The Afghanistan mission has largely dropped off the political radar screen, but the public verdict seems clear: we’ll fail in our overall objective of leaving behind a stable country after 2014. Worse, Australian soldiers may …
As we’re reminded every bushfire season, Australians are more vulnerable during emergencies that can arise with little warning. We do a fair job of dealing with them, and thankfully we’ve been very lucky to avoid …
Andrew Davies has taken me to task on one part of my reply to Nic Stuart’s post on the use of reserve forces in the ADF. How do I plead? Not guilty, your Honour. Apart …
Editor’s note: we at ASPI value contestability and independence of thought so we’re sometimes surprised when people think that there’s a single ‘official’ ASPI position on a topic. That isn’t the case—we practice contestability inside …
If you were lucky enough to be flying internationally from Australia these holidays, you might have sampled the new body scanners that are supplementing the already considerable array of security measures surrounding our aviation industry. …
Early in the New Year, this government will take what will come to be seen as its single most significant Defence decision. More than anything else, the choice of new submarine will become the issue …
Being an editor of this blog, I try to avoid jumping into a stoush with our much valued contributors because it looks a bit uneven. But Jim Molan is big enough and tough enough for …
Both Nic Stuart and Jim Molan have made their points clear on how they see Reserves: it’s a capability that’s either Needed by the wider Australian Defence Force or Wanted by those who think that …
It’s time to announce the winner of the fourth Madeleine Award for the use of symbol, stunt, prop, gesture or jest in international affairs. This annual prize began life at The Lowy Interpreter in 2009, …
When Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson headed to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) last week, they certainly turned some heads. Many viewed their trip as undercutting …
In a recent Centre of Gravity paper for the ANU (PDF), Tim Huxley rightly calls for closer Australian defence cooperation with Indonesia, and for Australia to enhance defence relations with Malaysia and Singapore. His observation …
As we enter US President Barack Obama’s second term, one of the key strategic questions for Australia is what happens to America’s ‘pivot’ towards the Asia–Pacific. Announced in late 2011, it signalled a renewed US …
Like so many people with very little firsthand experience of creating and using defence capability at any sophisticated level, Nic Stuart has effortlessly come up with yet another answer to the financial problems of Defence—Reserve …
On 5 September 1952, Richard Casey, the Minister for External Affairs, provided the Australian House of Representatives with a report on the first meeting of the ANZUS Council in Honolulu about a month earlier. The …
In my previous post I discussed the broad utility of an amphibious capability and noted how its popularity has waxed and waned over the past century or so. Narrowing our gaze down to Australia, we …
The world should be thinking twice about lauding Myanmar’s nascent reforms. Recent air strikes directed at Kachin rebels in Shan state by the Myanmar government exacerbate one of the longest-standing civil wars in the country’s …
The conflict in Mali that has been making headlines this week has been brewing for many months now. As I pointed out back in October last year, all signs were that an Economic Community of …
The next White Paper’s conclusions on the overall force balance will be closely studied. While whether current or future wars receive priority and the numbers of wars to be fought concurrently might be big strategic …
One of the things I like most about the summer break is the opportunity to catch up on some reading. This time around one of the items on my reading list was a revisit of …
In a recent post on force structure, Peter Layton dramatically highlighted the continuing tension between future capabilities and existing requirements. The problem is, of course, (as Andrew Davies likes to say) that there are a …