Nuclear weapons and their role in Australia’s future defence are being openly debated by some key thinkers in Canberra. A recent ASPI Strategic Insights paper by Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith highlights a worsening security outlook …
China has invested billions of dollars to increase its soft power, but it has recently suffered a backlash in democratic countries. A new report by the National Endowment for Democracy argues that we need to …
The heat of the Oz new year is here, heralding our annual Madeleine Award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest. The envelopes, please, for the 9th awards ceremony, named to honour …
Originally published 5 August 2017. As some readers will probably recognise, the title of this post is a phrase drawn from Herman Kahn’s On thermonuclear war, one of the more depressing texts of the 20th …
Originally published 9 October 2017. Last month, Chinese state media published articles commemorating the 30th anniversary of China’s first-ever email: ‘Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner in the world.’ The email was sent …
Originally published 16 November 2017. Sadly, hermeneutics—or exegesis as it was formerly known—is not much in vogue these days. Maybe that reflects the fact that most of us rely on translation for our glimpses into …
The annual release of hitherto secret cabinet papers now takes us back to the last great Oz outbreak of Francophobia—rage and fear about the French in the South Pacific. The 1994 and 1995 cabinet records …
Originally published 9 August 2017. With President Trump’s latest comments that North Korea is facing a response of ‘fire and fury’ if it endangers the US, it’s clear that the US president is at least …
Come back with me to a wonderful time when the Cold War had been won and Australia was cashing in the peace dividend. Spend money on the military? Naaah! Squeeze ’em. The release by the …
Originally published 17 August 2017. For much of the past decade, observers have praised Indonesian democracy. Elections have been competitive, the country boasts a vibrant civil society, and the press enjoys far more freedom than …
In Jakarta’s presidential palace in December 1995, Australia’s Prime Minister Paul Keating stood with Indonesia’s President Suharto as their two foreign ministers signed a security treaty. Keating was ebullient. Here was Australia as a regional …
Originally published 12 October 2017. This is the year of significant anniversaries marking the Australia–US relationship. In May we commemorated the 75th anniversary of the battle of the Coral Sea and more recently the 50th …
Originally published 2 August 2017. If you are having trouble keeping up with the story, here’s what happened since the last episode of White House Days of Our Lives: The Mooch lasted barely 10 days …
Originally published 26 October 2017. This post is adapted from a presentation to the Australian Naval Institute’s 2017 Goldrick seminar. Let me start with something nice and uncontroversial. Submarines might be obsolete by the middle …
Originally published 2 June 2017. Recent media reports suggest senior US officials have told Julie Bishop that if North Korea’s nuclear weapon program can’t be reversed, South Korea and Japan will likely pursue their own …
That’s all from The Strategist this year. Starting on Boxing Day, we’ll be republishing some of our favourite posts from 2017, supplemented in early January by special coverage of the release of official Australian Cabinet …
As our readers well know, The Strategist is a serious publication. We are not given to ‘silly season’ fluff pieces about baby animals or prone to shamelessly repackaging already-published material under the banner of retrospection. …
This month, Sri Lanka, unable to pay the onerous debt to China it has accumulated, formally handed over its strategically located Hambantota port to the Asian giant. It was a major acquisition for China’s Belt …
The beat Rifles in the streets? Around 50 NSW riot squad officers have been issued with semi-automatic assault rifles—Colt M4 Carbines, to be exact. Intended to be deployed in terror incidents, the officers could also …
Nearly three months after the 24 September 2017 federal elections in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is still trying to form a new coalition. Negotiations will continue into the new year. Her Christian Democrat/Christian Social Union …