United States
In the story of an assassination plot, India decides to shoot the messenger
Whenever anonymous sources are cited in media reports, it’s open to the audience to assume that a leak is deliberate, part of a strategy to send a message. The old saying goes…
“Squad” goals: Consolidating the new quadrilateral partnership
A few days ago, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin hosted his counterparts from three allied nations – Japan, Australia and, crucially, the Philippines – in Hawaii, also home to…
FONOPs send a message – but they don’t speak for themselves
The Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) program run by the US Department of Defense has become a symbol of China-US naval competition and of the West’s advocacy for a rules…
Telling tales about “Civil War”
Civil War has quickly entered the American zeitgeist, and one of the most frequently noted themes in commentary about the film is the opacity of its politics. You would expect…
Why China remains unlikely to invade Taiwan
The United States, and Washington DC in particular, is awash with expectations of war against China in the near future, most likely caused by a Chinese decision to forcibly…
Is South Korea’s Indo‑Pacific Strategy a diplomatic lame duck?
When South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol administration released its Indo-Pacific Strategy in late 2022, many Australian commentators hoped the time had finally come for the…
Beyond Biden vs Trump: The other US elections that matter
Many Australians are following the rematch in the 2024 US presidential election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump's reality TV approach to politics makes it hard to avert…
What should Australia be doing about the South China Sea?
It’s a mark of our turbulent times that China’s dangerous and illegal actions against the Philippines at the Second Thomas Shoal currently only sit in the second tier of…
A wave of US trilaterals sends a clear message to China
After months of speculation, the White House has confirmed the inaugural Trilateral Leaders’ Summit between Japan, the Philippines and the United States. On 11 April, US President…
Are Beijing and Washington testing the dark forest hypothesis?
Last week, Netflix released Three-Body Problem, its widely anticipated TV adaptation of the acclaimed novels by science fiction author Liu Cixin. While met with broadly positive…