A battle is underway between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in over their differing approaches to North Korea. They are competing to shape the attitudes of US President Donald Trump, and this contest has been a compelling sideshow at the PyeongChang Winter
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
Malcolm Turnbull jets off to Washington this week for talks with Donald Trump as both men are engulfed in distracting scandals. For Trump, chaos is constant, while for Turnbull, a brief moment of optimism at the end of last year about his political fortunes changing for the better has
No other great powers will be allowed in Latin America, and liberal democracy is the only political system allowed in the region (or, in practice, no socialist or Marxist rule will be tolerated in the region). These are the two tenets of the Monroe Doctrine established by the US in 1823, a
The US has delivered its annual Worldwide Threat Assessment, a useful document in that it provides a measure of transparency for judgements by the US intelligence community, yet which often tastes of cardboard – a bland, tick-the-box exercise that offers little genuine insight.
Of course, the
It is a weird time on the Korean Peninsula. Last year saw an extraordinary ramp-up in tensions. US President Donald Trump used incendiary rhetoric for months. His national security staff stated repeatedly that North Korea’s possession of a nuclear missile was unacceptable, and that the nuclear
The US and Indonesia have declared an overarching “strategic partnership” to meet broader challenges, from regional architecture building to global governance. At least, this was the case under the Barack Obama (2008–16) and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14) presidencies.
But under
If the Cold War was one long arms race, the modern era could be accurately described as an arms jog. Countries are defined less by how many nuclear warheads they have, and more by what they can do with them. This is particularly the case in Australia’s immediate region, where a
Represented by Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Frances Adamson, Australia was one of 20 countries that participated in a conference last week on coordinating international approaches to North Korea. Co-hosted by Canada and the US, and held in Vancouver, the conference had
Sometime soon, US President Donald Trump will announce his plan to respond to what the administration calls China’s “economic aggression”. When he does, it is not only China that needs to be prepared to respond. Together accounting for well over a third of global output, the collateral damage
Despite White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s fearlessly fictitious claim that nobody in the Trump administration is still talking about Hillary Clinton, President Donald Trump himself has tweeted about his former campaign rival no fewer than 75 times since being inaugurated.
There is no
Sometimes your closest friends, rather than your rivals, cause the biggest headaches. The blunt language contained in the 2018 US National Defense Strategy (NDS) is likely to complicate Australia’s strategy of balancing its security relationship with the US with its economic relationship with
Davos men
With the North Korean nuclear threat seemingly sidelined until after the Winter Olympics at least, this geopolitical year is starting in a curiously similar way to last.
US President Donald Trump will share more than a dubious hairdo with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week when he
In one of his first tweets of the year, US President Donald Trump launched a tirade against Pakistan. ‘The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years’, Trump fumed, ‘and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit’. Washington
The US appears to have reached a turning point in its economic relationship with China.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump accused Chinese policy makers of perpetrating the ‘greatest theft in the history of the world’ and blamed their foolish and incompetent American
The world was still reeling in January from Donald Trump’s inauguration speech. Barbara Slavin:
As Americans ponder the future with fear, it is hard to reassure friends around the world that as Barack Obama told his farewell news conference, 'Everything is going to be okay'.
Then, for
The Trump administration’s determination to meet China’s ‘economic aggression’, announced in this week’s National Security Strategy (NSS), is already being portrayed as a striking departure from previous administration’s generally tolerant acceptance of China’s rise to economic might.
The Trump administration’s just-released National Security Strategy (NSS) is, unsurprisingly, the least credible document in the history of US foreign policy-making. Its words are a poor match with US actions since January. They also bear little resemblance to the speech Trump gave for the rollout
Robert Ayson is quite right to pick me up on the distinction between pre-emptive and preventative military strikes. My post on Australia’s policy towards a US attack on North Korea argued Australia should make clear that it would not support a pre-emptive US strike at the North’s nuclear and
In place of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's ambiguous commitment to support US military action against North Korea, Hugh White wants a clear statement ruling out Australia's participation in a 'pre-emptive' attack. But in turn there are two points of ambiguity in White's argument that may get in
Nick Bisley recently wrote in The Interpreter that mistrust between China and Australia is increasing. Could strategic trust between China and Australia improve if the two countries were to work together to solve a serious security problem?
A key finding from our research into Thailand’s
The US Congress could scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran this week. But it's unlikely to do so.
Donald Trump has railed against the deal since his campaign. In a speech on 13 October, Trump said 'the Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever
During his tour of East Asia last month, US President Donald Trump visited five countries, but Americans could be forgiven for thinking that he only went to China, given the US media's coverage of the trip. Whereas journalists dissected Trump’s every move during his visit with Chinese President Xi
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-
Recent news that Australia’s Foreign Minister has indicated interest in taking part in a resurrected US-Australia-Japan-India quadrilateral dialogue on the sidelines of the upcoming ASEAN Summit is to be welcomed. It is an indication how much the strategic situation in the Asia Pacific has shifted
Asian leaders will be watching Trump for reassurance that the US will be a democratic ally in the Indo-Pacific. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review (Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Donald Trump has put US policy in East Asia on autopilot. But that could leave the United States far off course — and in a crisis, Trump will be required to fly the plane
What will Donald Trump's message to Asia be when he travels from Hawaii to Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from 3 to 14 November? It is safe to say that even his closest advisors don't know the answer to that question, which has host governments from Tokyo to Manila a bit anxious
The rhetoric emanating from Washington and Pyongyang may soon reach the point at which a peaceful resolution is no longer be possible. A year ago the chance of war on the Korean Peninsula would have been considered remote. Now, the call for a US pre-emptive strike is gaining support while North
Yesterday US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered his most substantial remarks on India to date, ahead of his first official trip to South Asia. While Tillerson’s influence in the Trump Administration is in considerable doubt, his speech pointed to yet more convergence between Washington and
In some respects, US President Donald Trump and the Iranian theocratic regime deserve each other.
Neither respect international agreements, except when it suits their purposes. Trump's badmouthing of the Iranian nuclear agreement is of one with his behaviour over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the
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
Following US President Donald Trump's address on Afghanistan policy in August, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing that the US is willing to work with Pakistan 'one more time' in Afghanistan. In another hearing, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman
The Trump administration's Afghanistan policy suggests that the United States will exert greater pressure on Pakistan, but no amount of US foreign assistance or coercion is likely to change Pakistan's behaviour, especially while its security establishment continues to view US
This article is the second in a two-part series. Part one focused on the Exercise Crocodile Strike. Part two reflects on the future of the Marine rotational force.
The Top End’s monsoonal weather pattern is the major reason why US Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) is currently limited to
Perhaps the most notable part of President Trump's new Afghanistan 'strategy' is its treatment of Pakistan, with Trump saying out loud what was once largely debated and threatened in private:
The next pillar of our new strategy is to change the approach and how to deal with Pakistan. We can no
Chief Strategist Steve Bannon's dismissal from the White House last week removes one of the most hawkish voices on China within the Trump Administration. But his departure won't lead to major reversals in Donald Trump's now increasingly tough foreign policy stance towards Beijing.
On the contrary
Graham Allison, Director of Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 1995 until July 2017, is a leading analyst of US national security and defence policy. His latest book, 'Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?', was published by Houghton