There’s a Chinese perspective that holds there are two kinds of time. Looking back is far more valuable than looking ahead, for it’s by looking back that lessons are understood and appropriate conclusions drawn. So …
Speculation is rife in Washington that President Barack Obama may announce several key changes to US nuclear policy in his final address to the UN General Assembly next month. Obama is looking to advance his …
This is an era of intense political news management by governments. It’s an extraordinary thing that one of the governments that has been most effective at it, the Howard government, put in place an organisation …
Last week news broke that an international alliance of business groups had penned a letter to Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, imploring him to change China’s draft cybersecurity law, which many fear will significantly hamper free …
To say that the eurozone has not been performing well since the 2008 crisis is an understatement. Its member countries have done more poorly than the European Union countries outside the eurozone, and much more …
‘An information technology-based war at sea is sudden, cruel and short…’ was how the Chinese military characterised a peer-to-peer naval conflict at sea in a public statement at the beginning of the month during PLAN …
Under what circumstances would Australia join in a war against China? RAND’s report War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable (WwC) illuminates the gravity of that decision. WwC explores ‘two variables: intensity (from mild to …
Sea State It has been a big month on the water for Lockheed Martin. Better known for building aircraft, the company delivered its eighth Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the LCS Detroit, to the US Navy …
In mid-March 1996, about two weeks after the federal election that brought John Howard’s Coalition to power, the new defence minister Ian McLachlan set off in a RAAF VIP plane to visit some of the …
On 12 August, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2304 authorising the deployment of a further 4,000 troops to the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) as part of a regional protection force. The …
Way back when, we started our professional lives in theoretical physics. And sometimes it shows; we’ve never met a data set we didn’t like, and from time to time there’s an outbreak of ‘let’s see …
My task as ASPI’s inaugural chairman was to give substance to the Australian government’s decision in the late 1990s
Regular readers of The Strategist might note that I’ve been absent from its pages for a while. That’s because I’ve been focusing on a new initiative, ASPI-Education. We’ve started ASPI-Ed for two reasons. First, because …
Australia’s dealings with the ten nations of ASEAN are set by geography, flavoured by history, worked by diplomacy and driven by trade. Throbbing always are the central concerns of power and strategy and defence. The …
It has been a big week in the Middle East, as Russia became the first foreign military to operate from Iranian soil since at least World War 2. Russian Tu-22M3 bombers and Su-34 fighters took …
Last week the second Southeast Asian regional Counter-Terrorism Financing Summit, co-hosted by Australia’s financial intelligence unit AUSTRAC and PPATK, its Indonesian counterpart, convened in Bali. Delivering on the commitments from last November’s Sydney Summit, the …
One of the Great War’s abiding myths is that the German High Sea Fleet never emerged again after the Battle of Jutland to face the Grand Fleet until the ignominious internment of its major units …
Historians still argue about the winners and losers of the Vietnam War, but there were two undoubted losers: the Republic of Vietnam—commonly known as South Vietnam—and its army, generally known as ARVN. The soldiers of …
The Beat Feds seek to police the police The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has concluded a 14-month investigation into the Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) and its findings are damning. The investigation was launched …
The 50th anniversary of Long Tan reminds most Australians that despite winning that iconic high intensity battle, the Australians and New Zealanders lost the Vietnam War. In fact, the First Australian Task Force (1ATF) fought …