Tony Abbott arrived in New York overnight to commence the US leg of his latest overseas trip. While it’s anticipated this portion of the trip will have a heavy business, trade and investment focus, it’s …
China has shifted from salami slicing to ramming in the South China Sea. Having created a new ‘fact’ by shifting an oil rig into Vietnam’s proclaimed EEZ off the disputed Paracel Islands, China is ramming …
It’s the Queen’s birthday public holiday here in Canberra so we’ll be back tomorrow with our usual considered analysis, stats and graphs for your reading pleasure. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for something to read, check out …
Welcome back for another instalment of ASPI suggests from Washington DC. I’ve found our region’s experts have a lot to offer our American colleagues when it comes to understanding the Asia Pacific, especially Southeast Asia. …
To commemorate the 70th anniversary, ASPI invited a range of contributors to reflect, briefly, on why D-Day was significant. Their contributions are posted here. D-Day: A bright and shining moment for liberal democracy Seventy years …
The Strategist has already posted a number of pieces on US President Barack Obama’s use of a graduation address at the United States Military Academy, West Point, to make a long-awaited foreign policy speech. There …
The growing India-chatter within foreign policy circles has recently intensified after the election of the most ‘Indian’ of Indian Prime Ministers in decades. Many have speculated whether Modi’s cultural-nationalist past will define his foreign policy. …
As memories are lost it becomes the role of commemorations to shape our view of history. The 40th anniversary commemorations of the Normandy landings in 1984 brought Ronald Reagan to Pointe du Hoc, where US …
A few millennia after recording the basic tenets of hard-edged power politics and creating the historian’s craft, Thucydides has popped up in the South China Sea. Malaysia’s Prime Minister has dipped into the historian, philosopher …
Cyber law enforcement has been on a roll as of late. After a busy May indicting Chinese hackers and combating the Blackshades Remote Access Tool, an international team including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, …
Barack Obama’s West Point speech shows a man tired of the presidency, weighed down by the war in Afghanistan and unsure of America’s role in the world. Obama is having his LBJ moment. Johnson fought …
Narendra Modi’s election as India’s Prime Minister has fired the hopes of Australian India-watchers keen to forge a stronger strategic partnership between Canberra and New Delhi. As Canberra has recast its strategic geography in Indo-Pacific …
President Obama’s explanation of his foreign policy has come and gone, but he has won few converts. True, he tells a credible story about continuing US leadership, exceptionalism, and the intermeshing of unilateral and multilateral …
I listened last week as my colleague Mark Thomson launched this year’s budget brief. One of Mark’s points was that spending on any defence related proposal should be weighed against the gains in security that’ll …
The theme of last year’s Shangri-La dialogue was the need to build trust and confidence. As Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, said then: ‘If trust is lost, all is lost’. Well, trust is lost. This …
The Australian Defence Minister thinks Asia’s security situation is potentially ‘dire’ even ‘catastrophic’. But David Johnston twice assured his Shangri-La audience that the regional impact of the US marines rotating through Darwin on the strategic …
The biggest question facing Asia is becoming even starker because leaders are giving such different answers. The leaders of the US, China and Japan have just illustrated the conundrum that Rod Lyon outlined in his …
The Japanese Prime Minister came to Singapore to announce Japan will have a military and security role in Asia’s future. Shinzo Abe told the Shangri-La dialogue: ‘Japan intends to play an even greater and more …
Still reporting from Washington DC, this week’s ‘Suggests’ is jam-packed with links, reports, podcasts and videos on strategy, security and defence. I’m kicking off today with a general shout-out for a handful of stellar American …
Peter Jennings picks up a theme that has been working its way through the Western security community for some years now, and quite explicitly so since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: hard power is back. That’s …