Given the pace and spread of cyber attacks around the world, Canberra and Washington will be spending a lot more time consulting. October was cybersecurity month in Washington. On Capitol Hill and in several think tanks around town, US policymakers and analysts focused on various aspects of the cybersecurity problem, from the nature and scale...

Carl Ungerer outlines the debate over US grand strategy occurring in Washington, where a common theme is that American grand strategy will increasingly need to rely on allies to share the burden of international security. Walter Russell Mead once described US grand strategy as America’s ‘project for the world’. And, at various times over the...

This report details the foreign policy views of Republican Presidential candidates. As Washington focuses on the Republican race for persidential election in 2012, carl Ungerer looks at two themes surrounding the foreign and defence policy stances of the Republican candidates. The first theme is a growing isolationist sentiment among the leading candidates, some of whom...

After months of political debate, the US Congress reached a cautious agreement last week on raising the US debt ceiling and cutting government expenditure. The issue was devisive and needed compromise from all political parties, with the initial plan calling for US$900 billion in domestic discretionary cuts as well as US$600 billion in cuts to...

Two and a half years after the first National Security Statement to Parliament, it can be argued that the first wave of national security reforms is over. The key building blocks of a national security ‘community’ have been put in place. The challenge now is to convert those reforms into a more comprehensive national security...