The International Security Program

The International Security Program looks at strategic dynamics and security risks globally, with an emphasis on Australia's region of Indo-Pacific Asia. Its research spans strategic competition and the risks of conflict in Asia, security implications of the rise of China and India, maritime security, nuclear arms control, Australian defence policy and the changing character of conflict. The Program draws on a network of experts in Australia, Asia and globally, and is supported by diverse funding sources including grants from the MacArthur Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. It convenes international policy dialogues such as the 2017 Australia-ROK Emerging Leaders International Security Forum and has a record of producing leading-edge, influential reports.

Experts

Dr Euan Graham

Director, International Security Program
Greg Colton DSM

Research Fellow, South Pacific Fragile States Project
Frances Kitt

Research Associate, East Asia and International Security Programs
Olivia Shen

2017 Thawley Scholar, International Security Program
Akiko Fukushima

Nonresident Fellow
James Goldrick AO, CSC

Nonresident Fellow
Prof Rory Medcalf

Nonresident Fellow
Dr Alan Dupont

Nonresident Fellow
Dr C Raja Mohan

Nonresident Fellow
Dr Michael J Green

Nonresident Fellow
Richard C Smith AO PSM

Nonresident Fellow
John Carlson AM

Nonresident Fellow

Latest Publications

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Is ASEAN still central to Australia?

In March, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will welcome the ten leaders of ASEAN to Sydney for a special summit focusing on business and security ties. This is the first time Australia has hosted ASEAN. By any definition, it is a significant event in Canberra's diplomatic calendar, with the

By Euan Graham

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Canberra looks for new bridges over troubled waters

Faced with a distracted US and an increasingly assertive China, Australia needs, more than ever, friends and partners in the region. Originally published in the Straits Times

By Euan Graham

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China: Contradictions in climate leadership

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Xi Jinping had a good year in 2017. It began on the international

By Isabel Hilton

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Does the nuclear weapon ban treaty warrant the Nobel Prize?

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for: Its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of

By John Carlson

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Converging approaches on Chinese investment

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Although both have been very open to foreign investment, Australia and

By John Edwards

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Advancing the Quad through diversification

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The 'Australia-India-Japan-United States consultations on the Indo-

By Ian Hall

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The UK embraces an expansive impulse in international security

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Defence cooperation between Australia and the United Kingdom has deep

By Tim Huxley

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Still room to improve on Australia-UK counter-terrorism collaboration

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It's difficult to identify new areas for Australia-United Kingdom

By Jacinta Carroll

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Australia-UK cooperation on the rules-based order

This article is part of a series for the Australia-UK Asia Dialogue, co-hosted by the Lowy Institute and Ditchley Foundation, and supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There should be plenty of scope for cooperation between Australia and

By Christopher Hughes

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'Australia needs to engage China and hedge the risks of this relationship'

Originally published in The Australian (Photo: Max Braun/Flickr

By Alan Dupont

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Time to fast-forward the Future Submarine

Australia’s future submarine program has attracted fewer headlines since the Government decided on the French Shortfin Barracuda design last year. But it was heavily criticised in a recent Insight Economics report, and on the receiving end of some speculative depth charges in a strange, testy

By Euan Graham

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Australia’s navy needs to mind the missile gap

David Axe’s recent War is Boring article on China’s new Type 055-class cruiser focused on its bristling load of vertical-launch missile cells. The Type-055 carries 112 cells (not 122, as Axe states), which almost matches the US Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers and exceeds the 96 launchers on

By Euan Graham

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A modest proposal for Australian engagement in North Korea

I have a modest proposal to make for Australia to directly engage with North Korea. Australia maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, but has no representation in Pyongyang. Instead, Australia's embassy in Seoul is cross-accredited, a common arrangement among countries that lack an

By Euan Graham

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Americans not so in love with America First

Last week, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released the results of a recent national survey on what Americans think about 'America First'. More bumper sticker than policy framework, America First has been President Donald Trump's signal for more self-interested US positions on trade, foreign

By Olivia Shen

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'Tweets aside, US North Korea strategy is working'

Originally published in The Australian (Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland/Flickr

By Alan Dupont

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A test for Australia in Marawi

The continuing conflict in the southern Philippines has engaged Australia's regional counter-terrorism interests like never before. Few predicted that the siege of Marawi, now entering its fourth month, would be so intractable or so effectively galvanise existing terrorist and insurgency groups.

By Olivia Shen

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Danger ahead for Australia as Asia’s long peace ends

The real prospect of conflict between North Korea and the US and its allies underscores the recent deterioration in Australia’s security environment. Originally published in The Australian

By Alan Dupont

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Indonesia is talking tough on drugs, and Australians should listen

Last month, Indonesian President Joko Widodo issued a stern missive to the law enforcement agencies responsible for tackling drug crime: 'Be firm, especially to foreign drug dealers who enter the country and resist arrest. Gun them down. Give no mercy because we indeed are in a narcotics emergency

By Olivia Shen

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The 21st century will be a battle on the urban front

Originally published in The Australian

By Euan Graham

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It’s a super call on national security apparatus

Originally published in The Australian

By Alan Dupont

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Australia, US and NZ military co-operation augurs well

Last month a combined force from five allied nations, including a fleet of 33 warships and submarines, over 200 aircraft and more than 33,000 military personnel, defeated an ‘enemy force’ in 20 locations across northern Australia. The enemy, of course, was an imaginary one and the battle was a

By Greg Colton

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Home Affairs change driven by manifest need

Are Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's changes to Australia's intelligence and national security arrangements necessary and genuinely transformational, as he claims? Or are they essentially an exercise in political management aimed at burnishing Turnbull's national security credentials and ensuring

By Alan Dupont

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Talisman Sabre 17: The realisation of defence strategy

It was an Australian Defence Force (ADF) public relation officer’s dream. ABC news footage, delivered directly into the living rooms of Australian families, showed Australian troops and Australian armoured vehicles streaming across the beach and onwards into the hinterland of Queensland.

By Greg Colton

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The nuclear weapon ban treaty is significant but flawed

On 7 July 2017 a UN negotiating conference adopted a draft treaty banning nuclear weapons – specifically, their development, production, possession, stationing and deployment, use, threat of use, testing, and so on. The treaty will be open for signature on 20 September 2017, and will enter

By John Carlson

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Three focus points for Turnbull at G20 summit

You have to hand it to Kim Jung Un. In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. The launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile two days before the G20 summit ensures that North Korea jumps to the top of the Summit's agenda. With one push of the button - probably practically as well as

By Greg Colton

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Lifting the veil on jihad

In April 2015 a fresh-faced Australian-born doctor appeared in a slick Islamic State video extolling the virtues of making hijra to what he portrayed as a utopian Islamic society. The video showed the doctor, Tareq Kamleh, in a pristine and well-equipped paediatric ward tending to a premature

By Rodger Shanahan

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Resilience in the post-RAMSI era

Understanding how and when governments might intervene in failing countries is an art rather than a science. It requires detailed knowledge of the country in question, the resilience of the people and systems in relation to the emerging crisis, and the willingness of the people to accept an

By Greg Colton

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Australia has outgrown paranoia in its relations with China

Originally published in the Australian Financial Review

By Rory Medcalf

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Australians view their military as a 'force for good' in the world

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald

By Greg Colton

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Malcolm Turnbull is taking a pragmatic regional approach to China

Originally published in the Australian Financial Review

By Euan Graham

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RAAF’s decision on Syria raises more questions than it answers

Yesterday the Australian government announced the RAAF is temporarily ceasing operations over Syria. Although a Defence spokesman told the ABC that ‘force protection was regularly reviewed’, it is hard not to conclude the move was a response to the US downing of a Syrian jet and the subsequent

By Greg Colton

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Understanding resilience and fragility in the South Pacific

This post is part of the Lowy Institute's South Pacific Fragile States series. After the US withdrawal from both the Paris Accord and Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Pacific Islands region is looking for reassurance from Australia and the US. The recent AUSMIN summit did produce a joint statement

By Greg Colton

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Islamist violence in Marawi City a potential threat to Indonesia

Originally published in the Australian.

By Alan Dupont

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US exit from Paris deal marks end of influence in South Pacific

Originally published in the Asian Nikkei Review

By Greg Colton

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China's influence in Australia is not ordinary soft power

Originally published in the Australian Financial Review.

By Rory Medcalf

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Strategy must include planning for peace, not just war

Originally published in the Canberra Times

By Greg Colton

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As Trump flip-flops in Asia, things slide China’s way

Somewhat obscured in last week's outpouring of penny dreadful news from Washington (such as Sean Spicer ensconcing himself in the White House shrubbery) was the announcement of a US-China 100-day economic action plan. It is a pedestrian, workmanlike document, committing to a raft of

By Euan Graham

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Australia calling: How to fight external electoral manipulation in the South Pacific

Security concerns about external subversion of national elections show no sign of abating. On 3 May, James Comey, then still Director of the FBI, testified to the US Senate Judiciary Committee that the Russian government was attempting to influence American politics, going so far as to say that

By Greg Colton

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When Turnbull meets Trump

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump is an opportunity to deliver some key messages about the role the United States should play globally and in Asia. Photo: Getty Images/Pool

By Alan Dupont

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Three questions about North Korea

Below, I tease out a few below-the-radar observations in the form of three questions. Each addresses the problem from a different angle. 1. Is the Trump Administration as serious about confronting North Korea as appears? It's tempting to hang the tag of adventurism on an impulsive character like

By Euan Graham

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What is Vietnam’s fishing flotilla doing at Scarborough Shoal?

Those who have written off last July’s Hague Arbitral Tribunal ruling in the South China Sea as a dead letter should keep an eye on Scarborough Shoal. Late last week, reports surfaced on Twitter, showing the AIS signals from a flotilla of Vietnamese trawlers close to the shoal. Significantly,

By Euan Graham

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North Korea’s diplomatic dispute with Malaysia: No more Mr Underdog

The ongoing diplomatic dispute between Malaysia and North Korea, triggered by the brutal, brazen and bizarre assassination of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur's main airport on 13 February, is something of a rarity in international relations. It is not often that two smallish, distant states, both

By Euan Graham

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Singapore’s strike eagles show up flightless kiwis

It was recently reported that New Zealand and Singapore are conducting a feasibility study into basing F-15SG multi-role fighters at Ohakea Air Base, on North Island. If the proposal succeeds, up to 500 Singaporean personnel would be stationed at Ohakea to support a detachment, if not a full

By Euan Graham

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Quick comment: Seiichiro Takagi on China, Trump and Japan-Australia relations

Yesterday afternoon International Security Program Director Euan Graham spoke with prominent Japanese Sinologist Seiichiro Takagi, Senior Research Advisor at the Japan Institute of International Affairs, on the Chinese Communist Party's upcoming 19th National Congress, President Xi Jinping's

By John Gooding

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Southeast Asia’s neglected navigational and overflight challenges

As the new US administration considers how to respond to China’s strategic challenge in the South China Sea, it must also grapple with the legal, political and operational complexities to the freedom of navigation issue. A strategic focus on China should not obscure significant differences among

By Euan Graham

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Quick comment: US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel David Skalicky on F-22 operations in northern Australia

Late last year, PACOM Commander Admiral Harry Harris revealed in his lecture to the Lowy Institute that the US planned to operate F-22 Raptors out of Australia in 2017. This afternoon the Lowy Institute's International Security Program Director Euan Graham spoke with David Skalicky, a Lieutenant

By John Gooding

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A question for alliance critics: What's your alternative?

This is an edited version of remarks delivered at the National Press Club in Canberra on 21 February, 2017, in a panel discussion with Sir Angus Houston. The full text can be found here, and a video of the event here. It is easy to be troubled by Donald Trump and the unpredictability of his

By Rory Medcalf

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75 years after Singapore's fall

We must think seriously about the region again, writes Euan Graham in the Australian Financial Review on 15 February. Photo: Getty Images

By Euan Graham

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Will the Western Pacific’s long peace endure?

The security picture in the Western Pacific is marked by maritime boundary disputes, nationalist enmities and rapidly modernising militaries. Against that backdrop, the prolonged absence of war between states poses an analytical conundrum. How has the region stayed so peaceful for so long?

By Euan Graham

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Australia and South Korea: Time to expand co-operation

This week the Lowy Institute's International Security Program, supported by the Korea Foundation, is hosting the Australia-Republic of Korea (ROK) Emerging Leaders International Security Forum in Sydney and Canberra, bringing together scholars and future policymakers focused on the bilateral

By Jaehyon Lee

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