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 …
Articles by: "Michael Shoebridge"
Originally published 28 April 2021. There’s a greater likelihood of major conflict in the Indo-Pacific region now than at any time since the end of the Vietnam War. That’s why the Australian government’s 2020 defence strategic …
Australia is ending the year in much better shape than we ended 2020. That’s so even though our region is still a dangerous place, and an aggressive China under Xi Jinping continues to be the …
It’s great news that negotiations between Moderna and the federal and Victorian governments have resulted in Australia establishing a national facility to produce mRNA vaccines and medicines. Oddly, there are some parallels between this project …
President Joe Biden has nominated Caroline Kennedy as the new US ambassador to Australia. Her time as ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 gives us insights into how she will approach the role here …
South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s fourth meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, held in Canberra today, built more momentum in the quiet achiever of Australia’s key regional partnerships. Japan, India and the US have had …
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done the right thing: he’s announced Australia will join a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses. While it couldn’t be taken …
In more normal times, when nuclear-powered submarines and multibillion-dollar contract cancellations didn’t dominate the news, plans to increase the US military presence operating out of Australia would be big news. It was swamped by the …
At the time of the review of Australia’s intelligence agencies in 2017, extremism, state and non-state actors, climate change and technological change were all parts of the operating environment, along with rising competition between states. …
Yesterday’s virtual summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping followed two presidential telephone calls and last week’s joint declaration on enhanced climate action drafted by US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie …
Most of Defence’s grilling in Senate estimates yesterday was about plans and issues around getting eight nuclear submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. There was forensic questioning about who said what to whom about the …
By ending the contract with the French and committing to nuclear submarines through AUKUS, Prime Minister Scott Morrison recognised what we’d all come to know: the Attack-class submarine project was costing too much and taking …