The Murphy Raid

A project that David Schaefer (from ANU) and I have been working on for some time has started to come to fruition.

Michael Burgess, Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), recently said that while Australia’s National Terrorism Threat Level remained at “Probable”, we were now at “the upper level of probable” and that “the environm…

In late March, Levi West and I published an article in West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel on the Bondi terrorist attack of 14 December 2025: an act of antisemitic mass murder and the first Islamic State inspired mass casualty terror attack on

Recently, three agency heads within Australia’s national intelligence community (NIC) had made public statements on Australia’s threat environment, all highlighting the interplay between international events and local security challenges.

Henry Farrell has a new article in the Annual Review of Political Science, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

There’s no shortage of valuable commentary on Israel’s devastating military attacks on Iran, Iran’s far less devastating response, and the potential for wider war.

As I haven’t posted here in a while, this is a quick update about some recent research contributions and commentary.

Hew Strachan has often argued that the field of strategic studies tends to use the term “strategy” quite differently to how Carl von Clausewitz did.

Last November the Australian Journal of Defence and Strategic Studies published a review I wrote of Antulio J Echevarria II’s excellent book War’s Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War.

I’m generally sceptical of claims that Australian intelligence agencies have gained undue influence over policy, such as when Paul Keating claimed that the “nutters” running the agencies were responsible for the deterioration in Australia-China relations.