Hard choices lie ahead

Labor faces an interconnected international polycrisis, encompassing Russia’s war in Europe, an aggressive China, climate change and the environment, energy, the continuing pandemic, a deepening geopolitical divide and dysfunctional global institutions with rising inflation, declining real wages and stagnant productivity at home.

Albanese’s foreign policy agenda

While some of the early statements and speeches from Anthony Albanese and Defence Minister Richard Marles on foreign policy have echoed those of their predecessors, the changes to come may be greater than expected.

Australia signs up to the Anglosphere

The new submarine agreement is a big Australian bet on the future of the United States, and at a more uncertain time in American politics than at almost any point in the history of the alliance.

Learning the lessons for a post-COVID-19 world

Australian interests are best served by working to build a consensus for an independent review of lessons learnt from COVID-19, a road map for WHO reform and mechanisms to better integrate national and international public health systems.

Australia in a post-COVID-19 world

COVID-19 has done more to close borders, reverse globalisation, decouple supply chains and marginalise multilateral institutions than the most fervent efforts of the world’s populist nationalists.

The changing rules-based international order: Now what?

Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop spoke recently at Chatham House about the challenges Australia faces in defending the rules-based liberal international order in a period of global instability. The Foreign Policy White Paper shows how Australia might respond.

The rise and fall of the liberal international order

The broad shape of the international order after the Second World War was that of a liberal internationalist system that would embrace collective security, economic openness and social progress. The central tenets of that liberal order are now all in doubt.

Australia’s response to changing global orders

Australia has responded to three separate changes in the international order over the past century. The two previous international systems terminated in war. Can a new order be marshalled without conflict?

To each their own ‘Indo-Pacific’

The concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ is a framing device, not a geographical reality. Its proponents shape what they mean by the term around their different interests and so, far from talking about the same thing, each country has its own ‘Indo-Pacific’.

The ‘Game of Thrones’ in our own backyard

Allan Gyngell, the National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, discussed the challenges posed by China’s growth at a recent NZIIA conference and warned that ‘winter is coming’.