This paper examines how financial constraints in the United States are affecting its effort to 'rebalance' towards Asia and the implication for Australia. Executive summary Western military spending has stabilised and in some cases declined after a period of rapid growth over the past decade, but this is not only a function of austerity. An...

This is the third and final paper in a series commissioned for a project that ASPI has been jointly running with Canada’s Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The project explores the rationale for and possible mechanisms of closer Australia–Canada defence and security cooperation in the Asia–Pacific. The paper is authored by John Blaxland. This...

Introduction: Growth in the manufacture, military use, and transfer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) and their associated systems proceeds apace. UAVs were initially employed on an intermittent basis for search and reconnaissance purposes, but it took the New York attacks of September 11 2001 to galvanise their production, proliferation and weaponisation. Since then...

The new administration of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be seeking to keep Pakistan’s bilateral relations with the US on a firm footing, particularly in the lead up to 2014 and beyond.

Austerity policies have fuelled the fire of recession rather than stimulated growth. As a consequence nearly 5.5 million young people are now out of work in Europe and unemployment has reached crisis levels. This is the first of three papers that will examine austerity strategies in Europe and the US and assess their economic and...