^[1]I’m kicking off today’s round-up with some good news: yesterday Indonesia’s Constitutional Court upheld the 9 July election result, reaffirming Joko Widodo would become the country’s seventh president ^[2]. But before we get carried away with high expectations of Jokowi, David Henley cautions that his vision for Indonesia might be flawed ^[3]. Also check out this NBR interview in which Gunawan Wicaksono soberly examines the economic challenges ahead including slower GDP growth, nationalism and integration with ASEAN ^[4].

Meanwhile, Lowy’s The Interpreter has been running a series on sea-based nuclear weapons and strategic stability. Check out this post arguing SSBNs are unnecessary and destabilising ^[5] and one by Strategist executive editor Rod Lyon who says even noisy submarines can be stabilising ^[6]—if they’re deployed with a supporting architecture.

Speaking of strategic stability, we recently hosted a blog series ^[7] on how to meet the challenge of a rising China. You can also watch Peter Jennings and Hugh White discuss the ‘China Choice’ on our YouTube channel ^[8].

For more on China’s rise and its impact on Australia, Australia’s Defence: towards a new era? is a collection of essays edited by Peter Dean, Brendan Taylor and Stephan Frühling that examines the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging powers as well as economic and military transformation in the region. Peter also has a piece today in The Diplomat on Australia’s emerging amphibious warfare capabilities ^[9].

Turning to national security, Charles Sturt University’s Patrick Walsh sheds some light on the proposed changes to counterterrorism legislation ^[10], including changes to mandatory data retention.

This week, the Islamic State released a graphic video of the gruesome beheading of American journalist James Foley, which was then rapidly disseminated via social media platforms. Think Progress’ Hayes Brown interviews researchers J.M. Berger, Mokhtar Awad and Will McCants for their views on the social media strategy behind the Foley video ^[11].

Meanwhile, former commander ISAF General John Allen has called for IS to be ‘destroyed’ ^[12], stating: ‘The whole questionable debate on American war weariness aside, the U.S. military is not war weary and is fully capable of attacking and reducing IS throughout the depth of its holdings, and we should do it now…’

The National Interest has also published two related articles, ‘The master plan: how to stop ISIS’ ^[13] and ‘A five-step plan to destroy the Islamic State’ ^[14].

Lastly, this photoessay from The Atlantic ^[15] comes highly recommended by several ASPI staff. Photographers Peter Macdiarmid (Getty) and Chris Helgren (Reuters) collected 21 photos taken from the D-Day allied invasion of Europe in WWII then travelled to France to capture the same sites today. Click on each for the haunting then and tranquil now shots.

Events

Canberra: former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan will be in town next week at the ANU, discussing his decision to steer Japan away from nuclear energy ^[16], on Tuesday 26 August at 6.30pm, details here ^[16].

The Australian War Memorial is holding a film screening on official war artists who’ll talk about their work and art, Friday 29 August at 11am in the BAE Systems Theatre. Details here ^[17].

Brisbane: Women in Technology is hosting a panel of speakers on the medical applications of 3D printing ^[18], Thursday 28 August at 5.30pm at the State Library of Queensland. Details here ^[18].

Natalie Sambhi ^[19] is an analyst at ASPI and managing editor of The Strategist. Image courtesy of Flickr user Andrew Becraft ^[20].