The power of Indigenous diplomacy

Australia’s Indigenous nations have their own traditions of relationship-building and diplomacy which could help strengthen our ties with the Pacific.

Confronting state fragility and democratic decline

The return of strategic competition between states is an established geopolitical trend, but states themselves are getting more fragile, according to the 2021 Fund for Peace Fragile States Index.

What’s next for Afghanistan?

After their rapid, bloodless victory in Afghanistan in the wake of the allied withdrawal, do the Taliban have the capacity to govern the country and keep unified control?

WhatsApp and the right to encrypt

Encrypted messaging has become a very difficult business. Despite their reach, it’s hard to make money from messaging apps and their key service – encryption – is under constant attack from actors across the political spectrum.

The case for a ‘disinformation CERN’

The scale and reach of the disinformation problem is now so vast that only research cooperation across the democratic world can address the shared threat to our societies.

Navalny sheds light on dark corners

The cynical imprisonment of Alexei Navalny won’t secure the future of Vladimir Putin’s brutal dictatorship for long.

The geopolitics of artificial intelligence

Australia has the opportunity to develop innovative policy that could help set standards internationally by engaging transparently with the high risk to security, democracy and social cohesion inherent in many AI applications.

China’s third revolution

On the brink of a new cold war, China has more instruments of power than it has ever had, but its challenges and missteps mean that the world’s democratic countries still have the upper hand – at least for the moment.