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 …
Tag Archive for: "South China Sea"
2014 is the year hard power re-emerged as the driving force in international affairs. Hard power is the actual or threatened use of military force to achieve national objectives. It’s an ugly thing, supposedly a …
Welcome to our first edition of ‘suggests’ from Washington, DC. I’m currently located at the Center for a New American Security where I’m being kindly hosted as a visiting fellow focusing on Indonesia. You can find …
A recent Foreign Policy article argued that China’s deployment of a billion-dollar offshore oil rig into maritime territory claimed by both Vietnam and China represents a potentially dangerous escalation of tensions in the South China …
It was a big week for Defence with the Federal Budget handing down, on balance, a win for the portfolio. Check out Mark Thomson’s preliminary analysis of this year’s figures here. His always hotly anticipated Cost …