Russia continues to generate the top international security stories for this week. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified his actions in Crimea in an impassioned speech to the Parliament (the official translation available here). …
Like another remake of Godzilla, history’s once again rearing its ugly head in Northeast Asia. While news from our region has been dominated of late by China and Japan’s historical animosity, adding to the gloomy picture …
The National Security Committee of cabinet will soon consider a submission from Defence regarding the proposed approval of a buy of (probably) 58 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in addition to the 14 already approved. We’ll …
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is heading to the Netherlands for next week’s Nuclear Security Summit. Although Australia has earned a reputation for taking the threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism very seriously and for implementing stringent preventive measures (see, …
Lost in the Friday news dump was a surprise announcement from the US Department of Commerce (DOC) that will have a catalytic impact on an already energised Internet governance debate. DOC agency, the National Telecommunications …
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s visit to Papua New Guinea will occur at a complex time in a complex relationship with a complex neighbour. Although warnings that forecasting is a ‘mug’s game for strategists’ are doubly …
While much of the world was busy watching Russia swallow Crimea, few realised that an also dangerous territorial tit-for-tat had begun to unfold earlier this month more in the South China Sea. At Second Thomas …
Peter Jennings’ recent post on the 2014 QDR led me to read the report—and its 50% longer, more ambitious and less focussed 2010 predecessor. I’ll adopt Peter’s format of worries and hopes/opportunities for Asia-Pacific allies and …
Last week I spoke at the RAAF Air Power Conference in Canberra on the theme ‘Airpower in Australia’s future strategy’ (full text available here (PDF)) the essence of which I’ll set out over the course …
As Peter Jennings observed in a recent post, the Quadrennial Defense Review makes for sobering reading for Americans and allies alike. With its troop and cost reductions and emphasis on modernisation yet discussion of heightened …
To gauge the seriousness of the danger on the steppe, one has only to imagine German troops on Ukrainian territory, separated by a narrow front from Russian forces, quite possibly engaging them. If the US …
Welcome to the cyber wrap for another week. Just to mix things up, we’ll be coming to you each Tuesday for the next little while. Now for an update on all things cyber: Offensive cyber …
Over a long career in Canberra hackdom I’ve often marvelled at the way the Australian Defence Force thinks about itself. The strangeness in the way the Oz military understands what it is—soul, history, purpose, future—has …
Readers of the recently released US Quadrennial Defence Review will be struck by one major characteristic: namely, a fondness for the notion of ‘rebalancing’. Asian readers looking for signals of the Obama administration’s commitment to …
I refer to Peter Layton’s excellent piece following on from my original post lamenting the seeming inability of many western leaders to understand the Russian position in this unfolding mess. Peter refers in part to …
It’s fair to say that, despite the existence of initiatives and organisations such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), Indian Ocean regional architecture is under-developed. This reflects …
China has once again raised its defence spending by a double digit percentage. There’s nothing new about that; the average rate of growth since 2002 has been 14.6% according to official figures. Usually, the annual …
This week, Chair of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (pictured above), made a bold speech that accused the CIA of hacking into a stand-alone network used for an investigation into the agency’s …
Kym Bergmann gives an interesting potted history of Crimea up until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. However, it’s important not to neglect what happened since then. In the case of Ukraine, in exchange for …
When the Australian National Audit Office’s audit report on the Air Warfare Destroyer program was released last week, I was told by a veteran journo that it was a bit of a disappointment to his …