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.

Hastie’s right: it’s time to protect ourselves

Andrew Hastie’s warning that an intellectual failure to accept that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision for the world will test our democratic values, economy, alliances and security as never before is the blunt wake-up call that Australians need.

Australia’s ‘unbreakable alliance’

Washington’s ambassador to Australia, Arthur Culvahouse, has used a speech to ASPI to stress the strength of the alliance with the United States and to reject suggestions that China and America are involved in a new cold war.

Special forces’ approach to technological change offers a model for others

New procurement principles and practice spearheaded by Australia’s special forces can reduce project risks across the defence budget while embracing more rapid technological change.

How to defend Australia

The task Australia faces in deciding its future levels of defence spending is to balance that risk against the cost of building the armed forces required to deal with it.

Do it right in defence

Australia must think hard about the capabilities that will best enable our forces to prosecute the most vital missions against our most likely adversaries.

National security should turn to the cloud

A move now to secure cloud infrastructure is required if Australia’s national security agencies are to maintain and improve their capability.

How not to defend Australia?

Hugh White’s “How to defend Australia” is an elegant book but it’s fundamentally wrong on just about every judgement it contains.

It’s time for a public–private partnership in national security

The threats we face don’t recognise the walls that exist between Australian businesses and national security agencies. To safeguard Australia, we need to put more doors in those divisions.

Australian universities must wake up to the risks of researchers linked to China’s military

China’s aggressive program of acquiring technology from abroad should be a cause of concern for Australian universities. Yet, our system of vetting research collaborations is clearly broken, putting Australian security at risk.

Rethinking Australia’s citizenship bans

The logic behind Australia’s terrorism-related loss-of-citizenship provisions is meant to be brilliantly simple, but the reality of the measure could be counter-productive to its aims.

We must do more than wave the flag in the South China Sea

All hopes of China becoming a ‘responsible stakeholder’ now dead and that nation’s capacity to constrain our maritime freedom of movement will only grow larger. Without action, we will soon find ourselves strategically reliant on the benevolence of an expansionist dictatorship.