Australia in the World
A step, not a leap: Assessing the Indonesia-Australia Defence Cooperation Agreement
Australia and Indonesia signed a defence agreement last month, declared by both sides to be a significant upgrade to their military relationship. The question, however, centres on…
Byte-sized diplomacy: The search for safe AI
Got a big question on technology and security for “Byte-sized Diplomacy”. Send it through here.Artificial Intelligence is already here, diffused through the economy in different…
China’s rise in Southeast Asia is bringing in a golden age for Australia
Few close observers of Southeast Asia would dispute the claim that China’s influence across the region is growing. Beijing’s assiduous diplomacy and the promise of future economic…
Russian sanctions: Why has Australia stayed quiet on reparations?
Several days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a coalition of states, including all G7 economies, froze approximately US$350 billion in Russian foreign…
Economic diplomacy: Taking sides for an election
Pecking ordersIf hierarchies count in diplomatic communication, what are we to make of the duelling lists that Foreign Minister Penny Wong reeled off in a speech this week about…
Australia should make a strategic investment in the World Bank
Australia must soon decide how much it will contribute to the World Bank’s financing arm for the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries – known as the International…
Australia needs to boost its engagement with Africa, but not for the reasons advocates say we should
Australia’s foreign policy focus is – appropriately – the Indo-Pacific. But opportunities and threats can also emerge from regions at the periphery of our focus, like Africa. It’s…
Antimony: The hidden metal fuelling global competition
Great power competition between the United States and China centres on technological supremacy. This extends beyond future-defining technologies such as high-end chip…
The patriot’s virtue in bringing the world back home
Now the puff and fluff of the Olympics are fading, just as the hype of the Paralympics gets underway, we might assess again what we actually know and care about the world. After…
Maid in Australia: When international relations and industrial law collide
Australia has seen two extraordinary cases brought before the courts in recent months that have tested the limits of diplomatic immunity. This is not the cliché of foreign envoys…