Section: Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)
Political amnesia is damaging Australia’s national security
Laura Tingle’s recent Quarterly Essay Political Amnesia: How We Forgot to Govern argues that Australia’s public service policy-making capability has atrophied. The end of agency head tenure, the explosion of ministerial advisors, and the loss of staff with deep historical memory of policy successes and failures have all contributed to...
Middle East in 2016 (Part 6): Don’t sell matches to pyromaniacs
Part 1 of this seven-part series is here; part 2 here; part 3 here: part 4 here; and part 5 here. Barrel bomb attack in west Ghouta region, Syria, September 2015 (Photo: Stringer/Anadolu Agency/Getty) Long before Jeffrey Goldberg gentrified the ‘Obama doctrine’, the US president’s approach to foreign policy occupied a somewhat coarser...
Digital diplomacy links: GIFs, global rankings, Russia, Israel, Next Door Land app and more
As Australian digital diplomacy strives to catch up to rest of the world, these monthly links highlight the most creative and effective ways countries are leveraging the internet for foreign policy gain. GIF diplomacy is taking off. Here the UK uses it to timeline Russia’s actions in Crimea. A Turkish think-tank has launched the...
Was Abbott right on national security?
The transformation of Tony Abbott from a social conservative to security commentator has been stark. In his 2009 book Battlelines he offered a bare 4-5 pages of perfunctory defence of the Howard Government’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In office, however, a portrait emerged of a man who ‘sits for much of the day…pondering...
IMF’s new debt rules not vulture-proof
Every country has some form of domestic bankruptcy procedures, whereby debtors who are unable to repay can come to some equitable collective settlement with their creditors. International debt, however, has no such set of resolution procedures. As international capital flows have increased dramatically over the past two decades, this lacuna has...
Russia’s withdrawal from Syria: Mission accomplished?
There has been widespread confusion among analysts about Russian motives in Syria, confusion that has led to flawed expectations. Russia never sought a ‘winner-takes-all’ victory. Rather, its entry into the conflict reflected its view that the West was a key obstacle in the way of a political settlement in Syria, hence its aim to...
Weekend catch-up: Defence White Paper, The Embarrassed Colonialist, China’s central bank, Abenomics, South China Sea and more
What a week on The Interpreter. A cyclone in Fiji, the launch of the latest Lowy Institute Paper, The Embarrassed Colonialist, and the release of the long-awaited 2016 Defence White Paper. Starting with the aforementioned White Paper, Andrew O’Neil pointed out one possible flaw: DWP2016 contains some notable flaws in its strategic...
Ending a 60 year stalemate: Japan’s push to get a peace treaty with Russia
By Tom Holcombe, an intern with the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program It’s been more than 70 years since World War II ended but there is still no peace treaty between Japan and Russia. Is this about to change? This year marks the 60th anniversary of the 1956 Joint Declaration by Japan and the then Soviet Union, in which...
India: A late-bloomer, not a latecomer, in global economic leadership
In the last few years, India has made rapid strides in deepening its commitment to the multilateral community: it has co-created new multilateral banks such as the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) New Development Bank (NDB) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); elevated its involvement in geoeconomic forums,...
Playing Putin bingo
To modify Churchill, ‘Putin is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’. Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy’s updated and expanded edition of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin is an essential guidebook for navigating the enigma that is Russia’s leader. It is based on original research and interviews, along with a deep...
