The harsh sentence handed down to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was found guilty of influence peddling, confirms anew an ancient truth of politics. Even in the world’s most firmly entrenched democracies, corruption remains …
An evergreen question posed by ministers and commentators in Australia is why we haven’t seen government operations and service delivery shift to a more agile, cloud-based system. Late last year, Matt Yannopolous, head of the …
With the ongoing gloom hanging around Australia’s future submarine program and signs that the future frigate is facing some big problems, it’s great to see some good news out of the Defence Department and its …
The 2019 Christchurch massacre woke Australians up to the intent of right-wing extremists and their capability to act on violent ideologies. Covid-19 has left many young Australians isolated and vulnerable to the far-right’s hate messaging, …
Sea state Prime Minister Scott Morrison ordered two senior naval officers to research alternatives to Australia’s $90 billion submarine contract with France’s Naval Group. Naval Group is yet to finalise its commitment to spend 60% …
When China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, recently called for a reset of bilateral relations with the United States, a White House spokesperson replied that the US saw the relationship as one of strong competition that …
If the premises about Australian soft power in Indonesia treated in the first two parts of this series don’t jar, nor should the premise of this final one. It’s that we have little reason to …
So you are someone who takes defence policy seriously. We know that, because you’re reading The Strategist. And because you take defence policy seriously, every so often you are outraged at the waste of scarce …
The US Navy’s new low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile, produced rapidly by the National Nuclear Security Administration, is intended to provide a proportional response to US adversaries’ concepts of ‘coercive, limited nuclear escalation’. Proposed in the …
The Australian and United States governments both ordered urgent reviews of their supply chains last week amid growing concern about their vulnerability to disruption by China. Australia’s Productivity Commission, which typically takes three or four …
International momentum is building to formally censure China for human rights violations. The Netherlands parliament has now joined the Canadian House of Commons and the US government in labelling China’s treatment of the Uyghur people …
The report issued on Friday by the US intelligence community on the murder of Saudi journalist and permanent US resident Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, mostly confirms what …
The passing of Sir Michael Somare, the first chief minister and the founding prime minister of Papua New Guinea, ends a remarkable political life that began when he was elected to the pre-independence House of …
The term ‘grand strategy’ is usually too grandiose for the practical types who run Canberra. Australia does baling-wire diplomacy—pragmatic and proudly makeshift—fixing stuff with a bit of wire and keeping it going. Big powers do …
This week, an editorial in the Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times alleged that the almost 80-year-old Five Eyes alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States is an ‘axis …
At the end of December 2020, the European Union and China agreed in principle on a trade deal that will govern bilateral investment. Negotiations for the comprehensive agreement on investment began in 2013, but the …
Media reports this week have claimed that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has commissioned a Defence Department review into potential alternatives to the Attack-class submarine. That’s prompted a flurry of speculation about whether the government is …
Following the changing of the guard in the White House, a re-energised Quadrilateral Security Dialogue linking the US, Japan, India and Australia needs to prepare itself to face serious global tensions in this year and …
Hangovers result from a classic human failing: we stop and think only when a problem arises, not when it’s caused. When times are good, we’ve always got room for one more, but come the morning …
Disinformation often raises concerns about influencing politicians and the outcome of elections and about fostering extremism. Most of us are familiar with the tag ‘fake news’ and with inadvertent or deliberate disinformation spread through social …