Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Poland’s mass-army turn is reshaping NATO’s eastern flank | The Strategist Planning a massive expansion of its armed forces by 2039, Poland is deliberately building a national capacity for sustained high-intensity war. The country is treating large-scale conflict no longer a...

'The belief that war would be short, contained and fought primarily by professionals has been undermined by events in Ukraine. Warsaw’s answer is to rebuild mass, integrate technology into mobilisation rather than replacement, and anchor defence planning in society,' writes Darius von Guttner.

Subnational diplomacy underpins Australia’s Pacific engagement | The Strategist A greater emphasis on subnational diplomacy, particularly regional Australia’s links to the Pacific, presents a significant opportunity for Australia’s regional foreign policy. When Papua New Guinea’s...

'Australia would be wise not to rest on federal-government diplomacy alone in promoting its credibility and influence in the Pacific,' writes Anna Alexander.

US disruption might revitalise the global rules-based order | The Strategist The rules-based international order may yet benefit, in net terms, as countries respond to disruptive US policy. Indeed, we could see other states choosing not to double down on the existing order, in...

'The rules-based international order may yet benefit, in net terms, as countries respond to disruptive US policy. Indeed, we could see other states choosing not to double down on the existing order, instead working to reconceive and construct a transformed one,' writes Jolyon Ford.

🗓️ JOB REMINDER 🗓️

Applications for Coordinator of ASPI's Cyber, Technology and Security program close next Friday.

This role supports operational and strategic delivery for CTS, including program management, partnership engagement and events delivery.

⏳ Don't miss out. Apply now ➡️ bit.ly/3NX58Xf

Australia’s food and energy security must be designed for disruption | The Strategist Australia’s food and energy security strategy needs to move beyond stability-based planning and instead address sustained volatility in the Indo-Pacific. Current policy thinking often treats disruptio...

'Food and energy systems must be designed not only to recover from shocks, but to function, adapt and adjust—through diversification, flexibility and faster decision-making—as disruption persists,' writes Hamed Zakikhani.

NEW PODCAST 🎤

In this episode of Stop the World, Shashank Joshi,
The Economist's Defence Editor, joins ASPI's David Wroe to discuss the future of democracy in the 🇺🇸, the implications for the rest of the world 🌏 and Donald Trump’s strategy towards 🇨🇳.

🎧 Listen now ➡️ bit.ly/3NX5vkN

Hack-proofing our space infrastructure | The Strategist The biggest and most immediate threat to space systems isn’t anti-satellite weaponry; it’s hacking. In October 2025, a group of computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego and the...

'Cyber operations support an environment where grey-zone pressure can be applied, and without repercussions, while advancing strategic interests,' writes Adam Bartley.

Rebalancing Australia’s industrial policy for the critical-mineral future | The Strategist While the government’s Future Made in Australia Act is framed as an economic security initiative, its largest funding commitments are directed toward carbon abatement rather than the preservation of b...

'Foundational industrial activities are the backbone of process knowledge, skilled labour, tacit know-how and ultimately a broad industrial capability set that can pivot towards new adjacent industrial activities,' writes Naoise McDonagh.

Defence sites for disposal after Australia audits military land holdings | The Strategist An audit of Australia’s military landholdings and the government’s response to it, both issued on 4 February, mark the most significant reform of the assets in decades. Long expected, the audit lands ...

'The timing of the audit’s release is significant, coming ahead of the 2026 National Defence Strategy, as Defence juggles accelerating capability programs with workforce constraints and rising sustainment demands,' writes Raelene Lockhorst.

Just in case: Australia needs to prepare for world without US leadership | The Strategist Canberra can no longer assume that Washington will underpin regional stability or the rules-based order, the foundational premise of modern Australian strategic planning. Australian policymakers must ...

'It is prudent to start considering the unthinkable sooner rather than later and plan for a possible world where the anchor of our security architecture continues rewriting that architecture in unexpected ways,' writes Alexander Lee.

Too casually, X tells us how Beijing is spamming Chinese users | The Strategist Last week X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, made an allegation of enormous consequence with remarkable casualness: China controls millions of spam accounts used to censor the platform during periods o...

'Platforms such as X have long occupied a central position in geopolitical information flows. When they allege state-level interference at massive scale, transparency is not optional; it is the minimum requirement for public trust,' writes Fergus Ryan.

Managing, but never eliminating, security threats | The Strategist Security is not a settled state nor about always guaranteeing stability. It is about reassurance and trust amid instability and threat, and it is maintained with a shared acceptance that risk can be m...

'Security is not a settled state nor about always guaranteeing stability. It is about reassurance and trust amid instability and threat, and it is maintained with a shared acceptance that risk can be managed but not eliminated,' writes Justin Bassi.

🚨 NEW PUBLICATION 🚨

ASPI has released 'Securing Australia: Insights in counter terrorism: Views from The Strategist', a new compendium examining Australia’s counter-terrorism trajectory from the post-9/11 period to today’s more complex threat environment.

🔖 Explore it now: bit.ly/3NRhuAk

Resilience, cooperation, self-reliance: what the US’s strategies mean for the Indo-Pacific | The Strategist The Trump administration’s new defence and security policies affect the Indo-Pacific less through fresh promises than through fresh requirements for allies—and for Australia, that shift is immediate a...

'As Washington concentrates its most capable forces on deterring China while elevating homeland defence and managing commitments elsewhere, allies face harder political and capability choices. They must be able to manage secondary contingencies with little or no US support,' writes Jihoon Yu.

Critics of US need to explain Australia’s place in a China-dominated region | The Strategist If there is a flourishing future for Australia in a region dominated by China (and without a US presence) I want to know about it. I cannot imagine it, but it seems many critics of ...

'Part of the problem is that negative feelings about US President Donald Trump draw most public interest and commentary on the Australia–US alliance to the here and now, and much of it is petty,' writes Andrew Forrest.

Xi’s control of his regime is looking ever more Stalinist | The Strategist With repeated purges, Xi Jinping increasingly resembles Joseph Stalin in controlling the regime that he leads. The Chinese Communist Party general secretary and national president shows widespread dis...

'The Joint Staff Department, a critical node for operational planning, joint command and crisis management, appears leaderless. So Xi puts internal political stability above external combat readiness,' writes Ying Yu Lin.

🚨 JOB ALERT 🚨

ASPI's Cyber, Technology and Security team is seeking a high-performing Coordinator to join the team.

This role encompasses program coordination, stakeholder and partnership management, event delivery, budget oversight and team facilitation.

🔎 Interested? Apply now ➡️ bit.ly/3NX58Xf

NEW PODCAST 🎤

Kicking off Stop the World for 2026, @constelz.bsky.social joins David Wroe to unpack a turbulent start to the year in global affairs, from Mark Carney’s Davos speech to NATO head Mark Rutte’s assessment that Europe can’t defend itself without the US.

🎧 Listen now 👉 bit.ly/4c14l1x

When China–Japan disputes arise, Beijing plays the Ryukyus card | The Strategist China’s renewed casting of doubt about Japan’s sovereignty over Okinawa is intended to create a handy tool for political pressure on Tokyo. The ambition isn’t to pursue sovereignty over the territory....

'The campaign has gained little traction in Okinawa itself, where local polls show that only around 3 percent of residents support full independence. Yet it works effectively in China by reinforcing nationalist sentiment and anti-Japanese framing,' writes Hsi-Ting Pai.

The US National Defence Strategy will demand more from Australia | The Strategist The US National Defence Strategy (NDS), released by the Trump administration on 23 January, demands much more from Australia. It requires greater defence spending and capability development so that Ca...

'Australia needs to consider what "critical but more limited US support" could mean for the ADF’s ability to undertake operations. Canberra should be concerned about the Trump administration’s pressure to increase defence investment,' writes Malcolm Davis.

China’s investment in Indonesia is its global critical-minerals template | The Strategist To understand how China will seek to extend its critical-minerals dominance, look at how it has moved into Indonesia’s nickel industry. Over the past decade, Chinese companies, backed by state-owned b...

'The shift towards commercial bank-led financing over this period has also encouraged Chinese enterprises from sectors outside of mining—such as battery manufacturing and recycling—to invest in Indonesia’s industrial parks,' write Kuma Yung, Elizabeth Frost and Yun-Ling Ko.

We’ve probably just seen the USAF’s secret electromagnetic attacker | The Strategist Another element in the US Air Force’s plans for long-range operations, essential for Asia-Pacific deterrence, may have emerged from under cover of secrecy. It looks like we’ve just got a good view of ...

'Another element in the US Air Force’s plans for long-range operations, essential for Asia-Pacific deterrence, may have emerged from under cover of secrecy,' writes Bill Sweetman.

🔔 EVENT ALERT 🔔

Join ASPI on Wednesday 25 February for a fireside conversation with Evan Smith, CEO of Altana, examining how trust can be operationalised across trade, defence supply chains and critical technologies.

👉 Register now to attend: bit.ly/49Qngt6

Defence procurement needs minimum viable processes, too | The Strategist Australian Defence procurement is making important steps with the idea of minimum viable capability—acquiring not an ideal system but something that’s good enough to meet the immediate threat. Now it ...

'Process design matters. Speed to capability is enabled by speed to acquisition, and speed to acquisition is enabled by fit-for-purpose processes,' writes Dougal Pidgeon.

Holding out: Taiwan’s priority preparations in case of Chinese blockade | The Strategist Taiwan isn’t Ukraine. Russia’s victim has withstood almost four years of war, but it has advantages in perseverance that Taiwan lacks. Taiwan needs its own ways of holding out against China, particula...

'Taiwan needs its own ways of holding out against China, particularly against a Chinese blockade. Addressing this issue is becoming urgent as President Donald Trump shows an alarming lack of enthusiasm for preserving the island’s independence,' writes David Axe.

🗓️CLOSING SOON 🗓️

Applications to join ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program as a Senior Analyst close this week.

This role involves rigorous research, contributing to ASPI events and supporting informed debate on defence and strategic affairs.

⏳ Apply now ➡️ bit.ly/3KPhCzd

China’s climate policy becomes grist for its propaganda mill | The Strategist China’s propaganda is playing up the country’s response to climate change, aiming at presenting an image of global leadership, especially as the United States retreats from the field. While Beijing ha...

'Acknowledging China’s climate contributions should not obscure the need for careful scrutiny. Beyond celebrating its progress, other countries must weigh the strategic implications as they develop policies to meet their own climate objectives,' write Elena Yi-Ching Ho and Elizabeth Frost.

That isn't signaling. China’s military is seriously rehearsing around Taiwan | The Strategist Analysing China’s military activity around Taiwan often invites a simple question: what triggered it? Analysts tend to assume that spikes in aircraft sorties, naval deployments or coast guard operatio...

'Military coercion around Taiwan in 2025 reflected preparation, not provocation. The absence of clear causal links is not a failure of analysis—it is the point,' writes Nathan Attrill.

Preparing Australian business leaders for the next war | The Strategist We rarely speak about the roles Australian business executives might play in a major conflict, and even less about how to prepare them for those positions. That’s probably because our defence and stra...

'And as we navigate this period of increasing strategic uncertainty, Australia should identify, engage and train the next cohort of wartime officials from the private sector as part of a broader, contemporary conversation about the function of a country at war,' writes Matthew Newman.

🚨 NOW LIVE 🚨

ASPI has launched Fault Lines, a fortnightly newsletter examining the developments shaping the international order in Australia’s region 🌏.

Each edition covers key actions across Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

📩 Subscribe now 👉 bit.ly/4qII6SM