an Indo-Pacific treaty?

Indonesian Foreign Minister Natalegawa has recently articulated his proposal for an Indo-Pacific Treaty at no less than three different conferences (including ‘Intersections of Power, Politics and Conflict in Asia’ in Jakarta in June) and it bears careful …

Africa on our horizon

Last week, President Obama completed a whirlwind official visit to west, southern and eastern Africa, stopping in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, important democratic US partners. The President announced a number of new initiatives designed …

Japan: the salamander stirs

In mid-June, as Presidents Xi and Obama strived to build bonhomie in the arid desert east of Los Angeles, a US–Japanese armada was purposefully massing off the coast, preparing for a simulated invasion of southern …

ASPI suggests

Kevin Rudd has used his first trip as Prime Minister to the Australia–Indonesia Annual Leader’s meeting in Jakarta to launch the Australia the Asian Century Indonesia country strategy (PDF). Looking out to 2025, the strategy …

Rise of the cyber-men in Asia

Cybersecurity is rapidly emerging as one of the highest US priorities for diplomatic engagement in Asia. A flurry of US statements over the last few months points to a new emphasis being put on building …

Even more reflections on intelligence

I’ve had a number of conversations (both real and virtual) about intelligence oversight since I first wrote about it here a couple of weeks ago. In particular, Andrew Zammit’s response was a thoughtful piece on …

Thinking amphibiously

Much of the concern about amphibious operations in Australian commentary has focused on the vulnerability of the associated task group and ships to attack, rather than the difficulty of the amphibious problem itself. It is …

Mr Rudd goes to Jakarta

One wonders whose opinions the reportedly more consultative Kevin Rudd sought in advance of his press conference last week, when he speculated about confrontation with Indonesia under a Coalition government. ‘I am very concerned about …

Welcome aboard, Minister

With the news that we’re about to get another new Defence Minister, we thought we’d provide our thoughts on what the executive summary of an incoming brief should look like. We’re tempted to copy the …

ASPI suggests

We’ll kick off this week with a collection of 230 websites and blogs for terrorism research, compiled by the journal, Perspectives on Terrorism. (Thanks Andrew Z) Also, the Lowy Institute has released their Annual Poll 2013 and for strategy buffs, there …