Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s weekend rebellion has shone a harsh spotlight on the apparently fragile state of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. While Prigozhin soon agreed to stand down and ordered his mercenary army …
The progressive, youth-focused Move Forward party won the most seats of any party in the recent national elections in Thailand and formed a pro-democratic coalition that is seeking to achieve a majority in the parliament …
Southeast Asia’s energy transition is coming to life as the development of green technologies accelerates across the region. Securing critical minerals will be crucial to this process, and Australia should work with Southeast Asia to …
The world leaders who gathered in Paris last week for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact have vowed to mobilise resources to support developing countries grappling with debt crises and to empower them …
As the world was distracted by an episode of Russian drama complete with the betrayal of a once-loyal servant, armed mutiny and panic at the court of a tsar, Ukraine was being shelled. On the …
America’s record as an ambivalent and erratic liberal hegemon has deep roots, as analysed by Robert Kagan in The ghost at the feast: America and the collapse of world order, 1900–1941. The book, published in …
One of the highlights in Japan’s three national security documents released on 16 December 2022—the national security strategy, the national defence strategy and the defence build-up plan—is the commitment to increase defence spending. The defence …
Danish physicist Nils Bohr once said, ‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.’ The insurrection launched by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin on Saturday lasted a little over 24 hours. But the serious …
Almost 82 years to the day since Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union began what Russia calls the ‘Great Patriotic War’, a more modest invasion, orchestrated by one of Vladimir Putin’s close associates, claimed ‘patriotism’ …
Last week, Indian Prime Minister Modi and US President Joe Biden declared that the partnership between their countries ‘spans the seas to the stars’. Indeed, Modi’s state visit to Washington yielded initiatives in an extraordinarily …
Critical mineral projects will be favoured for federal government loans under its new critical minerals strategy, but there are to be no tailored tax breaks. Nor are there any plans to make downstream processing a condition of …
Sea state The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded a 10-year contract worth £270 million to British multinational BAE Systems to support the Royal Navy’s three main radar systems: Artisan, Sampson and Long Range Radar. …
After a significant delay, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week unveiled the country’s first national security strategy. The long-anticipated plan, introduced nearly a year and a half after Scholz stood before the Bundestag and proclaimed …
From our vantage point in the UK, it’s hard not to be envious of the rigorous public debate taking place in Australia on the future legality of ransomware payments. Over the past several years, ransomware …
We tend to look for winners and losers in any Australian government announcement, and the defence strategic review (DSR) is no exception. Reading the headlines about the two-thirds reduction in infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and …
The leader of an authoritarian country with enormous energy reserves builds up his armed forces along the border of a weaker neighbour, one he claims has no right to exist as an independent country. He …
Last week, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia was gaining pace, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia could destroy the undersea cables connecting Europe and the US to the internet in retaliation for the …
Much of the public policy discourse on AUKUS, the security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, has focused on nuclear-powered submarines (Pillar 1). Far less attention has been paid to Pillar 2, which …
The defence strategic review has identified a glaring gap in Australian Defence Force capability—the almost complete absence of any form of long-range layered integrated air and missile defence (IAMD). The long-held assumption that Australia is …
A United Nations report released on 1 June provides a stark warning about the danger of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan and for the region and beyond. It claims that the ethnic Pashtun Taliban have …