The fallout from the Paris attacks and the shooting down of a Russian jet by Turkish forces earlier this week continue. British Prime Minister David Cameron has used this opportunity to outline the UK’s strategy for …
Protecting national security equities is a tricky business in an era of globalisation. Four years ago President Obama unveiled Marine rotational training in Darwin as the single most tangible security action to mark America’s long-term …
Prospective Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson made the claim during the GOP primary on 13 November that with respect to the Syrian crisis Americans ‘must recognise that it’s a very complex place. You know, the …
2015 is the year that saw Government announce that Continuous Shipbuilding will be a permanent feature in the nation’s industrial landscape – surely, this is not an outlandish notion for a maritime nation. To understand …
The Beat Transparency International criticises UK Transparency International’s latest report Don’t Look, Won’t Find: weaknesses in the supervising of the UK’s anti-money laundering rules calls for a radical overall of the UK’s anti-money laundering mechanisms, …
David Kilcullen was on the money last week when he implored us to examine the tactics used in the 13/11 Paris attacks. As the facts continue to slowly emerge, it’s a bleak story. Unfortunately too …
The Federal Government’s Energy White Paper released in April of this year appeared desperate to ignore the link between energy and climate change policy that’s been evident and understood in Australia and across the world …
The keel-laying ceremony held last week for the third destroyer, Sydney marked significant progress for the Air Warfare Destroyer Alliance. This is the latest in a series of important achievements across the project with this …
This week’s wrap kicks off with the G20, where cyber issues featured prominently as leaders released a joint communiqué calling for a prohibition on commercial espionage. The document dictates that states will refrain from the …
It’s been a big few weeks in the South China Sea. After months of internal debate, the US finally conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation on 27 October, sailing within 12 nautical miles of the disputed …
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has just released a report into Defence Test and Evaluation (T&E) that makes a number of important findings. According to the report, this critical enabler to informed decisionmaking in …
The recent freedom of navigation operation undertaken by the USS Lassen in the South China Sea advertises a new sharper edge to US–China relations. Some analysts have begun to write about a ‘tipping point’ in …
Mark Thomson and I were in Tokyo earlier this month as part of an annual exchange ASPI has with the National Institute for Defense Studies. The two organisations have been doing exchanges for over a …
Sea State A report released by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has proposed basing a second US aircraft carrier in Japan. The report argues that a continuous presence of US naval assets will …
Criticisms of the Northern Territory Government’s decision to lease sections of Darwin Port to Landbridge, a Chinese company, have come from two main sources—US commentators who see an opportunity to drive a wedge between Australia …
The State Grid Corporation of China (国家电网公司), the world’s largest electric utility company, is the monopoly power distributor across China in all but five southern provinces and a behemoth with an extensive network of subsidiary …
The US government has just released one of the most worrying reports about the risk of nuclear war in the Cold War and the dangers of miscalculating Soviet intentions. The top-secret document was released in …
Most public discussion and media commentary—and seemingly all the political and bureaucratic dissembling—about the 99-year lease of Darwin’s commercial port continues to miss the point. This isn’t primarily a commercial, foreign investment review or other …
Several weeks ago on The Strategist, I discussed why Colombia’s 51-year-old battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) may come to an end on 23 March 2016. But as negotiations march towards a …
Consider what the Howard government could know and ask in 2002 and early 2003 before committing to the blunder that is the Iraq war. No 20/20 hindsight. No fatuous effort to blame Australia for the …