Past events
In conversation: Are we heading towards a strategic crisis over Taiwan?
As the world nervously watches Hong Kong’s unravelling, a far bigger crisis is brewing only a few hundred kilometres away on the island of Taiwan.
The Hong Kong protests have already had a...
Indonesia's war for independence and the birth of UN peacekeeping
Seventy years ago this month, on 27 December 1949, Indonesia became an independent state. Australia had played a notable diplomatic role in helping the Indonesians achieve independence from the...
After insolvency: Retrenchment and reconciliation during great power decline
In this seminar Dr Kyle Haynes examines how declining great powers balance the demands of competing with peer adversaries while pulling back from costly peripheral commitments. Contrary to the...
Appraising Thucydides’ Trap
The notion of ‘Thucydides’ Trap’ claims that the danger of war increases when a rising state approaches or overtakes a ruling state’s power. It offers the Peloponnesian War between Athens and...
52nd meeting Aus-CSCAP
The Battle for Britain: Britain and the British Empire
In 1940, Britain faced the threat of invasion. While Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill fought a verbal political duel throughout the summer months, both sides prepared for what might happen if...
Thinking the Unthinkable: Could Australia ever contemplate nuclear weapons?
John Gee Memorial Lecture
Professor Hugh White’s latest book How to Defend Australia has raised some challenging questions. One of them is whether there could be circumstances under which...
Naik Sungai: The river war in Borneo
Audio recording of the seminar.
Landing in Borneo in 1945 as part of the Oboe series of operations the 7th and 9th Australian Divisions confronted an operational environment in which...
Book Launch: Geopolitics and the Western Pacific
Join us for the launch of Geopolitics and the Western Pacific: China, Japan and the US by author Dr Leszek Buszynski.
Professor Michael Wesley, Dean of the ANU College of Asia and the...
King Vajiralongkorn and the new political landscape
King Vajiralongkorn was crowned on 1 December 2016, although the official ceremony was not until 4 May 2019 (note that the official coronation was a three-day celebration from 4-6 May 2019)....
