How seriously should we take President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Russian Federal Assembly on 1 March 2018, where he boasted about radical breakthroughs with Russia’s new nuclear weapons? Were these merely the rantings of …
Each month we learn more and more about the extent of Russia’s interference in the 2016 US elections. Fraudulent social media accounts accused of propping up non-existent political commentators, armies of Twitter bots designed to …
The beat Jan Kuciak—the case continues After the murder of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée at the end of February, the perpetrators are still at large. Kuciak had investigated the Italian Mafia’s …
The European Union (EU) hasn’t had a great track record on enlargement recently. Some countries have felt that as soon as Brussels announced a tentative timetable for accession—what the EU calls a ‘membership perspective’—the initiative …
This article is the first in a series on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ that The Strategist will publish over coming weeks in recognition of International Women’s Day 2018. Eds. Women and children suffer disproportionately in wars and …
Last week, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin told a Senate Estimates committee that his 6,500-strong organisation faced a ‘supply and demand challenge’. The commissioner described a force experiencing greater demand for its services …
Iraq is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in May. At least 28 Iraqi political parties associated with paramilitaries that fought Islamic State (IS) have registered to run candidates. Many of these parties, like their ‘parent’ …
In my previous article on the future of the Aussie Tiger helicopter, I suggested two possible paths for the Australian Army’s future armed reconnaissance helicopter (ARH) capability. The first is to extend the Aussie Tiger’s …
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently revealed that Israeli intelligence had shared information with our security agencies that foiled an Islamic State plot to blow up an Etihad flight from Sydney last July. Police arrested …
Sea state ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems has been blocked from bidding to build the German navy’s next generation of warships. The decision results from several embarrassing scandals involving the German shipbuilder. In December the Deutsche Marine …
What does Morgan Tsvangirai’s death mean for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and for the opposition more broadly in a time of great political change in Zimbabwe? It’s ironic that the two men who shaped …
The strategic competition between the US and China dominates the Australian security and foreign policy discourse because of the geographic proximity of East Asia. Naturally, developments and events in that region that affect Australian interests …
We’re in Tokyo this week for the fifth Quadrilateral Plus track-two dialogue, along with think tanks from Japan, India and the US. With the Quad starting to get a bit of momentum behind it, it’s …
Women, ‘standards’ and the military Analysis by The Economist shows that there’s a link between gender, prevailing norms and barriers to women’s participation in male-dominated fields. This is relevant in the military, where this month …
Sofia Patel absolutely nails the nexus between media reportage and terror. Terrorism is a strategy of desperation—that’s why it’s embraced by the marginalised. We in the media offer such actors a microphone, allowing them to …
Australian politics is the art of riding a bicycle along a tightrope, pedalling furiously, using one hand to alternatively whisper into a phone and scream into a megaphone, while the other hand is used to …
The world A great paradox of Xi Jinping’s leadership emerged over the past week: while attempting to present China as a modern state with racing economic growth, his new constitutional reforms point towards a more …
The campaign to drive Islamic State (IS) out of Syria stands weakened as thousands of Kurdish fighters have been drawn away to defend Afrin after Turkey sent troops across the border. In their absence, hundreds …
The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) decision this week to eliminate presidential term limits seems to open the door for President Xi Jinping to be not just ‘Chairman of Everything’, but also ‘Chairman Forever’. The …
In an earlier post I highlighted that Australia is set to embrace a more active role in space. This shift away from a primarily earth-bound focus on space opens up some interesting possibilities. Certainly, we’ve …