The National Security Agency’s eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls. The United States Postal Service’s computers recording names and addresses on selected mail. The Obama Administration…
It’s a new team in charge of the Senate
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Midterm elections in American politics are akin to a reset button and on November 4, 2014 the American people pushed that reset button in a big way. The Founders of the American Constitution set up an…
They are all Republicans but do these senators agree on US foreign policy?
Larry Downing/Reuters
The midterm elections have come and gone. After months of speculation, the results were largely predictable. The Republicans solidified their position in the House and took the Senate. A sixth year president’s…
Despite calls for immigration reform, there’s little public support for looser controls.
Edward Kimmel
One should not exaggerate the impact of this midterm election – as some did following the 2012 presidential poll. The US system has many checks and balances. In particular, within the federal government…
The US midterm elections will decide who gets control of Congress for Barack Obama’s last two years in office. A hugely decisive moment at first glance – but in reality, the 2014 midterms have devolved…
Sluggish income growth has left Obama relying on hope more than expectation.
Thomas Hawk
According to some commentators, something quite strange is happening in the United States in the run-up to the midterm elections. US president Barack Obama’s Democrats are heading for a clunking defeat…
If Democrats win governorships in battleground states, their fortunes in the House of Representatives will improve considerably – in the long term.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
If the polls are correct, the headlines on November 5 following the US midterm elections will proclaim that Democrats have suffered a major defeat. The Democrats will likely lose the Senate. President…
Committed to boots on the ground … at West Point.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Instigated once again by events in the Middle East, talking heads in Washington have renewed a debate about whether America should have a grand strategy and, if so, what form it should take. This extends…
This’d better work.
MC1 Chad J. McNeeley via Wikimedia Commons
America prefers its wars short, sharp and decisive – unfortunately, what some are already calling the third Iraq war is likely to be long, murky, and indecisive. With his September 2014 announcement of…
‘The danger is clear’: Theresa May.
Joe Giddens/PA Wire
A few hours before the UK’s first air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq, the home secretary, Theresa May, warned the Tory party conference that IS could become the "world’s first truly terrorist…
Ashok Sharma, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Narendra Modi is making his first visit to the US as prime minister of India. He will give his maiden speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 27 and then proceed to Washington for a…
US President Barack Obama announces the start of a campaign of allied airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Syria.
EPA/Win McNamee
Having secured some sort of tacit agreement with Damascus, the coalition bombing campaign inside Syria proper has begun in earnest. The US, France and an ambiguous array of allies is unleashing the bleeding…
Groundbreaking pledges of funding from the French, 120+ heads of state attending, famous faces calling for greater action and less talk. It’s all happening this week in New York City, where I join the…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, with Air Chief Marshal Mark Binski, announces Australia will send 600 military personnel to the Middle East.
AAP
How much has Australia committed to fighting Islamic State? Australia has pledged 600 military personnel and up to eight Super Hornets, which is expected to cost up to $500 million per year. There has…
The German army prepares arms for the Kurds in August.
Jan Woitas/EPA
An “initial gifting package”: the opaque label is wrapped around £1.6m worth of heavy machine guns and half a million rounds of ammunition, which has now reached the Iraqi town of Arbil courtesy of the…
Barack Obama’s speech to announce a strategy to destroy Islamic State had a familiar ring to it because it followed the script of the past half-century.
EPA/Saul Loeb/pool
A few years back, an honours student in linguistics at Macquarie University did a small study of American presidential oratory. The student chose four speeches, in which four different American presidents…
President Obama’s address, on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, was uncompromising, the United States will “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State (IS) with “a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism…
US president Barack Obama has at last outlined his strategy for responding to the challenge of Islamic State (IS). In an address from the Oval Office, just a few hours short of the 13th anniversary of…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott and US President Obama are poles apart politically.
Ron Sachs/AAP
Precisely 13 years after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington that led to the Afghanistan and Iraq engagements, Australia is embroiled in another escalating conflict with an uncertain road…
US President Barack Obama outlines his new four-point strategy to defeat Islamic State in a televised address from the White House.
EPA/SAUL LOEB / POOL
US President Barack Obama has announced a more aggressive strategy against Islamic State, including air strikes against its fighters “wherever they are”, even inside Syria – which he had previously ruled…
Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations at the United States Studies Centre and in the Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney