On last week’s International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, most nations took the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to an international society free of illegal drugs. Police from London to Washington, Canberra to …
The 2016 Defence White Paper stated that the nine new future frigates will be ‘optimised for anti-submarine warfare’. According to the Turnbull government, they will be ‘one of the world’s most advanced anti-submarine warfare frigates’. It …
What will these five countries bring to the table? South Africa, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Belgium and Germany will be non-permanent members of the UN Security Council for 2019–20, after receiving the required majority of …
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government haven’t had a good couple of weeks. After a tortuous, deeply divisive and increasingly acrimonious debate, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU)—conservative coalition partners for almost 70 …
Alliances have long been formed as a response to traditional rivalries and modes of warfare. The US–Australia partnership had such origins 100 years ago, and has proved to be successful, reliable and durable. We now …
Welcome to ‘The Strategist Six’, a feature providing a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. 1. The freeing of most of Iraq …
Some have argued that the US–Australia alliance exists simply out of inertia or, worse yet, sentimentality. Shared sacrifice and longstanding habits of cooperation may play a role, but they’re not the basis upon which sovereign …
Sea state The Royal Navy’s HMS Montrose shadowed two Russian warships as they traversed the English Channel. The frigate tailed the two Steregushi-class corvettes as they progressed off the Danish and Dutch coasts before slowly …
At 3.10 on the morning of 4 July 1918, three brigades of Australian infantry carried out a successful attack on the German positions outside the village of Le Hamel on the southern banks of the …
President Donald Trump’s disdain for alliance commitments suggests that we might be heading into a new era in geopolitics—an era characterised by a post-alliance US. While US allies will be hoping fervently that that isn’t …
Last week, the Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation and the Griffith Asia Institute co-hosted a Philippines–Australia Track II dialogue in Manila, focusing on the security dimension of the relationship. It brought together academics, …
Remote Antarctica is becoming more accessible. Tourist numbers down south have grown significantly, along with calls for greater regulation. China’s Antarctic program is moving ahead: it will build its fifth research station on Inexpressible Island …
Transatlantic relations have seen brighter days. It’s no secret that there are several points of disagreement among the allied countries, even beyond security and defence topics. Recently, different stands on trade (the White House’s steel …
‘Fake news’ approaches the 100th anniversary of its creation moment. The 11th of November marks the centenary of the end of World War I, the exhausted crescendo of the catastrophe that produced the modern craft …
The national park of Thingvellir, 30 miles east of Reykjavik, is Iceland’s most important historical site. It is the place where the Vikings founded the first democratic parliament in 930, and where the Republic of …
The world Although the FIFA World Cup is a sensitive topic for Team Suggests at the moment, we can recommend some analyses on how politics is always a part of sporting events, and especially how …
So, the nine new Hunter-class anti-submarine warfare frigates will be built by BAE Systems in Osborne, South Australia, with ASC Shipbuilding acting as BAE’s subsidiary over the decades-long, $35 billion shipbuilding program. The decision raises …
He has finally done it. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has won 12 electoral contests in a row since first coming to power with his neo-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, …
Eager, doubtless, to preserve and burnish the penumbra of ‘deal-maker’ following his foray to Singapore, and even more eager to deflect attention from an increasingly ominous Mueller inquiry, President Donald Trump dispatched his national security …
To the Commandos, their Special Air Service Regiment rivals are known as ‘the cats’. To the rest of the Australian Defence Force, the shorthand descriptor is their location, ‘Perth’. Autonomy from the restraint of regimentation …