A simple question about what China has been doing to its neighbours keeps recurring: How is that smart? The question came up in dozens of conversations at the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
China has gone from peaceful rise to rising by pieces, as it smashes the nascent regional security order. Not much peace in prospect as China forcefully asserts its ownership over pieces of the East China …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The headline gives you the guts of the idea. In the diarchy that runs Defence, the military man sits atop the civilian: the chief of the Australian Defence Force now looms above the secretary of …
Only five years ago, it was possible to categorise Canberra’s clash over China as setting Oz dragon-slayers against Oz panda-huggers. The differences within Canberra were mild and muted compared with those in Washington, but we …
When American thinkers turn their eyes to Australia they can describe sharp shapes and strange colours that surprise the citizens of Oz. Sometimes the view offered in an American accent is just a bit of …
After more than a century of federation, we have a PM pointing us towards armed neutrality, and who doesn’t want to be closely aligned to a great and powerful friend. Granted, it’s a PM who …