This year witnessed another milestone in the Australia–Japan ‘special strategic partnership’ as prime ministers Anthony Albanese and Fumio Kishida met in Perth on 22 October to issue a new joint declaration on security cooperation. This …
Australia is removing the qualifications from its quasi-alliance with Japan. The visit to Japan by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles is another step in the fading of the qualifiers: ‘quasi-alliance’, ‘small “a” …
Amid debate on initiatives such as the Quad and AUKUS, Malaysia and Indonesia are looking for alternative security frameworks based on cooperative principles in line with ASEAN’s aversion to notions of collective security. To this …
Let’s hope the Quad and AUKUS get boring. It’s rare in the politics of diplomacy to have no new ‘announceables’ or major initiatives from key meetings like the Quad involving Indian, Japanese, American and Australian …
US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell observed on 11 January that the Pacific islands might be the part of the world ‘most likely to see certain kinds of a strategic surprise—basing or certain kinds of agreements …




