Throughout the last half-century, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has occupied a variety of roles in Australian strategic thinking. Australia has been supportive, fearful, fascinated, distant and neglectful. It has even contemplated joining. …
The beat Floating in a winter wonderland A Canadian man attempted to escape police by floating down a river on an ice block. Police in Moncton had responded to a reported assault Thursday morning and …
When, on a visit to Warsaw in 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt suddenly dropped to his knees before the Monument to the Ghetto Uprising, Władysław Gomułka, Poland’s communist leader, whispered, ‘wrong monument’. Gomułka would have …
Those who follow large-scale Defence acquisitions might think they know which project the following statement—taken directly from Defence’s own project reporting—refers to: The … acquisition originally intended to procure a largely commercial off-the-shelf (or military …
Some years ago, Christine Leah and I published an article that explored Australian thinking about nuclear weapons and strategy. We argued that for more than six decades Australians had essentially espoused ‘three visions of the …
As anticipated, Donald Trump’s recent US national security strategy (NSS) airbrushed climate change out of existence. If only it were that easy. Although not surprising, the removal of climate change as an issue of strategic …
The Cold War lasted four decades, in many ways both beginning and ending in Berlin. The good news is that it stayed cold—largely because nuclear weapons introduced a discipline missing from previous great-power rivalries—and that …
Being Russian, North Korean or Chinese at this moment in history and watching liberal democracies must be odd but satisfying. Commentators, analysts and former politicians in Western Europe, America and among American allies in the …
To watch the Chinese censorship apparatus working in overdrive in the past 48 hours has been to see it reach its reductio ad absurdum in real time. So sensitive are the proposed changes to the …
Sea state NATO ships have located 23 mines and four torpedoes in Oslofjord, Norway. A NATO mine countermeasures group and vessels from the Royal Norwegian Navy discovered the WW2-era explosives. Due to the breeding season …
As we approach the second anniversary of the release of the government’s 2016 Defence Industry Policy Statement, perhaps the document’s single most important initiative has yet to emerge: a plan for sovereign industrial capabilities. Despite …
In early September 2017, several practitioners, policymakers and academics travelled from Australia to the Academy of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) to participate in the 3rd ASPI–KAS Australia–Europe Counterterrorism Dialogue, entitled ‘Transforming the New Threat …
In 2011 the ADF took delivery of 22 Eurocopter ‘Aussie Tiger’ armed reconnaissance helicopters (ARH). Since then, the project has had a troubled history: the ANAO released a fairly scathing report in 2016, and more …
Media and terror are inextricably linked. The media is expected to report and analyse terror as a matter of international priority. Yet striking the right balance between informing the public without unnecessarily stoking fear or …
At a recent conference, Shivshankar Menon, India’s former national security adviser and an old China hand, declared that ‘India should take China’s rise as a given and work its strategy against that backdrop, instead of …
Japan faces a choice. Will it decide on a hard or a comfortable future? Decisions—political, strategic and social—don’t come much bigger. What Japan’s leaders and people pick will say much about our times and the …
The world The war in Syria has entered its seventh year and civilian casualties are soaring yet again. To put the East Ghouta crisis in perspective, read this chilling piece from the Guardian and this …
Each February, Munich hosts big names in security, defence, geopolitics and strategy for the Munich Security Conference (MSC). This year, more than 500 participants, among them some 30 heads of state, arrived in the city …
Yet another election poses problems for the European Union (EU). Whatever the outcome in the Italian poll on 4 March, the eurozone will be weakened, EU unity tested and Russia’s influence in Europe enhanced. The …
For the past 16 years, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working at ASPI. But the time has come to say goodbye. To mark my retirement, the editors of The Strategist have invited me …