Cleared hot

Businesses looking to work on sensitive government projects often have to obtain standardised security clearances for their staff, but the need for security vetting now arguably extends well beyond government contracts.

Five by five

From the melting of the Greenland ice sheets to terrorist take-overs and cyber-security breaches, there’s always new things to worry about.

Giving young people a say on security

Young people are being asked to contribute to a new document on Australian security and participate in a symposium at the Australian National University later this year.

Countering coercive statecraft

Australia can work with our partners in the Indo-Pacific, including the Quad, Indonesia and the Pacific island countries, to adopt cost-imposing strategies that will deter grey-zone political warfare by hostile foreign powers.

Australia’s evolving guarantee to the South Pacific

Australia is strengthening its security guarantees to the Pacific in the light of Chinese expansion, but the region may be taking this protection for granted in terms of their own policies.

The end of the old order shakes Australia’s grand strategy

The problem for Australian international policy is that the job we’re focused on is shape-shifting at alarming speed.

The long history of ‘non traditional threats’

Many of the ‘new’ threats to international security as are old as the organised military forces which contain them.

Let’s “think different” about national security

We know what the future of our region looks like, but unless we start thinking about how we think, that knowledge may not be enough to help us cope with it.

Securing consensus on national security

With the federal election out of the way, and some welcome stability in the leadership of the major political parties in prospect, Australia now faces the challenge of forging a national consensus on an external security policy that reflects our self-confidence and maturity as a nation.

It’s time for a public–private partnership in national security

The threats we face don’t recognise the walls that exist between Australian businesses and national security agencies. To safeguard Australia, we need to put more doors in those divisions.

The threat to the West from ‘political warfare’

A new form of ‘political warfare’ has emerged in the internet age, with information campaigns, cyber operations and social media propaganda used by hostile state actors to undermine western democracies.

All planned out

The Defence Department faces the choice of either sticking with the certainty of insufficient funding or undertaking the whole planning process once again and hoping the next ‘certain’ figure will be more meaningful.