1,720,993 research outputs found
NATO, Australia and the future partnership
Get PDFThis Policy Analysis suggests that both Australia and NATO have to think harder about their emerging partnership. The NATO Secretary-General recently described such partnerships as a \u27permanent feature\u27 of international security in the 21st century and Australia, with competent military forces and a willingness to deploy them far afield, brings more to a relationship than most. Author Rod Lyon points out there are some big issues involved here, including the role that NATO might play in Asia. Australia would be keen to ensure that NATO\u27s partnerships in Asia support the transition to a regional security order where regional countries carry more of the weight
The next Defence White Paper: the strategic environment
Get PDFThis Policy Analysis examines the challenges confronting the forthcoming Defence White Paper. Rod Lyon argues that the White Paper needs to define the relationship between three core variables: a complex strategic environment, a set of decisions about Australia’s role in the world, and the constraints that limit that role
Alliance Unleashed: Australia and the U.S. in a New Strategic Age
No full textIn this report Rod Lyon examines what the strategic future holds for Australia\u27s relationship with the United States, concentrating on the reinvigorated Australia-US security partnership through the ANZUS alliance. A summary is available online
US strategic priorities in Asia
No full textAn analysis of US economic and military interests in the Asian region.
How does the US think about its strategic priorities in Asia? In this Policy Analysis, Rod Lyon argues that US interests sit most prominently in Washington’s mind. Among those interests, the US takes economic concerns especially seriously; it is much more inclined to see Asia as a region of economic opportunity than one of military threat. Moreover, as its own primacy becomes more contested, it is looking for partners to pick up the slack
Australia's strategic fundamentals
No full textThis Special Report authored by Rod Lyon examines the debate over what is - or what ought to be - the \u27ordering principle\u27 of Australian strategic thinking. In an era of quickening globalisation and the heightened strategic complexity, geography is proving a less useful determinant of strategic priorities. Rather, Australia has in recent years been strengthening its role as an \u27order-builder\u27, at both the global and regional levels.
Securing Australia\u27s fundamental strategic interests in the 21st century will remain a complex and demanding task
North Korea: Sliding towards the abyss
No full textNorth Korea, marginalised as an issue in recent years by a host of other problems, looks likely to return to the forefront of international concern in 2009. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already noted that North Korea might be sliding—much earlier than expected—into a leadership crisis.
This Strategic Insights, authored by Rod Lyon and Keah Molomby, explores the challenges posed by the intersection of the looming succession difficulties in Pyongyang and the North’s vintage nuclear weapons program
Japan's strategic outlook
No full textJapan will remain an introverted strategic player during the next decade, and for Australia, the challenge is how to partner with that inward-looking Japan.
Japan has endured a difficult couple of decades, but probably confronts another. With its economy stalled, its political system still evolving towards a genuine multiparty system, and its population ageing and shrinking, it confronts a daunting array of domestic challenges. The great East Asian earthquake of March has only added to its problems. The after-effects will be felt for years, not least in the continuing nuclear problems at Fukushima. Those challenges mean Japan will probably remain an introverted strategic player during the next decade or so. Arguments made by a range of commentators about five years ago, that Japan had entered a critical ‘turning point’ in its strategic policy, now seem less compelling.
For Australia, the challenge is how to partner with that inward-looking Japan over the next ten-to-fifteen years. The pace of change in Asian strategic settings is such that much may change during that period. And there aren’t many Japan-sized players in the regional system, so we have to work to ensure that the one we already have remains committed to shared objectives to the greatest extent possible. We need to ‘work with’ Japan, perhaps bringing more ourselves to the relationship to offset Japan’s period of hesitancy. But we might also need a ‘work around’ strategy—accepting that we need to do more with others to compensate for Japan’s strategic hesitancy. Australia wants an Asia with a range of engaged great powers—and Japan is an important part of that future Asia.’
Dr Rod Lyon, Director of ASPI’s Strategy and International Program, is the author of this report
Assessing the Defence white paper 2009
No full textThis Policy Analysis, authored by Rod Lyon and Andrew Davies, reviews the recently released Defence White Paper Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030.
Media reporting has tended to focus on the hardware acquisition aspects of this document. And that is not surprising -- there is a lot of it. It will take time to deliver this ambitious program and, in fact, the White Paper is somewhat aspirational in nature. Firm decisions on some of the new capabilities will be taken a decade or more from now. But just as importantly, if downplayed in reporting to date, this paper does some significant re-positioning of Australia\u27s declaratory strategic policy.
While noting the shifting sands of the security structures of the wider Asia–Pacific region, the White Paper takes a firm geography-based line focused closer to home in terms of the force structure determinants. It also contains some passages that will attract interest among our neighbours and allies
The eagle in a turbulent world: US and its global role
Get PDFAustralia is one of the US\u27s closest allies, and its interest in America\u27s role in the world is both direct and immediate. Regardless of who wins the election,the US is not about to disengage from the world. Still, there are possibilities for important shifts in US strategic behaviour.
\u27Alternative Americas\u27 exist, and we explore some of them in this paper—in particular the idea of the US as a non-hegemonic power. This paper, authored by Rod Lyon, explores the idea that US global leadership faces new constraints. We are entering a period when global leadership will increasingly be a shared, rather than a solitary, condition. And that condition will shape our own policies.
The bilateral relationship between Australia and the US will remain strong whoever is president. But its texture might be profoundly influenced by the outcome of the election: with one of the candidates promising more of a post-partisan world, Australia might have to work harder to maintain its influence in Washington
A delicate issue: Asia's nuclear future
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The world stands on the cusp of a new era in nuclear relations—one in which Asia is likely to become the dominant influence on global nuclear arrangements. The old, bilateral nuclear symmetry of the Cold War is giving way to new multiplayer, asymmetric nuclear relationships. And it is doing so at a time when power balances are shifting across Asia, when pressures for proliferation are returning to the regional agenda, and when non-state actors are an increasingly worrying part of the Asian nuclear equation.
The paper, authored by Rod Lyon, argues that Australia’s own policy options will be profoundly shaped by how Asia’s nuclear future unfolds. It looks at how Australia can assist with redesigning nuclear order in a cooperative Asia but notes a darker, more competitive Asian nuclear future would confront Australian policymakers with difficult choices, of hedging rather than ordering.
The report concludes that Australian strategic policy should retain the flexibility to accommodate a range of possible Asian nuclear futures, striking a balance between its ordering and hedging strategies during a possible turbulent era in regional security
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