This paper examines three violent Islamist groups in Africa - Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Shabaab and Boko Haram - and the way they’ve evolved, especially in the linkages between them and al-Qaeda’s ideology and tactics. Overview Over the past decade various groups that had been operating with a predominantly nationalistic agenda have increasingly...

Summary: To make considered, evidence-based cyber policy judgements in the Asia-Pacific there’s a need for better tools to assess the existing ‘cyber maturity’ of nations in the region. Over the past twelve months the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has developed a Maturity Metric which provides an assessment of the regional cyber...

This briefing is ASPI’s distillation of the thoughts of a group of prominent members of the Australian cybersecurity community. We held a workshop in Canberra on the key panel sessions that will take place at the Seoul Conference on Cyberspace, South Korea, in October 2013. Workshop participants included the Australian Government departments with a stake...

This paper argues that the nature and tempo of Chinese cyber‑activities have policy implications for the Australian government. The paper provides an understanding of the key elements of the Chinese intelligence agencies that exploit the cyberdomain. It also shows that, while cybersecurity is a concern, much media coverage tends to oversimplify the issue and not...