The Beat The costs of crime ICYMI: The Australian Crime Commission released their latest report, ‘The Costs of Serious and Organised Crime in Australia 2013–14′ over the holidays. Their findings show that serious and organised …
Dr Albert Palazzo, the Director Research at Army Headquarters, has just published a thought-provoking short monograph entitled Forging Australian Land Power: A Primer. His stated objective is ‘to assist those tasked with thinking about the …
At the White House today, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a new Cyber Security Dialogue between Australia and the United States. The initiative will be co-convened by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre and the Centre …
This year will see the end of the seemingly interminable process that decides who’ll become America’s next president. The conventional wisdom is that despite being the most popular candidate, Donald Trump won’t be the Republican …
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is in Washington DC this week, and cyber issues have featured prominently on his agenda. During a poignant address on regional and international security at CSIS, Turnbull pushed several international cyber …
Indonesia’s worst terrorist attack in six years may have set Jakarta on edge and introduced a troubling new tactical dimension to Southeast Asian terrorism, but the pistol-wielding militants failed to live up to what’s normally …
ASPI lost a good friend and long-time supporter in the Hon Jim Carlton AO, who passed away on Christmas Day 2015. Jim was the personal nominee of then Prime Minister John Howard when appointed to …
Australia’s response to the emerging centrality of cyber space in the conduct of future war has been slow and fragmented. That’s true in different ways of the government, the armed forces, the private sector, and …
Sea State Last week, 10 US soldiers were held by Iran’s military after their riverine boat drifted into Iranian waters. In order to complete the journey from Bahrain to Kuwait, the two vessels were required …
President Obama has delivered his last State of the Union address and thoughtful assessments of it can be found here and here. But in this post I want to look more closely at what the …
When commentators argue that the government should determine the designer and builder of the Future Submarine Program (FSP) via a competitive Project Definition Study (PDS), they seem to forget—or don’t know—that the SEA 1114 PDS …
There are important aspects of Arthur Tange’s 20-year career at the top of the departments of Foreign Affairs and Defence. None include Peter Edwards’ unfounded allegation in The Strategist on 22 December that I’ve claimed …
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, treated CNN as the Security Council’s 16th member. It was a tactic of a natural communicator: not much use being ‘on message’ if the message isn’t loud. …
Welcome to the first Suggests of 2016, straight to you from Washington, DC. Kicking off today is the unfortunate news of a terrorist attack on the Sarinah Mall in downtown Jakarta. In an interview with The …
Yesterday’s helter-skelter terrorist attack in Jakarta brings to an end 10 years of victories in the ‘war on terror’ in the archipelago. As such, Australia needs to rapidly reinvigorate its police-to-police cooperation with Indonesia. At …
There’s a new taskforce in town, and this time, the effort aimed at reducing welfare fraud. While some claim that pursuing welfare fraud demonises women and requires significant resources to reclaim insignificant amounts, it’s still …
In a recent opinion piece with Tony Press, I mentioned that last November, an RAAF C-17A Globemaster delivering heavy lift cargo flew from Hobart to Australia’s Wilkins runway near Casey Station in Antarctica. The flight …
The US Navy and the Australian Air Force have recently been at pains to proclaim certain activities in the South China Sea as pursuant to their right to international freedom of navigation. This new twist …
The Beat High-tech policing The Washington Post’s Justin Jouvenal takes a look at how police and law enforcement agencies are increasingly able to use technology to calculate a suspect’s ‘threat scores’. Software such as Beware …
The Australian Defence Force will soon acquire an important new platform that will enhance its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, focusing on electronic intelligence (ELINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) gathering. The US Defense Department …