After a year of intense research, the head of the 350-strong nuclear-powered submarine taskforce is confident the Royal Australian Navy will be equipped with SSNs. Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead tells The Strategist he believes ‘absolutely’ …
In August, a photograph of China’s Dalian shipyard surfaced on Chinese social media site Weibo showing five hulls of Luyang III–type vessels under construction. Once completed, these destroyers will sail out into blue waters, projecting …
Critics of geopolitical non-alignment have long characterised it as a flawed and doomed policy, and in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, non-alignment is rapidly falling out of favour. After all, Ukraine was invaded …
The Albanese government just released its first budget, but it’s the second one for 2022–23. In this article I’ll focus on what’s changed between the March budget (B1) and the October one (B2). The key …
Going into May’s federal election, the Australian Labor Party announced that it would undertake a defence force posture review if elected. Following the election and Labor’s win, the scope of the review increased dramatically. The …
We should be deeply concerned that, in the midst of what US President Joe Biden has described as the greatest risk of Armageddon since the Cuban missile crisis, Russia and NATO are this week conducting …
As NATO has pulled together in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey, the ‘black sheep’ of the family, remains awkwardly straddled between its roles as Europe’s ally and antagonist. In recent weeks, Turkish state …
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Perth to meet with his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, at the weekend. It was the pair’s fourth in-person meeting this year. One of reasons for Kishida’s visit was reciprocating …
In many Australian policy circles, nation-building is an archaic 1970s term—a throwback to a time when the federal government built infrastructure to encourage national prosperity. Today, cash-strapped federal, state, territory and local governments often have …
On Saturday, former Chinese Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao was dramatically removed from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, as the 20th party congress came to a close. Footage of the closing …
With China increasing the pressure both on land and at sea, Vietnam is facing a hard choice: should it continue its maritime tilt adopted since the early 2000s or should it pivot back to the …
In this special episode, ASPI Executive Director Justin Bassi speaks to Lisa Curtis, senior fellow and director of the Indo-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security and former senior director for …
In addition to dealing with the fallout from open warfare in eastern Europe, the world is witnessing the start of a full-scale economic war between the United States and China over technology. This conflict will …
When straddling a barbed-wire fence, shifting your feet risks a wound ranging from hurt to horrendous. Shift carefully, not carelessly or inadvertently. For two decades, Australia has been doing a delicate straddle between Papua New …
The party congress report is a highly official statement of the Chinese Communist Party, and General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a lengthy version this week to the 20th national congress in Beijing. There is value …
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Perth, Western Australia, this weekend. The meeting, their second face to face since Albanese took office in May, is keenly …
Sea state India put its ‘strategic rivals on notice’ last week by successfully launching a test missile from INS Arihant, the Indian navy’s flagship nuclear submarine, striking a designated point in the Bay of Bengal …
Last month, UN member states elected American candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin as the next secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union in a fiercely contested diplomatic battle against a Russian candidate (and former executive of Chinese technology …
Last Sunday, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, addressed the party’s 20th national congress in Beijing. In dense jargon, Xi spoke for two hours on the party’s achievements and its challenges in …
Among the go-to phrases peppered throughout the diatribes of Beijing’s wolf-warrior diplomats is that countries are ‘playing with fire’ when they don’t align with the Chinese government’s interests. To repurpose this cliché, Europe’s two most …