A vast, mostly empty industrial park just outside of Minsk, Belarus, might seem like an unlikely locus of high-tech Chinese innovation. In January, however, it was announced that the China–Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park will …
The terrorism threat level in Australia in 2019 is likely to remain at ‘probable’—the middle of five levels. While there can be no ironclad guarantees with counterterrorism, the current level of generous resourcing should allow …
After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power, thereby eliminating a key nexus of international terrorism. But now, a war-weary US, with a president seeking …
Huawei’s behaviour, coupled with the Chinese government’s wide-ranging commercial espionage, is eroding trust in the global supply chain. Rebuilding that trust will take work. Two sensational US indictments unsealed on Tuesday paint a picture of …
‘We would be deaf and blind without Pine Gap.’ — Kim Beazley Now in its sixth decade of operation, the Pine Gap facility, outside Alice Springs, is a remarkable element of Australia’s alliance with the United …
Managing an economy is not for the faint of heart. Policymakers must constantly monitor the ever-evolving global economic landscape, and anticipate lightning-fast changes that can breed volatility and uncertainty. As today’s political and economic turbulence …
In terms of Australia’s first, and primary, strategic defence objective—‘to deter, deny and defeat any attempt by a hostile country or non-state actor to attack, threaten or coerce Australia’—it seems that Paul Dibb’s 1986 review …
Five years ago, Australia’s recently elected Liberal–National Party government released a report called Towards responsible government. Produced by an ad hoc National Commission of Audit, it purported to review ‘the scope and efficiency of the …
The Australian Defence Force’s equipment is good and getting better. But the ADF’s current and planned force structures have some significant limitations in their ability to deliver some crucial military effects. In an era of …
When Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi delivered her traditional annual foreign policy review recently, she made a point of referring to last month’s separatist slaughter of 19 construction workers in rebellious Papua. ‘Indonesia’, she declared, …
Will the European Parliament elections this May result in a political revolution? Populist and nationalist parties certainly hope so. They are promising not just to overturn the Brussels establishment, but also to end the free …
For political tragics, there’s not much than can surprise about John Howard. His consistency reaches towards the rigid. But here’s a statement to puzzle tragics: J.W. Howard—when in power—was a good, pragmatic multilateralist. During nearly …
It’s a public holiday here in Australia, so The Strategist team is taking a short break. We’ll be back tomorrow with the usual program of analysis and commentary.
There’s a famous countdown on at this time of year in Australia, and at The Strategist we thought we should jump on the bandwagon with a list of our most popular articles from 2018. Unlike …
In a recent Strategist post, Mike Kalms and Adam Lockyer made the case for defence white papers (DWPs) to be produced on a fixed cycle. A set schedule would, they argue, provide certainty for both …
The Royal Australian Navy has stopped its longstanding program of using pressurised submarine escape training to teach crews how to exit a stricken vessel. The decision to stop submariners practising escapes using a tower containing …
On 17 January, US President Donald Trump went down to the Pentagon to speak at the launch of his administration’s long-awaited Missile Defense Review (MDR). The MDR is the previously missing fourth wheel of the …
The most recent meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Singapore last November suggests that the US, India, Japan and Australia regard the initiative as a geostrategic …
A hacker has been jailed in the UK over his role in a massive cyberattack in Liberia in 2016, in a case which is likely to be a sign of things to come as hackers …
The World Economic Forum has released its Global Risks Report 2019 to coincide with its annual meeting taking place this week in Davos, Switzerland. For the third year in a row, climate change and climate …