Japan’s security strategy

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This special report demonstrates the extraordinary proactivity of Japan towards issues of regional order-building, security and defence policy, and military capability development and teases out the implications for Australia as a closely aligned partner.

The author collates and presents a wide range of disparate official source documentation and thematic analyses to render an appraisal of Japan’s security strategy in a comprehensive but digestible format. The report concludes that, while Japanese activity in the security sphere has been unprecedented and prolific, Canberra must also be aware of certain limitations in terms of resources, and political caveats to Japan becoming a ‘normal country’ or bona fide ‘great power’.

Canberra, too, must be a creative, practical policymaker if the full benefits of the deepening special strategic partnership with Japan are to contribute to a truly free and open Indo-Pacific.

North of 26 degrees south and the security of Australia: views from The Strategist, Volume 5

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The Northern Australia Strategic Policy Centre’s latest report is a series of articles published in The Strategist over the last six months, building on previous volumes by identifying critical intersections of national security, nation-building and Australia’s north.

This issue, like previous volumes, includes a wide range of articles sourced from a diverse pool of expert contributors writing on topics as varied as biosecurity, infrastructure, critical communications, cyber-resilience, maritime infrastructure, foreign investment, space, and Indigenous knowledge-sharing. It also features a foreword by ASPI’s new Executive Director, Justin Bassi.

The 19 articles propose concrete, real-world actions for policy-makers to facilitate the development, prosperity and security of Australia’s north. The authors share a sense that those things that make the north unique – its vast space, low population density, specific geography, and harsh investment environment – are characteristics that can be leveraged, not disadvantages.

Australian views on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

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Australian officials surveyed for this research view the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) as an opportunity to bring more investment into the Indo-Pacific region, shape standards setting, form collective solutions to supply-chain risks, and influence the direction of clean energy infrastructure. The IPEF is viewed as a potentially innovative way to boost regional investment rather than as a mechanism to strengthen the usual substance of trade agreements, such as market access into the US.

While we note that the officials interviewed aren’t the ultimate decision-makers and that there’s a new government in Canberra with its own emerging priorities, this report offers insight into the potential opportunities for Australia to shape the framework.