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Back to the old ways: China tries to persuade Taiwanese they’re Chinese

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/chinas-united-front-work-on-taiwan-returns-to-first-principles/

Published: March 25, 2026 04:30

In 2024, China’s united front system tried to love-bomb Taiwanese youth through cross-strait exchanges and outreach programs designed to cultivate goodwill and influence. In 2025, Beijing returned to a more traditional playbook: shaping how Taiwan’s ...

Capturing the data centre gold rush is a strategic imperative for Australia

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/capturing-the-data-centre-gold-rush-is-a-strategic-imperative-for-australia/

Published: March 25, 2026 03:40

If you were a tech giant that had set up data centres in the Middle East because of the cheap fossil-fuel power and permissive regulatory environment, you might now be looking wistfully at Australia. Right ...

Bookshelf: the Crimean War and the Light Brigade – with a few gaps

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/bookshelf-the-crimean-war-and-the-light-brigade-with-a-few-gaps/

Published: March 25, 2026 00:00

Gregory Blake’s 2025 book, Into the Valley of Death: the charge of the Light Brigade and the Crimean War, is one of a new ‘Shot of History’ series from Australian publisher Big Sky. It aims, ...

Australia’s copyright framework is a sovereign AI decision

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-copyright-framework-is-a-sovereign-ai-decision/

Published: March 24, 2026 19:00

Australia’s copyright laws block domestic AI development, leaving its institutions dependent on foreign models that foreign governments can compromise. No Five Eyes partner has a legal framework that supports domestic training of frontier foundation…

In European defence, a sudden reluctance to buy American

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/in-european-defence-a-sudden-reluctance-to-buy-american/

Published: March 24, 2026 04:30

In London a few weeks ago, taking a break from grim Washington and catching some early spring weather, I met a British defence executive for coffee on the concourse of one of the city’s smaller ...

When a crisis hits, countries scramble for shipping. Australia has barely any

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/when-a-crisis-hits-countries-scramble-for-shipping-australia-has-barely-any/

Published: March 24, 2026 04:00

Maintaining a navy without a merchant fleet is a little like maintaining an air force without a commercial aviation industry: one is intended as a fighting force, while the other sustains the system. Australia today ...

Australia should firm up ties with Kiribati before China does

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-should-firm-up-ties-with-kiribati-before-china-does/

Published: March 24, 2026 02:30

China is trying to gain more influence in Kiribati but has yet to fully consolidate it. While Australia should seize this very last moment to counter China’s efforts, it should ensure it does so in ...

Fixing the architecture: governance reform for northern Australia’s universities

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/fixing-the-architecture-governance-reform-for-northern-australias-universities/

Published: March 24, 2026 00:00

The 2025 senate inquiry into university governance laid out the scale of the problem. Vice-chancellor remuneration has quadrupled in real terms since 1985. Casual and sessional staff now make up 49 percent of the university ...

Govern AI twins before they arrive

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/govern-ai-twins-before-they-arrive/

Published: March 23, 2026 19:00

Australia has no legislation and policy designed specifically for AI digital twins—systems that train on an employee’s emails, meetings, documents and chat messages to create an AI-human replica that can answer questions. The technology is ...

Neither absent nor central, Canada moves quietly in the Pacific islands

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/neither-absent-nor-central-canada-moves-quietly-in-the-pacific-islands/

Published: March 23, 2026 04:30

Canada is quietly strengthening its presence in the Pacific. In a region where relationships are more important than military or economic strength, Canada possesses the latitude to pursue a middle-power strategy distinct from Australia’s. Australia ...

Australia needs a food security impact assessment

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-needs-a-food-security-impact-assessment/

Published: March 23, 2026 02:30

Australia produces enough food to feed more than 70 million, yet a single Cabinet decision in an unrelated portfolio can quietly undermine that strength. Federal decision-making processes don’t systematically test how new policies affect the ...

Stop the World: military force not enough to overcome nuclear ambitions

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/stop-the-world-military-force-not-enough-to-overcome-nuclear-ambitions/

Published: March 22, 2026 23:00

The US–Israeli military campaign against Iran is unlikely to extinguish the sparks of the regime’s nuclear program, one of the world’s top arms control experts says. This raises the prospect that diplomacy and deterrence will ...

It’s time for Australia to step off the gas

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/its-time-for-australia-to-step-off-the-gas/

Published: March 22, 2026 19:00

If it wants stable gas supply and lower gas prices, the federal government needs to be adaptive and flexible in reserving domestic gas production for domestic users. Otherwise, domestic manufacturing will wither. Three things in ...

Without planning, consultation or legitimacy, the US needs a lot of luck in Iran

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/without-planning-consultation-or-legitimacy-the-us-needs-a-lot-of-luck-in-iran/

Published: March 20, 2026 04:45

US President Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran crisis and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz underlines an old lesson: force without planning, consultation and legitimacy rarely ends well. History tells us that the ...

Antarctic allies: Australia and New Zealand at the end of the earth

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/antarctic-allies-australia-and-new-zealand-at-the-end-of-the-earth/

Published: March 20, 2026 04:30

Antarctica rose to the surface of strategic competition this week. It appeared prominently in both the Australia–New Zealand Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations (ANZMIN) and in China’s new five-year plan. Antarctic affairs have long been ...

Australia’s fuel shock reveals a system without a centre

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australias-fuel-shock-reveals-a-system-without-a-centre/

Published: March 20, 2026 02:30

Australia’s fuel crisis has triggered a familiar response: emergency coordination, reactive policy adjustments and renewed political attention. But the important question is why Australia still responds this way at all. This week, Prime Minister Anthony…

For critical minerals, Darwin’s the place to be

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/for-critical-minerals-darwins-the-place-to-be/

Published: March 20, 2026 00:00

Critical minerals supply chains are shaped as much by geography as policy or finance. Yet much of Australia’s national debate still centres on regulatory frameworks and capital markets rather than the physical places where processing ...

Crisis in Middle East exposes Australia’s maritime vulnerability

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/crisis-in-middle-east-exposes-australias-maritime-vulnerability/

Published: March 19, 2026 22:00

Paranoia about fuel supplies has suddenly entered Australia’s mainstream debate, as Canberra wakes up and starts counting how many frigates and destroyers the Royal Australian Navy actually has. It is a familiar pattern. Australia rediscovers ...

AI is revolutionising journalism. Intelligence is next

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ai-is-revolutionising-journalism-intelligence-is-next/

Published: March 19, 2026 19:00

When Baghdad’s night sky erupted in tracer fire and explosions in 1991, it meant more than just Operation Desert Storm’s commencement. The resulting CNN effect—whereby 24/7 news reporting covered events in real-time—threatened centuries-old modes of ...

ANZMIN shows the Australia–New Zealand alliance has focus and potential

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/anzmin-shows-the-australia-new-zealand-alliance-has-focus-and-potential/

Published: March 19, 2026 04:45

Tuesday’s meeting between the foreign and defence ministers of Australia and New Zealand was a nicely poised display of strategic alignment and statecraft. It balanced an ambitious plan to build an ANZAC platform of joint ...

Hormuz disruption highlights importance of food-security resilience

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/hormuz-disruption-highlights-importance-of-food-security-resilience/

Published: March 19, 2026 04:15

The economic and social costs of the war in Iran, particularly its effect on global food security and agricultural production, are a reminder for Australia to strengthen food-security resilience at home and abroad. The blocking ...

Military drone racing is becoming a training ground

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/military-drone-racing-is-becoming-a-training-ground/

Published: March 19, 2026 03:30

Australia’s military drone pilots are internationally competitive, and the army is beginning to benefit from skills that service personnel are developing privately. Nonetheless, the Australian Defence Force is still a long way from fielding drone ...

Key takeaways from China’s Two Sessions

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/key-takeaways-from-chinas-new-five-year-plan/

Published: March 19, 2026 02:30

As China pursues greater heights in frontier technology, it is also reckoning with the persistent problems of domestic demand, debt and demographic change. This was clear in the documents released after the National People’s Congress ...

The mission problem: northern universities need to serve their communities

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-mission-problem-who-are-northern-universities-here-to-serve/

Published: March 19, 2026 00:00

The pressures facing regional universities are commonly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of international student markets. But the financial and structural fragility now visible across northern Australia’s university sector began well…

Australia can narrow India’s mine-to-magnet gap

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-can-narrow-indias-mine-to-magnet-gap/

Published: March 18, 2026 22:00

India imported 53,748 metric tonnes of rare-earth permanent magnets in the year to March 2025, and its demand is projected to double by 2030. That’s the mine-to-magnet problem in one line: India wants the clean-energy ...

Keeping Australia’s national-security community fit to avoid strategic surprises

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/keeping-australias-national-security-community-fit-to-avoid-strategic-surprises/

Published: March 18, 2026 19:00

Strategic surprise rarely occurs because there is no warning. Signals accumulate, intelligence reporting circulates and analysts identify emerging risks. Strategic surprise occurs when institutions cannot quickly integrate those signals to act on them. In…