The disruptive power of ethnic nationalism

In July, Israel passed a controversial new ‘nation-state law’ that asserted that ‘the right [to exercise] national self-determination’ is ‘unique to the Jewish people’ and established Hebrew as Israel’s official language, downgrading Arabic to a …

ASPI suggests

The world Amid the fallout over the alleged murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, Middle East Eye has obtained gruesome details via a leaked audio recording, purportedly of the killing. BuzzFeed reports that …

Strange and stressful days for Oz foreign policy

Seeing Australia’s foreign minister and their opposition counterpart arguing international affairs on the same stage is a rare thing. The federal parliament is the nation’s great clearinghouse for all arguments, but big set-piece foreign policy …

Hard times in Australian strategic thinking

Australia has long been ‘the lucky country’—basking in endless beaches, summer barbecues, democratic government, and mineral wealth. It’s also been lucky in terms of its strategic policy, able to ride the coat-tails of a global …

What’s the big deal about digital identity?

Unless you’re an avid reader of federal budget statements, you probably missed the $92.4 million allocation in the 2018–19 Budget to build a digital identity scheme known as GovPass—the second one that taxpayers will now …

National security wrap

The beat Compromised cases The Massachusetts Supreme Court has dismissed thousands of drug convictions because of misconduct by a state chemist and two assistant attorneys-general. In 2014, Sonja Farak, a chemist at the Massachusetts State …

The end of Scandinavian non-alignment

Having debarked from ports in western Sweden, military convoys from various NATO countries are crowding Swedish streets and prompting the police to issue traffic warnings. They are on their way to Norway, where some 50,000 …

The US shift on China: Australia’s options narrow

At the beginning of October, US Vice President Mike Pence delivered arguably the most significant policy statement produced by the Trump administration. His speech to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, on ‘the administration’s …

A move to Jerusalem: at what cost?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcements of a possible move of our embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and of a review of our support for the Iran nuclear deal threaten seriously to prejudice …

The disarmament challenge in a time of disruption

Nine months after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein wrote: ‘The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.’ Have we met …

Lessons for Australia in US biodefence strategy

In Stephen King’s apocalyptic horror novel The stand, the accidental release of a biological weapon, a super-flu nicknamed Captain Trips, caused a global pandemic that wiped out 99.4% of the world’s population. King masterfully paints …

The five-domains update

Sea state A Moroccan navy ship fired at a migrant boat headed to Spain, injuring one person on board. The incident occurred as the boat allegedly performed hostile manoeuvres and attempted to collide with the …

Neighbourhood watch keeps an eye to our north

With an estimated two-thirds of women in Papua New Guinea subjected to domestic violence, business, civic and military leaders are working with a formidable Australian couple to deal with a practice that’s devastating the social …