India and Japan should set out in concrete terms the political, economic and other goals of their 'strategic global partnership'. India should strengthen its commitments to East Asia. India and Japan must convince Beijing that the world, particularly Asia, has a better chance of achieving peace and stability if the three Asian heavyweights work closely...

Desmond Ball of the Australian National University discusses China's anti-satellite (ASAT) test of 11 January 2007, and outlines the history of US and Russian anti-satellite testing. Ball provides detailed account of the current Chinese programme, and the vulnerabilities of different satellite constellations to kinetic energy, laser, and radio frequency weapons. The Chinese test, writes Ball,"involved...

Australian researcher Sam de Silva notes the recent arrests of two Melbourne men accused of being members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, Tamil Tigers). "The arrests, and the Australian government's strong statement condemning both the government and the LTTE bring the Sri Lankan conflict closer to Australia, and present the Sri Lankan...

Australia will never want to choose between China and the United States. Yet the contrasting approaches of the US and China to security in the post Cold war era are stark. Now, argues Peter Van Ness, "even the defenders of US hegemony acknowledge that American hegemony can no longer be sustained by unilateralist designs." Paradoxically...

Complex and multi-dimensional issues such as terrorism, nonproliferation, energy supply, and climate change all affect our perceptions of security. These kinds of massive insecurities defy singular and state-centered solutions. The 2006 Global Scenarios Workshop in Melbourne examined perceptions of insecurity. In few fields is the gap between perception and reality as large as it is...