The 2017 foreign policy white paper declares that a ‘strong European Union (EU) remains vital to Australia’s interests and will be an increasingly important partner in protecting and promoting a rules-based international order’. But Europe …
Terrorism-related deaths fell in 2016 according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s 2017 Global Terrorism Index. It’s the second year in a row that deaths caused by terrorist acts declined. But while the number …
US President Donald Trump certainly has a point when he complains that he inherited the difficult problem in North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has shown no interest in negotiation, or even in listening …
The beat Austerity analysis Barry Loveday from the University of Portsmouth has sounded the alarm about declining police numbers in England and Wales in his analysis of the recently released state of policing report. He …
After a bloodless coup and a transfer of power from one Zanu-PF veteran to another, things are settling down in Zimbabwe. Emmerson Mnangagwa’s inauguration as the third president of Zimbabwe last Friday at the national …
The 2017 foreign policy white paper is a well-crafted document that covers the key elements of Australia’s foreign-policy outlook. In addition—unlike its predecessors—it sets out Australia’s strategic priorities. It skilfully melds the geoeconomic and geostrategic …
Foreign policy white papers are strange creatures. As the past 14 years amply demonstrate, they’re not necessary for the conduct of effective foreign policy. They are expensive and they expend diplomatic capital by signalling policy …
Two Defence Department space projects 50 years apart have neat parallels. On 29 November 1967, Australia’s first satellite, WREsat, developed by a forerunner of the Defence Science and Technology Group, was launched from Woomera. Last …
It is clear to Taiwan that it can’t match mainland China’s military might. As a result, the country is increasingly relying on an asymmetric approach to close the gap. But Taipei’s plan to focus significant …
The decision to release Hafez Muhammad Saeed—the founder and leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a US- and UN-designated terrorist organisation—by a court in Lahore last week will be poorly received by Pakistan’s external interlocutors, particularly India …
Based on the volume of media coverage, the casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that Australia’s planned build-up of defence capital equipment has more to do with jobs and growth than national security. Yet, …
In The crack-up, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.’ By …
Sea state It’s been a tragic couple of weeks at sea. The search is continuing for Argentina’s San Juan submarine and its 44 crew members, which went missing on 15 November. And three members of …
In their recent ASPI paper, Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith suggested that government advisers need to ‘revisit the question of capability and warning time’ based on the levels of military force Australia could face at …
Australia’s latest foreign policy white paper is—like the geostrategic region it purports to describe—complex and challenging. White papers usually are, because they are the product of many hands. But in this case there are other …
Foreign policy white papers can disappoint. More than white papers on domestic policy, they deal largely with the unknown. And, for small and medium-sized countries in particular, foreign policy is often more a matter of …
We can’t sit back while others engage in hard and soft power strategies to win influence, not if Australia is to positively shape the Indo-Pacific. That is one of the key messages of last week’s …
Australia’s defence industry is being exposed to the operational and technological needs of high-technology defence forces and the global prime contractors in a way they’ve never experienced before. To survive, and to flourish, Australian defence …
In geoeconomics and trade as much as in the security realm, Australia fears the international rules of the game are being battered and eroded. In musing on the future of the Indo-Pacific, Australia’s new foreign …
The 17th of November marked the centenary of the Second Battle of the Heligoland Bight. An inconclusive action, unsatisfactory for both Germans and British, it came about because of vital changes in the naval war. …