Time out for TikTok

The news that Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok is not approved for use on devices owned by Australia’s Department of Defence should come as no surprise.

Soldiers shouldn’t fight fires

As bushfires become the norm, rather than the exception, new strategies must be found to fight them, but using soldiers to augment volunteers is not a tenable way forward.

Field notes from the new Cold War

The growing pace of strategic change means that every week brings more data points charting the Indo-Pacific’s slide towards a riskier, more dangerous reality.

The real choice over China

A systematic series of measures must be adopted to protect Australia’s society, economy and politics from relentless interference from China.

World peace (and how we can achieve it)

A new book by security expert Alex Bellamy is a ‘must read’ for anyone with even a passing interest in the theory and, more importantly, the possible practice of world peace.

A cold, hard reality check on Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty System is a consensus arrangement that has been in place for more than 50 years but this Cold War peace agreement is inadequate to respond to the security challenges of the 2020s.

Let’s “think different” about national security

We know what the future of our region looks like, but unless we start thinking about how we think, that knowledge may not be enough to help us cope with it.

Organised crime is testing Australia’s onshore migration program

Operation Sovereign Borders has reduced the number of irregular migrants dying at sea and stemmed the flow of people-smuggling ventures to Australia. Unfortunately, this success has come at great cost to our nation’s finances, and possibly our humanity.

Rethinking Australia’s food security

Australia needs to adopt a more coherent approach to the critically important convergence of food security, climate change and national security.

Food will decide the human future

Our future supply of food is filled with risk, and history tells us that lack of food leads to conflict. In his new book “Food or War” Australian author Julian Cribb calls for a new food system capable of meeting global needs on our increasingly hot and overcrowded planet.

The hard edge of soft power

The original Colombo Plan gave students from Asia and the Pacific a chance to study in Australia, and now a New Colombo Plan is sending Australians abroad to learn from our regional neighbours.

Securing consensus on national security

With the federal election out of the way, and some welcome stability in the leadership of the major political parties in prospect, Australia now faces the challenge of forging a national consensus on an external security policy that reflects our self-confidence and maturity as a nation.