Ukraine
Ukraine: what are Putin’s options now?
Vladimir Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine has not gone to plan. He has overestimated the capability of his own armed forces, while underestimating the strength of Ukrainian…
Will cryptocurrency allow Russia to bust sanctions?
It wasn’t that long ago that sanctions busting was a relatively straightforward, if risky, gig. As Australian wheat exporter AWB showed when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was under…
Russia is losing the information war
On the morning of 26 February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a short video on social media from outside of his office. His face looked exhausted after another…
Russia’s war will hasten the drive for clean energy security
Russia is a huge producer and exporter of fossil fuels, especially oil and gas. By waging war on Ukraine and all this brings with it for geopolitics, its energy trade will change…
Putin’s hubris foreshadows tragedy – for Ukrainians and Russians alike
However this ends, it will not end well for Ukraine. And likely not for Russia either.
Ukraine’s experience throughout this crisis has been a sad lesson in the realities of…
Australia was quick to sanction Moscow. Why not Myanmar?
“Australians always stand up to bullies, and we will be standing up to Russia”, declared Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week, announcing a suite of…
Keeping Australian uranium out of Russian hands – and bombs
“If you’ve looked on the TV into Vladimir Putin’s eyes – he is one tough son of a gun and I don’t think that he cares about what we think.”
Such was the verdict by one Australian…
Why was it left to Kenya to speak up for multilateralism?
In a long speech this week, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin crossed the Rubicon by recognising the “independent” republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, creating…
Economic diplomacy: Slow dividends for Australia from ASEAN spending
Wooing the neighbours
The Morrison government has committed almost $700 million to new non-Covid initiatives in Southeast Asia over the past two years, seeking to rebuild…
China and the Ukraine crisis
The 2008 financial crisis accelerated China’s emergence as a global power in ways that Beijing found unsettling. The economic mess in the North Atlantic world thrust the People’s…