Skip to content
Inside Story
About
Donate
Sign up
Search
Search
Menu
About
Donate
Sign up
Search
Search
security
Essays & reportage
Is this our biggest miscarriage of justice?
Hamish McDonald
22 November 2024
A judicial inquiry has been told of withheld evidence that would have fundamentally challenged the case against the Croatian Six
Essays & reportage
Staying in the room
Hamish McDonald
21 October 2024
Can the “brainy and agile” Penny Wong counter the power of US-centric defence and security agencies?
Books & arts
Chill winds
Graeme Dobell
19 September 2024
The great geopolitical struggle of our time, cold war 2.0, is cyber war and proxy war and tech war, economic face-off and nuclear brinkmanship
Books & arts
How Australia does security and foreign policy
Graeme Dobell
11 July 2024
A nation with its own continent looks at the world via geography and culture
National affairs
Think-tanked
Hamish McDonald
22 April 2024
As a China-watching think tank winds up after Morrison-era cuts, a respected analyst reviews government funding for security-related research and education
Essays & reportage
Red flags
Ebony Nilsson
8 February 2024
Communist or not, postwar refugees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe attracted the attention of Australia’s security services
From the archive
It’s time to abandon the Home Affairs experiment
Paddy Gourley
27 November 2023
Labor’s changes to the controversial portfolio don’t go anywhere near far enough
Books & arts
The spies who went into the cold
Phillip Deery
9 November 2023
Calder Walton’s lively global survey takes in a century of espionage
National affairs
Is security trumping democracy?
Richard Robison and Garry Rodan
8 September 2023
Australia’s foreign policy is falling victim to domestic conflicts between conservatism and social democracy
National affairs
Pink gin diplomacy
Hamish McDonald
4 May 2023
The government’s strategic review has left the commentariat puzzled
Essays & reportage
Timor gaps
Hamish McDonald
8 December 2022
Labor’s decision to drop the prosecution of Bernard Collaery leaves key questions unresolved
Books & arts
Eyes spy
Phillip Deery
9 November 2022
Harmony and hostility exist side by side in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network
Books & arts
China’s greatest enemy
Kerry Brown
20 October 2022
Did Beijing set out to mislead the West about its intentions — and did it succeed?
Books & arts
Scenes from a marriage
Nicholas Brown
3 October 2022
Two daughters profile a controversial father and an enigmatic mother against the backdrop of the growing bush capital
Essays & reportage
What’s in a name?
Lydia Khalil
27 September 2022
Why have law enforcement agencies and the media shied away from calling out right-wing terrorism for what it is?
Essays & reportage
Diplomacy on the defensive
Hamish McDonald
7 September 2022
Has the Australian Strategic Policy Institute been pushed off course by the China hawks?
Books & arts
A mother’s son
Sylvia Martin
7 October 2021
An unconventional biography reveals a complex cold war–era family
National affairs
An intersection society no more?
Carol Johnson
4 October 2021
Australia’s retreat to the Anglosphere has implications beyond defence and trade
From the archive
The accidental senator
Hamish McDonald
20 August 2021
An independent from South Australia is exerting outsized influence in Canberra
From the archive
Lonely evenings at the photocopier
Rodney Tiffen
17 May 2021
Two leaks, two contrasting sequences of events — how Daniel Ellsberg and Chelsea Manning changed the course of history
From the archive
Held captive by cold war politics
Hamish McDonald
5 March 2021
More than forty years later, lawyers are using evidence of an ASIO cover-up to clear the names of the Croatian Six
National affairs
Higher authorities
Hamish McDonald
20 November 2020
Who is being helped by the continuing pressure on Bernard Collaery and Witness K?
National affairs
Weighing the costs of war
Paul Barratt
12 November 2020
With the federal government appointing a special war crimes prosecutor, it’s time to confront broader questions about armed interventions
National affairs
The intelligence chief with the PM’s ear
Hamish McDonald
6 November 2020
Is Labor right to be worried by Scott Morrison’s choice to head the Office of National Intelligence?
Books & arts
Soldiers, spies and Soviets
Phillip Deery
7 August 2020
Books
| Inept and corrupt, Australia’s earliest security organisations were ill-equipped for emerging threats
Books & arts
Something somebody wants suppressed
Kieran Pender
21 July 2020
Books
| Journalist Annika Smethurst underscores the personal toll of declining press freedom in Australia
National affairs
Don’t expect President Biden to fix Australia’s international problems
Adam Triggs
13 July 2020
A Biden administration won’t help with China and trade, and might even make things worse
National affairs
Raising the price of war
Adam Triggs
6 July 2020
The government should focus less on war preparation and more on war prevention
National affairs
Australia’s soft-power gap
Paul Barratt
2 July 2020
The launch of two new defence reports highlights the government’s preoccupation with military force and the American alliance
Books & arts
In plain sight
Hamish McDonald
24 June 2020
Books
| Is Beijing really waging a successful war against the West?
Older posts