The announcement by France, Germany and the UK that they have triggered the formal dispute-resolution mechanism of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program effectively spells the death of the agreement. The …
The news that Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok is not approved for use on devices owned by Australia’s Department of Defence, as the ABC reported today, is hardly a surprise. Defence’s default position on what apps …
Three years, or halfway, into Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, both internal and external security concerns remain prominent in the consciousness of the country’s officials and security experts. Anxiety is particularly acute in the immediate …
The prime minister has announced that the cabinet will consider a royal commission into aspects of the ongoing fire disaster once the bushfires are under control. Some form of national review seems inevitable, given the …
The Australian National Audit Office has just released its latest report on Australia’s $80 billion future submarine capability. It set itself the task of examining ‘the effectiveness of Defence’s administration of the Future Submarine Program …
Russia is not synonymous with President Vladimir Putin, or with his United Russia party, or with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of a private military company carrying out the Kremlin’s wishes in Syria and eastern Ukraine. …
As fire continues to wreak havoc across large parts of the country, online Australia is battling another crisis: the waves of misinformation and disinformation spreading across social media. Much of the media reporting on this …
Voters in Taiwan have demonstrated that conciliation with Beijing is no longer a useful electoral strategy. Future presidential candidates, from both sides of Taiwan’s political divide, will have to prove that they can stand up …
In October, a confrontation erupted between one of the leading Democratic candidates for the US presidency, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Warren had called for a breakup of Facebook, which Zuckerberg said …
In the 1993 cult classic Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) posed the question: ‘What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and nothing you …
In this episode, we examine the US killing of the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, and the bushfire crisis affecting large parts of Australia. First up, ASPI Executive Director Peter Jennings …
Many people believe that Australia would never need to defend itself unaided. Even if US support cannot be taken for granted in the future, they think that we needn’t ever stand alone, because we have …
Just a year ago, the annual regional security outlook from the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific highlighted ‘the end of ambiguity and denial’ about whether the United States and China saw themselves …
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of …
The precise details of the downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 after it left Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport on 9 January may take years to establish. In the case of Malaysia Airlines flight …
When I told a friend I had just written a book on morality and foreign policy, she quipped, ‘It must be a very short book.’ Such scepticism is common. An internet search shows surprisingly few …
When it comes to American policy in the Middle East, the only certainty is complete uncertainty. What conclusions can we draw from the past 24 hours in the decades-long Iran–US crisis? First, Iran was the …
Originally published 21 February 2019. It doesn’t get much bigger than attacking the home of democracy—parliament house—and a country’s major political parties only months out from a federal election. In his statement on these attacks, …
President Donald Trump’s public response to Iranian missile strikes on two US airbases in Iraq suggests that he and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have reached a mutual ‘no war’ agreement. Barring any miscalculation …
Editors’ picks for 2019: ‘AI and autonomous systems are urgent priorities for today’s defence force’
Originally published 29 April 2019. The 2016 defence white paper and the decades-long integrated investment program will deliver a future force that includes 72 joint strike fighters, several hundred infantry fighting vehicles, nine new frigates …