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 …
The Dong Tam hostage crisis in Vietnam’s north recently was a familiar mix of issues: possible corruption, land grabs, furious farmers, and a citizenry watching avidly from Facebook sidelines (they don’t trust their newspapers for this …
ASEAN is ever beset by existential angst. The ‘A’ in ASEAN stands for Angst as well as Association. Regard this as more description than criticism. The Angst-Association of South East Asian Nations always has lots …
Welcome back; let’s roll. World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday was marked by the release of the annual World Press Freedom Index, which shows a worsening global situation. (Here’s a run-down on the state-of-play in …
The recent loss of two UN sanctions experts in the Democratic Republic of Congo has highlighted the riskiness and conditions of the experts’ jobs. UN experts work in some of the most volatile environments imaginable …
Emmanuel Macron will most likely win the French presidency in the second round of the election process, much to the delight of those quaking in fear of populism and the threat it poses to the …
Iran’s presidential elections on 19 May will not only determine who and which political faction, moderate or conservative, will head the government during the next four years, but may also decide who succeeds Supreme Leader, …
I’ll defend to the death John McCarthy’s right, facilitated by The Strategist, to uphold the dignity of the Prime Minister in the face of insults from the American President. There’s no excuse for bad, belittling …
As discussed recently on The Strategist, rumour has it that construction on the Future Frigate program is now unlikely to start in 2020. If true, that’s not a bad thing for completing the systems engineering …
The Beat Body cameras and artificial intelligence The Intercept profiled a controversial development at the tech world this week. Taser (now Axon) made news last month when it offered a free year-long trial of its …
As President Trump and Prime Minister Turnbull prepare to mark the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the centenary of the United States’ entry into World War I, we might also …
In November 2016, China announced that it had begun building its first floating nuclear power plant, a project called a ‘top priority’ that would boost Beijing’s ‘strong maritime power strategy’. In February 2017, a government …
When confronting the problems of cybersecurity, it’s often noted that, regardless of time and space, we’re all exposed in some way to the same active and innovative threat actors. Shared threats promote cooperation, and sharing …
The rumour du jour in defence circles this week is that the planned date for beginning work on the future frigate program has been slipped a couple years, out to 2022. That’s despite a robust …
The Battle of the Coral Sea isn’t as iconic in our national consciousness as Gallipoli, Kokoda, or even El Alamein, Villers-Bretonneux, Amiens or Beersheba. Those battles and others in the two world wars played into …
AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin revealed last week that an AFP officer had, in the course of an investigation, accessed the call record metadata of a journalist without a warrant, putting the error down to poor …
Despite a surge in kidnapping of seamen from vessels in the Sulu-Celebes Sea, joint counter piracy patrols planned by the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have been postponed indefinitely. A planned signing ceremony by the three …
Malcolm Turnbull will meet Donald Trump for the first time this week. Their meeting on board the museum ship USS Intrepid coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea. The timing and …