United States

North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un scored a huge diplomatic victory on Tuesday when he finally got the chance to hold a summit with US President Donald Trump, a feat his grandfather and father never achieved. In addition to the credit Kim and Trump received for their courageous acts, South

The handshake lasted 12 seconds, body language experts tell us. That’s not quite the full minute Donald Trump had predicted it would take him to judge whether Kim Jong-un was ready to make a deal, but whatever the substance behind the showcase, this summit is indeed an extraordinary moment in

Barely six months ago, Australia’s debate on North Korea featured Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speculating about invoking the ANZUS treaty in case of war, and discussion on The Interpreter between Hugh White and Rob Ayson about what conflict with a nuclear-armed

Everybody is saying it: the big split between the US and North Korea as we head towards the 12 June leaders summit in Singapore (and yes, it looks like it is on again) is over the meaning of  “denuclearisation”. The maximalist American definition is that North Korea must dismantle

Decades after the Moon became covered in American flags and footprints, the nearest world in space is becoming strategic again. Recently, China launched a satellite to orbit the L2 Earth-Moon Lagrange point. This is an imaginary point in space hovering over the far side of the Moon (not the “

Over the past year, the US has been engaged in what it calls a maximum pressure campaign to push North Korea to take concrete steps towards denuclearisation. President Donald Trump has imposed a series of sanctions on North Korea, and threatened nuclear war against the country on Twitter. 

This month, I was in Australia for events hosted by the Lowy Institute and Sydney Writers’ Festival respectively. The questions were excellent, and I would like to take advantage of this space to expand on some of the topics brought up. Generally speaking, the questions at

Trump finally did it: in perhaps one of the most ridiculous moves of his presidency (although competition on that front is fierce), he announced that his administration would remove the US from the Iran deal and reimpose all nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. This is not only a gross violation of

US Army General Robert Brown told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute dinner in Canberra this week that, on his last visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese military chiefs, he noticed that: ... something was different ... I realised that China ... used to fear us and respect us. They don’t

The venue and date for the Donald Trump–Kim Jong-un summit have yet to be announced, but it appears likely to take place in late May or early June. Panmunjom, on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), has emerged as the clear frontrunner. But there is still a possibility that the

US President Donald Trump’s decision to accept an offer to meet with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un has elicited deep scepticism from many foreign policy experts and former high-ranking American officials. But while plenty of attention has been paid to the perils of Trump’s decision, little

It’s not every day that a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, America’s premier law-enforcement body, calls the sitting president of the US “morally unfit” to hold office. Yet that is what James Comey did on Sunday in a wide-ranging interview with ABC News

The US military claims the ability of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons has been set back “for years” following strikes on Saturday. Given it is just one year since the US last struck Syrian targets following a chemical weapons attack, the latest claim won’t wash for many.

Since the first days of 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has undertaken a series of diplomatic activities whose scope and significance are rivalled only by his missile and nuclear tests. The fact that Kim made his first overseas trip to China, attended a K-pop performance in Pyongyang,

The United States used to think regularly about the islands of the South Pacific. On her tour of the region in 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt had a message for Americans troops stretched out across the Pacific Islands. “Every day”, she told them, Franklin Roosevelt “goes down to the map

We still don’t know exactly when or where President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are going to meet, but Kim’s furtive visit to Beijing this week has heightened expectations that the summit will happen sometime in May. By the time the summit occurs, attention on this historic event

An armoured train carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pulled into Beijing on Monday, with a summit with China’s Xi Jinping confirmed Wednesday morning by Xinhua. Perhaps Kim came to reassure China that he won’t upend regional geopolitics by making a dramatic deal with

President Donald Trump’s announcement that former UN Ambassador John Bolton will be the new US National Security Advisor will send tremors through some allied capitals. But Bolton may not be effective in the role if he reverts to the aggressive and ideological approaches that made him

It may be chaotic and confused, but the Trump administration is not entirely nuts. Expected to slam China with heavy penalties for appropriating the intellectual property of US businesses, the administration instead appears to be stopping short of a fundamental injury to the world’s biggest

We’ll get to the consequences of Rex Tillerson’s sacking in a moment, but first consider his brief tenure as America’s chief diplomat. Mostly Tillerson will be remembered (lamented) for presiding over savage cuts to the State Department. Certainly there was damage – no one ever really

How should countries respond to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium? One response would be to retaliate. Another would be to emphasise the damage done to the global multilateral trade framework. Yet another would be to negotiate a side deal to avoid, and perhaps even benefit

Tentative signs the US may have been adopting a more sensible view on trade have been dashed by President Donald Trump’s recent decision to impose tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminium imports. Hopes that Trump’s protectionist views were mellowing were kindled at Davos

Private enterprise is taking great strides in space. Recently, entrepreneur Elon Musk launched his own Tesla car into Martian orbit with the world’s most powerful rocket, his own Falcon Heavy. Other entrepreneurs are also making progress with rockets and spacecraft. Against this backdrop, the US