Defence & Security

The strategic order and the nature of conflict are changing. Security competition between nations and military strategy are growing in complexity even as new transnational challenges deepen. The Lowy Institute’s experts in security and defence look at changing strategic relations, security architecture, nuclear strategy, military capabilities and defence and intelligence policy.

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AUKUS debate “influenced France’s attitude towards New Caledonia”

As voters in New Caledonia prepare for this Sunday’s referendum on self-determination – a poll that will be boycotted by independence supporters – New Caledonian leaders have said the diplomatic brawl over AUKUS has affected France’s policy in the French Pacific dependency. In an interview

By Nic Maclellan

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Taming the “grey zone”

Unease about so-called “grey zone” tactics is increasingly in vogue. From a position of relative obscurity, the term has surged onto the official agenda. There was no mention of “grey zone” in Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper, but it appears 11 times in the 2020 Defence Strategic

By Megan Price

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Only a truly national security strategy can forestall disaster

There is much talk of war drums beating, China battles and military deployments to North East Asia. Such visions are improbable and distant, and even if they occurred, Australia would be a small player among many much larger ones. Instead, literally on each Australian’s doorstep, are the

By Peter Layton

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Honouring the dead on the path to Korean peace

Almost 70 years on, the Korean war is still not formally over. The United States and South Korea are in the final stages of drafting an end-of-war declaration text. Since his address at the United Nations General Assembly in September, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has made the declaration

By Khang Vu

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New Zealand: No longer Australia’s Pacific security partner?

The prophecy was delivered in 2014. “It is likely that over the next ten years,” Wellington’s Defence Assessment foretold, “New Zealand will deploy military and other assets in support of a Pacific Islands Forum member in crisis beyond standard disaster response support.” In 2021 that

By Robert Ayson

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The Doha accord and Taliban legitimacy

Under the 2020 Doha Agreement, the US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan was conditional on Taliban security assurances that Afghan territory would not be used as a launch pad by al-Qaeda or Islamic State for attacks against the United States. Similar accords seeking security promises from

By Syed Fazl-e-Haider

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Maldives: India first or India out?

Recent protests in Maldives against India’s influence in the country calling for “Indian military out” has led the Maldives government to respond by reiterating its “India First” policy. This has highlighted the difficulties that both countries face in building a stable strategic

By David Brewster

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Regulating unmanned underwater vehicles in Indonesian waters

According to the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative, between 2018 and January 2021, a large number of Chinese vessels “deactivated” their AIS transponders – the automatic identification systems used to track ships at sea – and engaged in illegal marine scientific research while cruising

By Taufik Rachmat Nugraha

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The Indo-Pacific Operating System: How can America shore up the regional order?

Five essays from experts from, or based in, Southeast Asia provide a sense of the region’s complexity and the nuance with which any effort to shore up – or rebuild – regional order must grapple

By Ben Scott

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What Taiwan really wants

Originally published in The New York Times

By Natasha Kassam

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The Director’s Chair: Penny Wong on politics, China, and the job of Foreign Minister

In this episode of The Director’s Chair, Michael Fullilove speaks with Senator Penny Wong, the Shadow Foreign Minister and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate

By Michael Fullilove

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Indonesia-Australia: Deeper divide lies beneath AUKUS submarine rift

Amid Jakarta’s diplomatic shots across Canberra’s bow over AUKUS, Foreign Minister Marise Payne is travelling in Southeast Asia to reassure the region. This move comes after a volley of increasingly pointed Indonesian concerns about the impact that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-power

By Gatra Priyandita, Benjamin Herscovitch

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After The Fall: Fawzia Koofi on Afghanistan's future

In this episode of Lowy Institute Conversations, former member of the Afghan parliament and its first female deputy speaker Fawzia Koofi joins Lowy Institute Research Fellow Lydia Khalil for a discussion on the heartbreak of leaving Afghanistan, the prospects for the country under Taliban

By Lydia Khalil

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It’s time to talk about existential risk

Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi was having lunch with his colleagues in 1950 when he asked a now famous question: where is everybody? He was referring to the apparent contradiction that, despite the mathematical probability that humans should have seen evidence of intelligent extra-

By Tom Barber

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Arms control is not just about arms

Relations between Russian and the United States have been rocky since the 2014 Crimean crisis. Washington imposed various sanctions on the Kremlin in the aftermath of the annexation, accusing it of violating Ukrainian sovereignty. US charges of Russian interferences in the 2016 and 2020 elections

By Khang Vu

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International rules make U.S.-China conflict more likely

Cross-border principles governing conduct only exist if they are accepted by states. Originally published in Nikkei Asia Review

By Ben Scott

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Britain and Australia aren’t actually treaty allies – they should be

Though it may come as a surprise listening to Prime Ministers, who routinely refer to one another as “allies”, Britain and Australia are actually only partners – not bound to come together as treaty allies but only informally. This needs correcting. Let’s begin with why it’s necessary.

By Ben Judah

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AUKUS? Quad? FOIP? A fragmented approach cannot counter China

Although a substantive movement has developed aiming to contain China – AUKUS being only the most recent example, adding to the reconstituted Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, as well as a newly-launched Indo-Pacific strategy by the European Union – these efforts are each

By Yatharth Kachiar, Priya Vijaykumar Poojary

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Why Australia needs a security rebalance

The pandemic has blown up any idea that we can easily spot the future threats to Australia. So how do we prioritise our finite security resources? Originally published in the Australian Financial Review

By Ben Scott

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“Strategic autonomy” is more dangerous for Europe than AUKUS

An article this week in The Interpreter argued that, in the wake of AUKUS, Europeans should embrace the decline of NATO, “break free” of reliance on the US and, instead, seek their own “strategic autonomy”. While Emilian Kavalski and Nicholas Smith’s piece is unusually frank about the

By Benjamin Tallis

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Foreign fighters: The question of justice

The legal fallout from Islamic State’s short but bloody existence is both complex and enduring. For those Westerners who travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the jihadist project, which ended with the fall of Baghouz in southeastern Syria in March 2019, justice has taken different forms. Many were

By Rodger Shanahan

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Would a war over Taiwan be legal?

Australia’s former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called for “solidarity” with Taiwan in the face of China’s “intimidatory sorties” testing its air defences. As the war drum incessantly beats, would a war against China to defend Taiwan be legal? For all the abstract talk about a rules-

By Ben Saul

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AUKUS: Why Beijing didn’t go ballistic

China was expected to be furious about the recently signed AUKUS security pact. After all, it is generally believed that the deal to provide Australia with technology to build nuclear submarines and the associated cooperation with the United States and United Kingdom amounts to a significant

By Jia Deng

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Subs: Australia’s reputation overboard

The prevailing view in Australia of the momentous submarines imbroglio seems to have become that the $90-billion mega deal with the French – friend, ally and partner in the Indo-Pacific – was scrapped for a combination of contractual, operational and geopolitical reasons. Australia, so this

By Richard Ogier

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Chinese warplanes overhead Taiwan (or maybe not)

China’s PLA Air Force’s (PLAAF) latest flights into the Taiwanese Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) have gained people’s attention. The arcane ADIZ term denotes a block of airspace established over, and usually somewhat beyond, a nation’s territory in which any unknown approaching

By Peter Layton

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In defence of AUKUS

When Barack Obama announced the rebalance to Asia in 2011, he also revealed the rotational deployment of US Marines to Darwin. In the intervening decade, however, additional changes to US regional posture have been few and far between. As a result, leading US defence expert Michèle Flournoy has

By Oriana Skylar Mastro , Zack Cooper

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An arms control stocktake

Nuclear politics and nuclear policy shifts get plenty of coverage – atomic-powered submarines for Australia, China’s missile silo fields, North Korea’s enrichment activities in Yongbon, Iran’s compliance with international monitoring, as well as weapons modernisation all receive considerable

By Orli Zahava

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SSN vs SSK

Are nuclear-powered submarines better – more cost-effective – for Australia’s operational needs than conventionally-powered ones? This is one of the many questions that deserve a bit more attention than they have received since Scott Morrison’s AUKUS coup. Let’s agree that the French

By Hugh White

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AUKUS and the nuclear non-proliferation regime

Whether Australia leases, buys or builds nuclear-fuelled submarines, it will be the first non-nuclear state to do so. The recent announcement of AUKUS – the Trilateral Agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – to procure this technology brings into focus the

By Cathy Moloney

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AfPak’s back, alright

In 2021, it’s positively tinfoil hat territory to utter the phrase “deep state”. But they’re the words that come to mind when reading about developments in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is getting comfortable back in the halls of power, Pakistan expresses jubilation at home, and Pakistani

By Aarti Betigeri

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Australia is Making a Risky Bet on the U.S.

Australia has thrust itself into a central role in America’s rivalry with China. Originally published in The New York Times

By Sam Roggeveen

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Digital authoritarianism not just a China problem

According to 2019 data from the World Trade Organisation, China is the largest global supplier of telecommunications equipment (generating US$296 billion compared to US$169 billion for the whole of the European Union) as well as office and telecom equipment (US$633 billion compared to US$363 billion

By Ausma Bernot

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AUKUS and the CPTPP: It’s all about China

China’s application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) just hours after announcement of the new tripartite AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom and United States) security partnership may – or may not – have been coincidental.

By Ian Hill

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When you’re in a hole, stop digging: Australia and the nuke sub deal

There is an old saying that if you find yourself in a hole, the best course of action is to stop digging. If only Australia understood this wisdom. Abandoning the French submarine project, the government has decided to double down and design a new nuclear-powered sub with technology and assistance

By Albert Palazzo

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The law when putting autonomous military platforms on a shopping list

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) does not currently deploy highly autonomous devices – whether weaponised or not. Existing devices tend to be remotely piloted and unarmed, or, as is the case with close-in weapon systems, designed to operate in a highly predictable way in uncluttered operational

By Eve Massingham

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Australia’s wartime seaborne trade: insights from before

China’s maritime warfare capabilities become more potent almost daily. Thomas Shugart’s new Lowy Institute paper explores this and then imagines the potential dangers arising for Australia. Shugart’s US-centric perspective is nicely complemented by Hugh White’s and James Goldrick’s debate

By Peter Layton

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China – a lonely superpower

As the United States, United Kingdom and Australia move to form a new AUKUS grouping, various reports have emerged of a “new Quad” led by China and featuring Iran, Pakistan and Russia. Iran’s imminent admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and plans for the four countries to

By Henry Storey

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Sunk! France cries outrage over snubbed subs

The French word déception means disappointment rather than deception, making it one of the infamous “false friends” the French language abounds in for English speakers trying to learn it. But when Naval Group, the French company that just lost what has been described in France as “

By John Sexton

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North Korea’s calculated restraint

September is an important month for South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in to make a last ditch attempt to revive relations with a recalcitrant North Korea before the presidential election next March. To such an end, his administration has sought to use major inter-Korean anniversaries this month,

By Khang Vu

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How nuclear subs could transform Australia, its alliance and Asia

Australia is about to join an exclusive group of nations operating one of the most lethal military platforms ever conceived – nuclear-powered submarines. My initial thoughts on this extraordinary announcement are below. These are subject to revision as I think through the implications of what is a

By Sam Roggeveen

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Small hints of a bigger opportunity in Australia-South Korea ties

In Australia, over the last few weeks, international headlines have focused on the United States, between the problematic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the 70th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty, the 20 years since 9/11, and the AUSMIN meeting this week. So readers could be forgiving for overlooking

By Peter Dean

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The many consequences of a clear blue day on 11 September, 2001

The 9/11 attacks – four separate coordinated strikes by al-Qaeda using passenger planes as weapons of mass destruction – were the deadliest and most consequential terrorist events in history. The attacks on the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon and the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93

By Lydia Khalil

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The Director’s Chair: John Howard on Australia-China relations, the Afghanistan War, and COVID

In this episode of The Director’s Chair, Michael Fullilove speaks with John Howard, Australia’s 25th Prime Minister

By Michael Fullilove

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An Afghan test leaves Australia’s principles wanting

When the Taliban emerged from the wastes of Afghanistan in the 1990s, the international community was caught completely off guard. Intelligence on the ground was pretty much non-existent and whatever policies that followed in dealing with this new threat reflected this deficiency. Subsequent events

By Edmond Roy

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9/11: A President reacts on a day of fear and anger

Twenty years on, there are many different ways to remember 9/11. Many rightly focus on the families of the victims, as Jennifer Senior does in her remarkable article in The Atlantic describing the way grief echoed through the lives of a single family. The Lowy Institute has released a new

By Michael Fullilove

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Policing national security since 9/11

9/11 and the subsequent terror attacks in Bali were the catalysts for rapid and considerable change in the Australian Federal Police (AFP). Most obviously the AFP was deployed to Indonesia in the aftermath of bombings in Bali and Jakarta. But the national security role for the police extended

By Warwick Jones

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The evolving Taliban-ISK rivalry

The attack on evacuation efforts at the Kabul airport by the Islamic State- Khorasan Province (ISK, ISKP, or ISIS-K) triggered much speculation about the Afghan Taliban’s ability to constrain terrorism in the country. But it also served as a reminder of the intense rivalry between the Taliban and

By Amira Jadoon, Andrew Mines, Abdul Sayed

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Matching strategic and defence policy to the climate challenge

Australia is experiencing a series of cascading crises. While the most immediate is the Covid-19 pandemic, the global and regional strategic order in which it has so comfortably lived for decades is currently undergoing a significant shift. These compounding crises have challenged policy frameworks

By Brendan Sargeant

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Japan’s nuclear identity and the complicated endgame

Book Review: Akimoto Daisuke, Japan’s Nuclear Identity and its Implications for Nuclear Abolition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) It has been rare in recent years for the anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan to pass without controversy, invariably concerning remarks made by the prime

By Tom Corben

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Turbulence, the Taliban, and Turkey’s role in Afghanistan’s future

Amid the chaos of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, regional players including Turkey have been jostling to position themselves with the new regime and take advantage of the benefits from the vacuum left by the United States and NATO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stated that he is

By Iain MacGillivray

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