Media
Why India isn’t going to save Australia from China’s power
BY HUGH WHITE AO Will India save us from China? The Indo-Pacific concept that now lies at the heart of Australia’s foreign policy assumes that it will. It is founded on the belief that as America’s...
Australia’s one step forward, two steps back in the Pacific
BY JOANNE WALLIS In 2016, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull expressed Australia’s commitment to a ‘step-change’ in its engagement with the Pacific Islands. The 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper...
Populism and the Australian election: what could fringe voters deliver to our parliament?
BY PAUL KENNY With populists in control of the world’s most populous democracies, not least the United States, a question on the mind of many is what effect populism might have on this month’s...
Of Cricket, Sandpaper and “Shadow Values”: What Australia’s Aid Program Says About Who We Are and Our Ability to Weather the Next Foreign Policy Crisis
BY BENJAMIN DAY When it comes to Australia’s foreign aid spending, the Cameron Bancroft and Steven Smith ball tampering incident provides an illustrative analogy of the disconnect between our...
After the tragedy, attention turns to how it happened
BY CLIVE WILLIAMS Four phases follow events like the tragedy in Christchurch – shock and disbelief, grieving, a search for answers, and new countermeasures. The shocked New Zealand reaction to the...
Canberra’s growing silence on US leadership in Asia
BY HUGH WHITE Sometimes what is left out of a major policy speech is as important as what is said. This was certainly true late January when Australia’s Defence Minister Christopher Pyne spoke about...
When Australian nuclear weapons could make sense
BY STEPHAN FRUEHLING This article was originally published by The Strategist. What a way to start a year! The debate initiated by three former Australian deputy secretaries of defence—Hugh White,...
Australia's new Pacific Czar
BY JAMES BATLEY This article originally appeared in The Interpreter for the Lowy Institute. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has now established an Office of the Pacific, a measure...
Trust in short supply when there are no shared values
BY PAUL DIBB This article originally appeared in The Australian on 23 Jan 2019. In the Australian debate about the priority to be given to the economic relationship with China versus the national...
Who is watching the watchers? It's a bureaucratic maze
BY JOHN BLAXLAND. Guarding Australia in an alphabet soup of spy organisations, Australia needs a new National Security Adviser to balance competing advice with clear strategy. The government...