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April 2021
Get out of the diplomatic freezer: Bring back the Chinese students
The Australia-China relationship is at a low point. China has made its displeasure with Australia clear through a freeze on ministerial contact, trade import restrictions and criticisms of Australia’s human rights record. Beijing is waiting for Australia to make a move to improve the relationship, while Canberra has said that the ball is in China’s
January 2021
The Biden Presidency and Australia’s Security Reset
The swearing-in of Joseph Biden as 46th President of the United States will signal a reset in the strategic relationship between Australia and its US partner. There will be no going back to the pre-Trump days. The world has moved on, and the US has moved on, even if Australia remains locked into a dependency
December 2020
War Crimes: Where does ultimate responsibility lie?
War crimes are perhaps the worst manifestation of a ‘victory at all costs’ culture that can so easily persuade individuals, whether political leaders or combatants, to abandon their moral compass and to cross the boundary between legality (however moot that might be) and criminality. This paper argues that the Afghanistan Inquiry Report may be premature
November 2020
Submission: A 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent
The Australia Institute made a submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Consultation on the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) 2050 Strategy.
October 2020
Submission on Defence Legislation Amendment (Enhancement of Defence Force Response to Emergencies) Bill 2020
The Australia Institute made a submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade regarding the Defence Legislation Amendment (Enhancement of Defence Force Response to Emergencies) Bill 2020.
Rethinking Official Development Assistance
This discussion paper was presented at a roundtable on the future of Australian Official Development Assistance (ODA), arguing that Australia has long had deep national interests in the provision of development assistance in the Asia-Pacific region, regional security concerns being not the least of them. If Australia is to “step-up” its aid in the Pacific
July 2020
ANZUS and Australia’s Security
The ANZUS treaty has not passed its use-by date. Why? Because it never had one. While, at the time it was negotiated and signed, it had political and strategic moment, events in Asia and the Pacific quickly eroded its strategic significance – an erosion that was as much aided by the compounding nature of extended Asian
June 2020
How Good is the Australia-China Relationship?
It is easy for governments to disguise their inability to manage complex relationships by resorting to finger-pointing and name-calling. But the over-investment in emotion usually masks an under-investment in thinking. The stridency that distinguishes contemporary government pronouncements on China and Australia’s relationship with China is alarmist and alarming. We need a more considered and deliberate
Securitisation – Turning Problems into Threats
‘Securitisation’ is a post-WW2 phenomenon. It began as part of the expanding struggle between the US and the Soviet Union for pre-eminence during the Cold War, where the US, as a matter of policy, leveraged the full panoply of its state power to prevail over the Soviet Union. As used in contemporary security policy texts,
April 2020
January 2020
Calling it out
Australia’s interests in the Middle East: A presence in search of a policy
At a superficial level, Australia’s interests in the Middle East seem to be little more than providing military ballast to support the imperial or global ambitions of great powers. It is for that reason that, for 80 of the past 100 years, Australia has maintained some form of defence presence in the Middle East. As