Australia in the World

Following the most recent tests by North Korea of a missile that might be able to hit Alaska, the prospect of a direct threat to Australia from the Kim regime is exciting the Australian defence debate. Over the weekend, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull weighed in

Nearly 14 years after Australian war ships appeared off the coast of Solomon Islands leading the largest expeditionary force in the Pacific since World War Two, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands has come to an end. Its success is such that parents have named their children RAMSI in

In responding to recent media coverage of Chinese communist party influence over Australia’s institutional infrastructure ('Where have all the grown-ups gone on China policy?', Australian Financial Review), former Ambassador to China Geoff Raby makes an important point. The issue is not the

The Economist reports on the growing role of private contractors in the aid sector, citing many cases from Australia. Senate Estimates recently revealed that close to 20% of Australia’s aid program is now being delivered by ten contractors. Michael Kleinman’s article in the Guardian

The resurrection of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), a proposal that would bring Australia into a strategic grouping with India, Japan and the US, has again been floated, this time in ministerial talks between Australia and Japan in Tokyo. Australia has a perfect right to form

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

Following his recent speech at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked a question about North Korea. This excerpt from his answer should be of interest to Australians, among others: We obviously work very, very closely with the United Nations Command.

Last week in an exchange with Allan Gyngell, I argued that one of the problems facing Australian foreign policy in the future is the long-term decline of our two major political parties, whose memberships and share of the primary vote continue to shrink: 'much of the intellectual ballast for the

The Australia-US Ministerial Consultation (AUSMIN) on Monday was noteworthy for how normal it was. The meeting stood in stark contrast to the recent NATO Summit, where President Trump managed to raise more questions about the American commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance than he answered. In

A more open Arctic could transform international trade, but early signs of strategic competition suggest the region could also be the next frontier of instability. A proactive state such as Australia should intervene now to encourage the establishment of positive norms and agreements before

After decades of strained bilateral relations, Australia’s defence ties with Myanmar are gradually being restored. The office of the Defence Attache (DA) in the Australian embassy in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), which closed in 1979, was reopened in 2014. This coincided with a port visit by HMAS

This is a lightly edited transcript of an email exchange between Allan Gyngell, former Executive Director of the Lowy Institute and author of 'Fear of Abandonment: Australia in the World Since 1942', and Lowy Institute Senior Fellow Sam Roggeveen. Sam Roggeveen: Allan, to promote the launch of

On the airwaves this week, Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton continues to describe asylum seekers who are yet to submit their protection applications as 'fake refugees'. The Minister’s comments ignore the fact that government policy actually prevented these 7500 people from applying

Australia's Vietnamese diaspora is a remarkable element in the fast-evolving relationship between the two countries. Hanoi and Canberra are both doing what they can to help Australian Vietnamese to forge and strengthen links that can pay enormous dividends in trade and tourism. This latest chapter

A $300 million cut. That’s what the headlines will say about the impact of this year’s budget on the Australian aid program. But that cut won't happen for another two years and there will be an election between now and then. In the meantime, this year the Federal government's spend on aid will

Given the general gloom that seems to dominate contemporary Australian perceptions about Papua New Guinea’s ability to govern itself, it is refreshing to learn how mournfully doubtful successive Australian Cabinets in the late 1960s through to PNG’s independence in 1975 were about our former

Days after Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull returned from a successful visit to India, speculation emerged that New Delhi might reject Canberra's request for participation in Malabar, a multilateral naval exercise comprising India, the US and Japan. A media report noted that a formal

When the federal government embraced the concept of economic diplomacy back in 2014, the key pitch was that listening more to business would take foreign policy beyond traditional 'peace and security' to 'peace and prosperity'. With the country's peak business groups having provided submissions for

Economics is likely to dominate the agenda during Malcolm Turnbull's visit to India this week, his first trip to New Delhi as prime minister. That makes sense. No longer the ‘sick man of Asia’, India has the world’s third-largest economy by the purchasing power parity standard of measurement,

The intelligence business is rarely off the Australian front pages for long. Recent mooted reforms have added to long-running controversies over surveillance activities and leaks. And in a few months we can expect the release of a new Independent Intelligence Review. Among all