Australia’s Antarctic ambitions

Our Antarctic claim is about the size of Australia, minus Queensland. So it’s pleasing to see that the new Asian Century White Paper gave a decent acknowledgement to the cold continent (p. 248): The development …

The Asian Century: underbelly

Security and prosperity in the Asian Century have a dark underbelly: the region has witnessed a rapid and complex proliferation of organised criminal networks. They have had considerable impact on economic and social development, the …

Rebalancing or jockeying for position?

Sometimes an aside illuminates the important underlying drivers of issues. At Wednesday’s ASPI–Hewlett-Packard Defence and Security Lunch, retired US Admiral Gary Roughead mused briefly about rebalancing of US forces to the Pacific. Pressed later to …

Sold the dummy on the Defence budget?

Have we been sold a dummy pass on the impact of the defence budget cuts? Statements by the Defence Minister that that future plans are merely delayed may seem reasonable when money is tight and …

Afghanistan: the end game and after

The Prime Minister’s statement to the Parliament yesterday on Australia’s Afghanistan strategy continues to demonstrate planning for a relatively quick ADF exit from Uruzgan province. Any international pretence about nation building in Afghanistan has long …

Australia: an ASEAN perspective

‘You [Australia] have found Southeast Asia, don’t lose it.’ These were the words of the highly charismatic ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Surin Pitsuwan, the key-note speaker at last Tuesday’s launch of the Southeast Asia Institute at …

ASPI suggests

With the upcoming US presidential election on 6 November, we’ve put together a special edition ‘ASPI suggests’ of reports and articles relating to US defence policy and spending. Defence policy and spending One of the …

A US–China ‘shadow condominium’?

Coral Bell’s recent passing has created an unfillable void in the Australian International Relations and Strategic Studies scene. Yet Coral leaves behind a wealth of ideas generated during her illustrious career that retain substantial currency …

UN Security Council – down to work

In a recent post, Peter Jennings and I argued that if Australia won a seat at the global decision making peak body, the UN Security Council, we’d benefit from picking some signature issues where Australia …

Pine Gap – technically speaking, Australia has a choice

Cam Hawker’s recent Strategist post, ‘Stuck in the middle with you’, suffers from five major fallacies. First, it assumes that Australia–US joint facilities predetermine the strategic relationship between Canberra and Washington. Second, it assumes that …