Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is heading to the Netherlands for next week’s Nuclear Security Summit. Although Australia has earned a reputation for taking the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism very seriously and for implementing stringent preventive measures (see, …
There’s been a long-running debate on The Strategist about whether Australia should be content with middle-power status. It’s a term that many Australians think downplays their country’s strategic importance, especially its growing centrality to the …
Paul Dibb’s account of the 1983 Able Archer incident (and blog posts here and here) is disturbing—as much for the questions it doesn’t raise as for the details of the misperceptions that nearly led to a …
Rising strategic tensions in the Asia-Pacific could derail ASEAN’s security-building efforts, despite the concrete progress that ASEAN members have made in addressing mutual challenges. The consequences could be serious for Australia, which has benefitted from …
Today, ASPI released James Manicom’s ‘Sources of Tension in the Asia–Pacific: Strategic Competition, Divided Regionalism and Non-Traditional Security Challenges’. It’s the first in a series of three papers commissioned for a project that ASPI has …
Shocked and confused. That’s how the international community is reacting to news that a major Australian radiological security initiative has just been canned. The corridors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were abuzz with …
Australia has made many important contributions to the non-proliferation regime over the years, helping draw attention to the dangers inherent in the spread of nuclear weapons. At the international and regional levels, it’s provided diplomatic …
On 22 May, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a new report on Iran’s nuclear activities. Nothing in it was particularly shocking, but like the many similar reports that preceded this one, it’s a …
Last week, a major UN conference on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament (known as the 2013 NPT PrepCom) wrapped up in Geneva. The outcome? Yet another frustratingly weak factual summary, reflecting the seemingly irreconcilable positions of …
The role that US nuclear weapons play in Australian strategic policy is given far less emphasis in the new Defence White Paper. While the 2009 document contained five paragraphs that directly addressed the issue of …
The two year conflict in Syria has been shining a very bright light on divided great power attitudes to international leadership. It’s not a flattering picture. Despite appalling suffering, the deaths of tens of thousands …
This morning, I read the first piece of sensible analysis that I have seen on the current escalating North Korean nuclear crisis. It’s an article titled ‘Rattling the American Cage: North Korean Nuclear Threats and …