Knowing a true number of residents is crucial to set development goals – for local government and foreign partners. Regardless of the questions raised about the UN study, the controversy showed the ...

With fewer Chinese finances available and less demand from Pacific countries, geopolitical competition is opening up. On the aid front, it might be less than most assume. The Lowy Institute Pacific ...

The trilateral security partnership AUKUS continues to dominate Australian national security debates, and for good reason given the $368 billion price tag. Yet a more fundamental question remains ...

In the flurry of analysis after Beijing’s recent set‑piece that placed Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un side‑by‑side, one shift risks being missed: China’s official readout of the Xi–Kim ...

“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them,” Winston Churchill once famously lamented. Nothing better captures the realpolitik wisdom of the British ...

The capacity of animals to breach political borders has long been acknowledged by spy agencies. The CIA reportedly used pigeons and ravens to document sites in the former Soviet Union. They also ...

North Korea has rarely admitted the presence of its troops in foreign battlefields, let alone in an ongoing conflict. However, in late April, it did just that. The effort to reassure the public does ...

Over the past year, China’s President Xi Jinping has undertaken two waves of purges of high-ranking military leaders from the People’s Liberation Army. The first wave targeted the PLA Rocket Force, ...

What could “victory” realistically look like in this context? Until recently, Ukraine defined “victory” as the liberation of all Russian-occupied territories, including Crimea. President Volodymyr ...

The post-pandemic period in most economies has been characterised by skills shortages and budgetary pressure on government entitlement programs. These are consequences of demographic changes that, ...

For several years, the US security establishment appeared fixated on the year 2027 as the deadline set by Xi Jinping to compel Taiwan with military force. First raised by then-INDOPACOM commander ...