The first Japanese V-22 Ospreys arrived at their new home base of Camp Saga, in south-western Japan. The move is part of Japan’s military build-up, designed to deter China’s increasingly assertive maritime actions in the area.

While undeniably a victory, Cannae serves as a grim reminder of the supremacy of the strategic over the tactical, and the difficulty of translating even the most tremendous tactical successes into new strategic realities.

Ministers need practical guidance, not frameworks. Long-term success hinges on practical analysis of key challenges—strategy must shift from broad documents to focused assessments that identify real-world competitive advantages. Non-defence departments should assess long-term risks.

Previous referendums revealed deep ethnic divisions. Instability challenges France’s Indo-Pacific strategy—resolving political deadlock will require genuine engagement that recognises local identities and longstanding tensions across a deeply divided electorate. Pacific leaders back Kanak self-determination.

Global alliances are realigning as great powers pursue regional influence—smaller nations are adapting by balancing relationships based on self-interest rather than longstanding ideological commitments. The multipolar order weakens traditional partnerships while USAID cuts suit China.

This article asserts that beyond the upheaval of the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran, a strategic shift will likely benefit China; potentially redefining security, diplomacy and economic alliances in the Indo-Pacific.

This article asserts the Israel-Gaza war has influenced Egypt’s domestic politics, causing deepening ideological fractures among Egypt’s intellectuals and secular opposition, and restoring the battered image of Egypt’s military as the nation’s ultimate protector.

AUKUS member states have a unique opportunity to redefine strategic deterrence by jointly developing a stealth, un-crewed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed to operate alongside, and independently of, the US Air Force’s B-21 Raider bomber.

The US experiment saw an increase in the quantity of decisions, without a decrease in quality. The AI doubled the number of operational dilemmas humans were able to address and generated three times the solutions.

With NATO members agreeing to drastically increase defence spending; global security deteriorating; and defence capability gaps obvious, pressure is mounting on the Australian Government to increase defence spending to a comparable amount.