The Americas

Something doesn’t quite line up in Bob Woodward’s latest book – and you have to look at what we know about intelligence assessments in Australia to understand why. Woodward tells us in Rage, his second look into the current White House, of top-secret warnings delivered to US President

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last week at the age of 87, lived long enough to become a cultural icon. She was also someone frequently called upon to offer life advice, or more recently advice on repairing a system of government that feels irreparably broken. Shortly after the

Twenty-five years after brokering the Dayton Peace Accords, which effectively ended the Bosnian conflict, Europe’s bloodiest war since the Second World War, Washington is once again acting as a de facto security guarantor in the Western Balkans. This comes despite more than seven years of (ongoing

How will Covid-19 affect electoral democracy in Australia and around the world? The pandemic has starkly revealed two fundamental aspects of successful democracy: the extent of a given society’s trust between its citizens and their government, and the capacity of those same governments to

As with so many events in America this year, public expectations around the 2020 political conventions were muted. And yet, both parties approached their conventions with outsize ambition.  Last week’s all-virtual Democratic convention was generally well received. The event showcased a

Book review: Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method: Washington’s anti-communist crusade and the mass murder program that shaped our world (Hachette, 2020) The world is awash with reports of alleged Chinese interference and influence operations in diverse countries and international organisations.&

Kamala Harris’ anointment last week as Joe Biden’s US presidential election running mate was in some ways groundbreaking – she is the first Black woman and the first Asian-American woman on a major party ticket – but in most ways she is a conventional choice. Harris is a moderate Democrat

Mauritius is the legitimate sovereign over the Chagos Archipelago, including the island of Diego Garcia, which hosts an important US military base in the Indo-Pacific region. The government of Mauritius has publicly announced its willingness to enter into an agreement that would preserve the base,

Speaking last month at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that while the late president did what he thought best for the American people in his historic rapprochement with China in 1972, a line has to be drawn in the sand between “freedom and tyranny

When Donald Trump and Joe Biden compete for the American presidency in November, it may prove to be the most consequential election the world has ever seen. Yes – that is a bit hyperbolic, but let’s consider what’s at stake. First, it’s not entirely certain that Trump will lose, despite

The White House's approach to managing the potential security threats posed by TikTok, WeChat and other Chinese-owned apps is hardly a model of procedural justice. Without a clear legal or regulatory framework, the Trump Administration has issued executive orders banning transactions with the

Despite US President Donald Trump’s claim that the United States no longer needed Middle East oil following the attacks on the Abqaiq production facilities in Saudi Arabia in September last year, the fact is oil from the region does remain important to the US, not only for its own use, but also as

The recent 2020 Lowy Poll revealed that a mere 25% of young Australians aged 18–29 see the US-Australia alliance as “very important”. This is a stark contrast to the 43% across all age brackets with such high regard for the alliance. The reluctance by this section of the “millennials”

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in’s appointment of new national security advisers has attracted attention, given their pro-détente stance in spite of North Korea’s latest provocations. The incoming team has rolled out an ambitious agenda to break the stalemate between the North and South