'Occasional military exercises are unlikely to provide the certainty required for significant private sector investment,' writes Raelene Lockhorst.
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Australian Strategic Policy Institute
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The Australian Strategic Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on Australia's defence, cyber, tech and strategic policy.
'Intelligence professionals exert significant influence in the process through collection, analysis, framing, prioritisation and the communication of uncertainty,' writes Roseleen Woodman.
Decision-shaping: the ethical responsibility in intelligence work | The Strategist
Intelligence professionals carry an unrecognised ethical responsibility. It arises when they shape what political decision-makers come to know, which risks are held to be salient, and which options ap...
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NEW REPORT 🔊 In ‘Making the littoral force operational,’ Raelene Lockhorst argues that delivering the 2026 NDS’s ambition for littoral manoeuvre and long-range strike will depend on having the logistics system to keep 🇦🇺’s emerging littoral force moving, supplied and operational. 🔖: bit.ly/4rM9Oiu
'Lockheed Martin has enjoyed a near-monopoly position since its plump cuckoo-chick, the F-35 Lightning, tossed its last rival, the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, out of the nest,' writes Bill Sweetman.
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⏰ CLOSING SOON ⏰ Applications for ASPI’s China Senior Analyst/Analyst role close at 5pm today. We’re looking for an experienced analyst with strong subject matter expertise, leadership, policy and fundraising experience to join ASPI’s influential China team. 🔗 Apply now: bit.ly/4jlyegA
'The central issue is therefore not simply senior officers’ self-enrichment but whether informal networks of authority and obligation have persisted within the PLA despite Xi’s efforts to strengthen centralised party control,' write Michael Clarke and Jade Guan.
A paradoxical purge: Xi shows his power, and his trouble in controlling the PLA | The Strategist
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s purge of the senior leadership of the People’s Liberation Army continues unabated. It reveals both the reach of the Chinese Communist Party’s disciplinary apparatus, and...
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'So the most likely reason for returning a Blackbird to flight is this: to enable testing of a large high-speed test aircraft that it would carry and launch,' writes Bill Sweetman.
Blackbirds: take these broken wings and learn to fly, says NASA | The Strategist
I’ve been a keen follower of the Lockheed Blackbird family since the headline ‘We have Mach 3 plane, says US’ appeared above a short item in London’s Daily Express in March 1964. The coolest thing ...
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🔔 Applications are now open for ASPI's 2027 Defence Fellows Program 🔔 The program supports emerging leaders ready to bring new ideas, perspectives and innovative thinking to some of Australia’s most pressing defence and security challenges. ✍️ Find out more and apply ➡️ bit.ly/46Qrpwn
'A military alliance is a serious undertaking, and lively debate about one is just what you’d expect from a parliamentary democracy. But Mara isn’t a parliamentarian: he’s a chief,' write ASPI Defence Strategy Staff. www.aspistrategist.org.au/fault-lines-...
Fault Lines – Taiwan’s arms hopes, Indonesia’s carrier, Fiji’s chiefs | The Strategist
Welcome to the latest edition of ASPI’s Fault Lines. Every fortnight, ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program monitors the actions and developments shaping the regional order and Australia’s security. This edition covers the period from 18 September to 1 October ...
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'Diversity of cooperation matters because, if tensions with China ever escalate, Indonesia will still have partners to support its maritime interests,' writes Aristyo Darmawan.
How Indonesia can protect its interests in maritime cooperation with China | The Strategist
With China posing a threat to Indonesia’s interests in the South China Sea, Indonesia needs a clear maritime cooperation strategy. It should itself set the cooperation agenda with China, insist that j...
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'Australia is accepting significant risk in mine countermeasures, a capability once seen as essential,' writes Andy Perry.
Here we go again. Mine countermeasures are Australia’s forgotten naval capability | The Strategist
Australia is accepting significant risk in mine countermeasures, a capability once seen as essential. While investing heavily in submarines and warships, Australia has allowed its dedicated mine count...
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'If we can cut guided-weapon cost by an order of magnitude, using machinery that can be accelerated into three-shift production overnight, the line of missile cost gets much flatter. Which changes everything,' writes Bill Sweetman.
Destruction on a budget | The Strategist
‘There are weeks when decades happen’ has been a stock phrase to remember this summer. The missile wars between Ukraine and Russia and between Iran and the United States (and its nervous Middle Easter...
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'Strategic fitness is the measurable capacity to convert change into operational advantage – and it’s the foundation of a continuously adaptive land force,' writes John Coyne.
Strategic fitness: how the army can institutionalise rapid adaptation | The Strategist
The Australian Army’s workforce is more educated, technically proficient and connected to emerging technology than any previous generation. Its people challenge assumptions, experiment with new capabilities and increasingly recognise learning as a warfighting function. The ...
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'An adversary can use camouflage, deception, electronic warfare and other techniques to distort what an AI system observes and create weaknesses in how it adapts,' writes Ayeza Areej.
When weapons can learn, humans need to stay in control | The Strategist
AI weapons systems that are designed to learn and adapt could become increasingly difficult for humans to predict, explain and control. This creates an accountability gap that existing oversight mecha...
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ICYMI 🎙️ As AI safety and security dominates headlines around the globe, @bassijustin.bsky.social joined David Wroe on Stop the World to unpack the OpenAI Medicare breach, the challenges of AI risk and safety, US–China coordination on AI safety and the Trump–Xi summit. 🎧 Listen here: bit.ly/4yisvNb
'If China took Taiwan, Japan would surely activate what we must presume to be well-established plans to rapidly equip itself with nuclear weapons,' writes Andrew Forrest.
Revolting for the CCP: seizing Taiwan could drive Japan to nuclear weapons | The Strategist
Potential Japanese acquisition of nuclear weapons is an under-appreciated deterrent to a Chinese attempt at seizing Taiwan. If China took Taiwan, Japan would surely activate what we must presume to be...
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'At Davos this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said "middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu." Nowhere is the case stronger than in AI,' writes Hannah Merchant.
To secure frontier AI access, Australia’s best bet is a coalition of the dependent | The Strategist
At Davos this year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said ‘middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.’ Nowhere is the case stronger than in ...
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'These developments do not signal a strategic reset. Instead, they show India distinguishing between sectors where Chinese involvement is economically necessary and those it considers too sensitive,' writes Shibani Mehta.
India’s relationship with China should be understood sector-by-sector | The Strategist
Over the past few months, New Delhi’s relations with Beijing have improved. It would be a mistake to read this as a sign of greater strategic trust. A better explanation is that India is managing ...
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'For both [Canada and Australia], distance is not simply a transport problem. It affects how capabilities need to be designed,' writes Raelene Lockhorst.
Australia and Canada face similar northern logistics problems | The Strategist
Australia and Canada are separated by half a world, but a new defence partnership is exposing an unexpected similarity. Canada is buying Australian surveillance technology developed to monitor the vas...
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ICYMI 🔊 We’re looking for a China Analyst or Senior Analyst to join ASPI’s high-performing China team. Don’t miss the opportunity to join one of the Indo-Pacific’s most influential think tanks and contribute to globally recognised research initiatives. 🔗 Apply now: bit.ly/4jlyegA
'The problem is not simply technical but also legal: do Indo-Pacific partners understand the legal and operational limits of AI-enabled warfare in sufficiently similar ways to make decisions together?' writes Samuel White.
Australia’s next interoperability challenge is military AI | The Strategist
Australia is spending heavily on military AI and, separately, on building the capabilities and interoperability of its Indo-Pacific partners, yet we are paying too little attention to what happens as ...
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'While the attention of the CCP’s International Department appears currently focused on the Middle East, all regions need to watch closely how China is using these Global Civilization Initiative bodies for influence and propaganda,' writes Geoff Wade.
Chinese twin-track diplomacy is building influence in the Middle East | The Strategist
China is seeking to exploit perceived Western missteps in the Middle East, including the Iran war, by turning societies against the United States and other western nations. As part of this, the Chines...
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'A stronger US approach would be to acknowledge that global AI governance – widely acknowledged as a necessity – starts at home and that regulation can itself be a lever of both hard and soft power,' writes Bethany Allen.
What’s at stake as Trump and Xi discuss AI governance | The Strategist
The stakes will be high in expected talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi on AI safety and governance during Xi’s state visit to Washington on 24 September. AI and tech company ex...
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'We expect police to provide a baseline for public safety, but we also add alarms, guards or panic buttons where a specific threat warrants it. Digital protection should follow the same logic,' writes Jason Van der Schyff.
Protect the person, not just the network | The Strategist
We spend enormous amounts of money protecting the networks around our most important people. Then, at the end of the day, we send those people home. There they find a car that logs where it ...
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'Western policy responses typically wait until it is too late and Chinese firms already dominate a market. The Little Giant designation offers a leading indicator of these strategically significant companies,' write Stephan Robin and Shelly Shih.
Beijing picked 19,000 companies to win. Many are already in our supply chains | The Strategist
Today, ASPI is expanding its globally-recognised data offering by launching the China Little Giants Tracker – a searchable database of the high-tech small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that Beijing ha...
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🚨 NEW TRACKER 🚨 ASPI has launched the China Little Giants Tracker, mapping 19,000+ Chinese SMEs designated by Beijing for their specialised technological capabilities and relevance to national industrial priorities. 🔗 Request access now: bit.ly/4hiv0rL
'Immigration and multiculturalism are central to Australia’s prosperity, security and international standing, especially in the Indo-Pacific region where languages, cultural understanding and trusted relationships matter deeply,' writes Jenny Bloomfield.
Australia’s multiculturalism is a precious achievement | The Strategist
When I arrived in 1981 as a 12-year-old from Greece, I could not have imagined that three decades later I would return to the country of my birth as Australia’s ambassador. My family already had ...
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'AI will undoubtedly improve, and autonomous ground systems will assume a growing share of military missions. But the environments in which modern armies increasingly operate continue to reward qualities that machines struggle to replicate,' writes Boaz Golany.
Not only robots: warfare will still need humans | The Strategist
Future warfare won’t be entirely robotic. Yes, people will gradually disappear from battlefield environments where speed, endurance, distance, precision or physical danger overwhelmingly favour use of...
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'The broader lesson from Ukraine and the Middle East is that space is becoming inseparable from warfare on Earth,' writes Frank Rose.
Ukraine and the Middle East teach the Indo-Pacific about the new space wars | The Strategist
On 14 September, US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink publicly announced that the US Space Force had deployed ‘space control weapons’ in response to growing threats to American and allied space sy...
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'The Australian defence establishment should urgently work with commercial providers to deliver military and dual-use capabilities that can be deployed in months, not years or decades,' writes Nam Nguyen.
For fast defence capability, look to commercial providers | The Strategist
The Australian defence establishment should urgently work with commercial providers to deliver military and dual-use capabilities that can be deployed in months, not years or decades. Government procu...
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