ARTICLES
Ukraine in 2023: the race to re-equip will affect the wider world
A lightning attack after massing forces is how Putin began his war a year ago. But every day after that has seen the surprises going the other way, with successful counter attacks and battlefield innovation by the Ukrainian military revealing underlying Russian...
Show some steel on China’s investment in our critical assets
Anthony Albanese’s National Press Club speech on Wednesday offers a victory lap after just nine months in office and before the business of delivering government really has begun. His line is that Australia was blighted with a “wasted decade of denial, delay, neglect...
With eye on Beijing, it’s urgent we step up support for Kyiv
Australia’s response to the war in Ukraine should be based on four big judgments. First, if Russia wins, the threat of war in Asia will be much more likely. Why? Because China sees Ukraine as a trial run, shaping Beijing’s own plans for military domination. A victory...
We’ve lost a wise, bold strategist on national security
In his book Danger on our Doorstep, Jim Molan describes a surprise attack from communist China on US and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific. Much of the US military in the Pacific is quickly destroyed, aircraft carriers sunk and bases in Hawaii, Guam and Japan rendered...
Message from Beijing: don’t rock the boat
At his Lunar New Year media conference this week, China’s ambassador in Canberra, Xiao Qian, was mystified why Australia wanted nuclear-powered submarines via the AUKUS agreement. “I don’t think it’s constructive, I don’t think it’s helpful, especially when you’re...
Memo PM: on AUKUS, you need to lead it or lose it
On the Australia-US alliance, leaders in both countries always say relations have never been better. We celebrate a century of mateship built on battlefield co-operation with a big appetite for chin-quivering rhetoric about fighting our enemies “shoulder to shoulder”....
Chaotic start to 2023 for our China strategy
The first week of the new year presented the Albanese government with a tangled policy problem: managing China and Covid-19; an outgoing missile from Kevin Rudd directed at Washington; and the sudden announcement of missile purchases for the Australian Defence Force....
If data is the new gold, we need a vault to protect it
It’s hard to see how Australians can keep telling ourselves we’re global leaders in cyber security. The Optus spill of almost 10 million Australians’ personal identity data was bad. But it’s dwarfed by the far more damaging Medibank Private hack that’s put sensitive...
Leave Solomon Islands’ Manasseh Sogavare to China, focus on his people
Australia is now in a competition with China to see who can be Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s “security partner of choice” as he cements his power as an anti-democratic leader preparing to use force and intimidation against his own people to stay...
The strategic challenge to keep Australia secure
The government’s defence review, to be announced in April, is its first chance to put its stamp on defence and go beyond its support of strategic directions set over the past five years. Defence Minister Richard Marles says the review is “to consider the priority of...