As the ‘war of words’ between China and the US in the South China Sea escalates, questions arise as to exactly what are Australia’s interests in this contested maritime zone. Bonnie Glaser has recently …
The Beat Agreement on firearms information The Law, Crime and Community Safety Council—a forum for national Attorneys-General, police and emergency services ministers—met last Friday to fast-track a new firearms database. The National Firearms Interface will …
On the morning after the Federal Budget I posted a version of the above graph along with some basic numbers describing what’s going on. Today, my final analysis of the budget is launched. Not much …
Hanoi is one of the best settings in which to contemplate the limits of American power. The Vietnam War showed that a determined adversary (with substantial help from two major powers) can resist even a …
When Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi used the term ‘pull factor’ in a recent interview, she was reprising an expression coined four decades ago to describe how the promise of resettlement was the reason for …
The Japanese government has released a draft version of the country’s updated cyber strategy, due for release in June 2015 (PDF – Japanese only). The strategy, presented at a cyber security taskforce meeting on Monday …
The rumour doing the rounds last year was that the Prime Minister had contemplated a unilateral deployment of a battalion of Australian soldiers to Ukraine to secure the crash site of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, …
To properly understand last week’s announcement from the government about the beleaguered Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) project, some background is needed. Back in June 2014, the government received the independent ‘White–Winter report’ into the project. …
A recently released Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade evaluation details some successes but also highlights shortcomings in Australia’s humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis. While Australia was an early-responder to events in Syria, overall …
Sea State Last week, TKMS opened its dockyards in Kiel to visiting Australian defence writers to discuss its submarine and surface fleet operations. The Germans have displayed a transparency in the competitive evaluation process that …
The adjectives applied by the government to describe the forthcoming Defence White Paper and its accompanying plan for the ADF include ‘fully costed’, ‘externally assured’, ‘achievable’, ‘affordable’, ‘credible’, ‘realistic’, ‘properly funded’ and ‘enduring’. This is …
I’ve recently discussed two trends in military technology. The week before lasts’ post on the 1990s non-revolution in military affairs argued that low-tech adversaries simply make themselves scarce when faced with a technologically superior foe. …
In a piece in last Monday’s Australian we discussed the case of three Australians suspected of fighting with terrorist groups in Syria who are negotiating with the government to leave the war zone and return …
The illegal harvesting and smuggling of the rare and valuable Siamese Rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis) across the Thai-Cambodian border is an issue that’s landed on ASEAN member states’ desks yet again. On 7 May, the Environmental …
Tony Abbott wants a Japanese submarine. To repeat: Australia’s Prime Minister really wants a Japanese boat. If Australia hadn’t embarked on a ‘competitive evaluation process’ pitting Japan against France and Germany, this hack would argue …
Headlining today’s wrap-up are three must-read pieces on Australia’s strategic choices and China. In the first, Bonnie Glaser (who’s visiting Australia at the moment) argues that ‘Australia should join the US to implement a cost imposition strategy …
On Wednesday CNN released exclusive footage taken aboard a US Navy P-8 that may have flown within the claimed 12nm of territorial airspace of three of the islands in the South China Sea undergoing Chinese reclamation …
It was widely expected that President Joko Widodo would present far more diplomatic problems for Australia, than did his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Over the past eight months it has become apparent just how much more …
Reform programs come and go in the Australian Defence establishment. Sometimes they fulfil their intent; sometimes they don’t. The extent to which the changes sought by the First Principles Review occur will depend on the …
Last Friday, the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2015 that included a reference to a recent issue: China’s potential participation in 2016 Rim of the …