Australia’s international security outlook is starting to look very threatening. The White House is undermining the international order, has started a trade war with China and the EU, and is threatening the unity of NATO. …
Australia’s national identity has always been difficult to define. It is complex and ever-changing, the dynamic collective of Australians and our environment, history, geography, culture and outlook. Defining our national identity might be a significant …
The 17th-century philosopher and satirist Jean de La Bruyère once quipped that, ‘Corneille portrays men as they should be, Racine depicts them as they are.’ For Europeans, and even more so for the French, the …
The wrack and roil afflicting the international system matches the digital disruption of news media. The rules and norms of the foreign policy game and media world both shake, shift and suffer. Australia frets about …
During Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s joint press conference following the summit, the Russian president proposed that special counsel Robert Mueller use the 1999 US–Russia Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to make a formal request for …
As Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defence Minister Marise Payne get ready for next week’s annual Australia–US Ministerial Consultations with their US counterparts, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, their biggest …
What is left of NATO and the transatlantic order after US President Donald Trump’s tumultuous week in Brussels, the United Kingdom and Helsinki, where he defended Russian President Vladimir Putin against accusations of cyber warfare …
The world Let’s dive right into world politics and get the Helsinki meeting out of the way: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s long-anticipated get-together was the talk of the week. It seems they had a …
East Timor held its fourth parliamentary election in May 2018. Kay Rala ‘Xanana’ Gusmão’s newly minted coalition, the Change for Progress Alliance (AMP), comfortably defeated the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), ending months …
No one yet knows what deals US President Donald Trump may have struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their private two-hour meeting in Helsinki. But it is already clear that Trump’s self-congratulations for striking …
ASPI’s artificial intelligence and national security masterclass held on 2 July gave some practical insights from experts and senior Australian officials about where AI might be used in national security. The areas might surprise you, …
With President Donald Trump having returned from his dumpster-fire-lighting tour of Europe, the media firestorm unleashed by his claims last week that the European members of NATO were not meeting their defence spending obligations, and …
[D]iplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fail. —John F. Kennedy, 16 November 1961 [A] more strategic and integrated approach to International Engagement and security cooperation must be a core …
To provide context for the recent frigate announcement, we asked the Naval Studies Group at the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at UNSW Canberra to provide an overview of the …
On 23 June 1972, soul singer Johnny Nash released his most popular song: ‘I can see clearly now’. His upbeat classic wasn’t a Pollyanna vision of life, but an argument for changing your perspective by …
Arrangements between sovereign states fall into one of two broad categories (putting colonialism and suzerainty aside): hegemony and balance of power. Is Australia facing a succession of hegemons or a world in which there is …
Disasters from hazards such as cyclones, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes exact an enormous toll on economic and social development. Over the past two decades, 1.35 million lives have been lost and US$2.5 trillion in economic …
China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang autonomous region has garnered increased attention in recent months, due to Beijing’s policy of mass arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in ‘political re-education …
It’s odd to find that it wasn’t a shock to hear Donald Trump speak glowingly of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to hear Trump disown his own intelligence agencies’ work to reveal in detail Russian military …
US President Donald Trump’s Helsinki press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin casts in stark relief his striking regard for authoritarian leaders. It is consistent with his systematic downgrading of the promotion of human rights …