The announcement by the Solomon Islands government that it intends to ‘broaden its security and development cooperation with more countries’ has provoked a rash of commentary from Australian and New Zealand journalists, academics, think-tankers and …
It is five weeks into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. Actually, there are two wars: a Russian war waged mainly against Ukraine’s cities and civilian population, and a war fought by Ukraine’s armed …
Despite media reporting last month that an agreement enabling the US to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal was close, negotiations have stalled. What’s not clear, at least publicly, is why. Are there lingering differences over …
The war in Ukraine has several features with which we in Australia are already familiar. The Ukrainian state has dominated the information war in our news cycles and social media. We have seen images of …
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the poorer than expected performance of the Russian army have prompted fierce debate among military commentators on why Russia’s much-vaunted military reforms of the past decade—particularly the integration of …
Contrary to what Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed and what political scientists like John Mearsheimer believe, NATO enlargement did not cause Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nor did a sudden descent into irrationality by Putin, …
The UK government’s Integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy presents the Indo-Pacific as a region of increasing geopolitical and economic importance over the next decade and suggests that competition will play out …
News that a draft security agreement between Solomon Islands and China may soon be formalised has raised concerns in Canberra that Beijing could use it to establish a military base on Australia’s northern doorstep. If …
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will give a powerful, emotional address to the Australian parliament tomorrow—as he’s delivered to the Japanese Diet; the Danish, Canadian, UK, Irish and French parliaments; the German Bundestag; and the US …
Mariupol is Russia’s theory of victory for its invasion of Ukraine. This strategy aims to break Ukrainian resistance by turning Ukraine’s cities into charnel houses through artillery bombardment and forcing the survivors into submission through a …
South Koreans elected a new president earlier this month. Few Australians noticed or cared, preoccupied by concerns closer to home, by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine or by China’s belligerence toward us and others. But the …
Japan’s sovereign credit rating could fall one to three notches in the coming decade if the government does not implement a credible fiscal consolidation plan. This risk, which the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office highlighted in …
The 2022–23 defence budget is a conflicted program. In key ways it acknowledges and responds to a changing world, but in others it is a relic of an earlier time. Let’s start with the funding …
The Australian government is working to modernise and simplify outdated laws governing how Australian agencies conduct electronic surveillance. However, this reform effort is not examining surveillance by companies—so called surveillance capitalism. This is a problem …
What are the causes of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and why have they created Europe’s most serious conflict since World War II? The answer is in the mind of President Vladimir Putin, the only …
In January, the US Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Pacific was the place most likely to see ‘strategic surprise’. He said the US needed …
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s endgame in Ukraine remains unclear. But his war there does seem to be sending one clear message: if you have nukes, nobody messes with you. The security risks this poses cannot …
So much for the ‘hot peace’ scenario of power relations in the post-post-Cold War era. In extremis, the Russia–Ukraine conflict spotlights the interwoven strategic and tactical issues associated with cybersecurity and disinformation campaigns, the virality …
I can’t sleep. I’m glued to the minute-by-minute news cycle that is the war in Ukraine. How did we get here? My combat brain tells me that how we got here doesn’t matter. We are …
When the draft security agreement between Solomon Islands and China landed in the news cycle on Thursday, we shared a sense of dread. Initial analysis of the agreement in the Australian media was typically narrow …