Welcome back to ASPI suggests, dear readers, where nary a week goes by without a fresh incident from 1600 Penn for us to sink our teeth into. This week, of course, it’s FBI Director James …
In 2015, 54 countries had developed National Action Plans (NAPs) on UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 to integrate gender perspectives into all areas of their peace and security policy-making and practices. Today, that number …
The RAAF’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, closely integrated with the Navy and the Army, will be a game changer for regional stability, says Air Force chief Leo Davies. In a major speech in Washington DC …
Russia’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and its suspected hacking of French President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign servers, should surprise no one, given President Vladimir Putin’s (mis)understanding of soft power. Before his re-election in …
In March 2017, the Minister for Defence Industry told ABC radio that ‘We know the defence industry is driving the economy.’ He backed up that claim by referring to the just-released National Accounts for the …
One of the distinctive features of contemporary Indonesia is that it is an archipelagic state in which the government exercises sovereignty over the waters between the islands making up the country’s land territory as well …
The Beat Guns and trust in the Solomon Islands Limited rearmament is the name of the game in the Solomon Islands this week. On Tuesday, some 125 officers from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force …
Emmanuel Macron’s victory over Marine Le Pen was much-needed good news for anyone who favors open, liberal democratic societies over their nativist, xenophobic counterparts. But the battle against right-wing populism is far from won. Le …
National security received a higher level of Budget attention than usual this week with Monday’s announcement of $321.4 million funding over four years for the AFP. However, announcing this the day before the Budget attracted …
The recent Taliban attack on an Afghan army post outside Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan—the deadliest-ever by the Taliban on a military base, killing some 150 recruits—underscores the terrorist group’s growing strength more than 15 years …
Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea has just been elected South Korea’s new president. This is the second conservative-to-liberal transition of power in the country’s democratic history. It began unexpectedly last October, with …
The 2017 Cyber Security Challenge Australia (CySCA) kicks off today. Seventy-nine teams will compete over 24 hours for trips to cybersecurity conferences including DEFCON, Cisco Live, and RUXCON, as well as the possibility of being …
In a village near the embattled Iraqi city of Mosul, Australian Defence Force chief Mark Binskin met a team of Australian combat medics who’d set up a triage unit and emergency operating theatre in a …
Long story short: the government continues to deliver the funding promised in its 2016 Defence White Paper. Next financial year, the Defence budget will grow by over 6% in real terms, to reach $34.7 billion—equivalent …
On 18 April the State Department issued a press statement concerning a letter from the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, under the title ‘Iran Continues to Sponsor Terrorism’. However, …
Sea State Delays are catching, it seems—at least when it comes to building frigates. We heard on The Strategist last week about the rumoured delays of Australia’s own future frigate program; now the US Navy …
Brexit, and the US presidential election result, provided tangible evidence that migration and border security policies are becoming increasingly politicised in Western democracies. Public policy dialogue on migration and border security has become ever more …
Immediately following the 26–29 April ASEAN Summit in Manila, many Southeast Asia-watchers were disappointed, but not altogether surprised, when the official statement omitted the 2016 UNCLOS Tribunal ruling, as well as references to ‘land reclamation’ …
As is my habit when preparing for the Federal Budget, I’ve been going through public polling on attitudes to defence spending and other issues. Here’s a quick summary of what I found. The importance that …
Most discussions of ‘near-peer’ conflicts in the modern context include some reference to both a ‘resurgent Russia’ and a ‘rising China’. We thought it’d be interesting to compare the navies of the two nations as …