Pinning down great quotes can be an experience as ephemeral and exasperating as hunting the snark. Lee Kuan Yew’s warning that Australia could become ‘the white trash of Asia’ has snark-like qualities. Yet having tracked …
The Strategist team is taking a break over the Easter long weekend until next Tuesday. Until then, put your feet up and enjoy this week’s blog posts including commentary and analysis from our international conference Future …
If you’re looking to get your defence and national security fix over the Easter long weekend, look no further! Long-read, world leader profiles are becoming a tradition for Suggests: the latest is a The New Yorker piece …
For Defence Minister Kevin Andrews, David Peever’s is the review to end all reviews. According to the Minister, The First Principles Review delivers a corporate structure that will enable the defence organisation to deliver on …
This week in Counterterrorism Scan, we’ll cover Australian deradicalisation programs, lessons learnt from 9/11, Malaysia’s CT bills, magazines of Islamic States, Britain’s terrorism problem, radicalised children, media coverage and violence in Nigeria. At home, Sarah …
In early 2010, Sheikh ‘Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani, then a US government-designated terrorist by virtue of his support for al-Qaeda, convened a meeting of Yemeni activists to urge national defence against foreign intervention. At the meeting …
This week on The Beat, indigenous communities, piracy, remittance services closing, sport, calls for a greater transnational focus on organised crime and a former PM gets a rude shock on social media. Organised crime targeting …
By my count, the title page for the first chapter of the new First Principles Review (FPR) of the Department of Defence lists 48 previous reviews dating back to the Tange Review of 1973. You …
The second day of ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference has so far produced some forthright observations about the state of Australia’s naval shipbuilding industry, including the troubled AWD project. The conference’s final day coincides with …
Taiwan’s Vice Premier Simon Chang wants in on the US government’s Cyber Storm exercises. A biennial exercise series curated by the Department of Homeland security, Cyber Storm tests the capacity of agencies and critical infrastructures …
There’s a lot in the First Principles Review (FPR) of Defence that was released today. We’ll have more to say about it over the next week or two, but here’s a first look. While there’s …
China’s assertive maritime claims featured prominently in a speech from US Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Harry B. Harris to the #FSFleet dinner last night. In noting that overlapping maritime claims in the South China Sea …
(Or how I learned to stop worrying about naval power and to love the corvette.) Naval capability decisions start with maritime strategy. So I think we should get one. That’s deliberately provocative, but I struggle …
ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet Conference kicked off this morning, with major speeches reflecting a range of positions and political debate. Opening the conference, ASPI Executive Director Peter Jennings lamented the hardline politics of shipbuilding in …
In this week’s Rapid Fire we update on Boko Haram, Yemen, the Tikrit campaign, US troops in Afghanistan, chemical weapons in Syria, and the ‘Warlord Problem’ in Ukraine. Trouble continues in Nigeria as the presidential …
In this week’s flight path, we cover the Germanwings plane crash, Joint Strike Fighter close air support capability, Australia’s next Chief of Air Force, Russia’s bombers and safety deposit boxes in space. Recent revelations that …
In 1890 Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan published his influential geostrategic masterpiece, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783. Mahan’s understanding of naval power and its intimate links to economic security was based on his …
Last week, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo embarked on a weeklong Northeast Asian tour beginning with Tokyo on Monday and then Beijing on Wednesday. Besides pressing the flesh and riding a bullet train, Jokowi’s aims were …
This week’s Sea State will examine some of the more prominent debates to arise from Australia’s Future Submarine Summit, the most recent forum to hold informed discussion on the trajectory of SEA 1000: the largest …
The most remarkable feature of Malcolm Fraser’s lifetime pursuit of Australia’s international interests was his journey from rock-ribbed, alliance-loving realist to green-tinged alliance decrier. Fraser’s eventual rejection of the US alliance as deeply dangerous to …