Less than a month since Barack Obama went to the American public with his strategy for defeating the Islamic State (IS), expectations of a successful outcome are already being significantly lowered. This…
In recent weeks, the Kurdish town of Kobanê on the Turkey-Syria border has become centre stage in the struggle against IS (Islamic State). The latest round of attacks on the town and its surrounding areas…
The Islamic State (IS) now occupies significant swaths of Iraq and Syria, has pushed as far as the border with Turkey, and has succeeded in dragging “the West” into two civil wars in the Middle East. The…
Many incidents of violence and harassment directed at Australian Muslims have been reported recently. These are visible confirmation of fears expressed by their community, that support for the government’s…
Western strategists are routinely taught to remember a number of maxims, one of the most popular being that “the enemy has a vote”. This fundamental truth of strategy has so far gone apparently unheeded…
There are two reasons why we should ignore the growing calls in the United States, Canada and Australia for Western “boots on ground” – meaning ground troops – to fight and destroy the Islamic State (IS…
The advanced disintegration of Syria and Iraq has allowed the gradual consolidation of the power of increasingly unsavoury actors. Under its black banner, Islamic State (IS) is doing its best to challenge…
It’s another hot Australian New Year’s Day, and 1200 people are aboard a train bound for a picnic when a burst of gunfire shatters the festive atmosphere. Police return fire, killing the attackers – but…
The UK’s air assault on Islamic State (IS) began with two RAF Tornado GR4 bombers attacking targets in Iraq: one using a Paveway IV precision-guided munition (PGM) to destroy an IS heavy weapon position…
Australia’s early warning and refuelling aircraft will operate over Iraq from today in support of American and other Coalition planes fighting terrorist group ISIL, but the government has yet to give the…
Every generation in recent memory has had seminal historical conflicts which demand that lessons must be learnt. The baby boomers had the Vietnam war. Their parents: the second world war. And our generation…
Only the day before the UK parliament’s controversial decision to re-engage British military forces in Iraq, the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, claimed to have intelligence that Islamic State (IS…
As the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to take action against Islamic State in Iraq, I was reminded of The Big Lebowski, one of my favourite films. Set in August 1990, the opening scene introduces…
To those of us living in Australia, conflict can seem surreal and distant. Yes, we see it on the television, but it is hard to imagine the chaos and horror that accompanies war and conflict. It is not…
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…
The decision by President Obama to launch missile and air strikes against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “Khorasan” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged…
The Abbott government has today introduced the second tranche of its national security amendments – the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 – into the Senate. As its name…
Our time, this decade even, has shown us that man’s capacity for evil knows no limits. – Then United Nations’ Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 1997 Over the past few weeks leading up to the US-led bombing…
The United States has commenced major air operations against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Aircraft from bases in the Gulf, supported by air-to-air refuelling, struck a substantial range of targets…
Since Hassan Rouhani was elected Iran’s president in June 2013, relations between Iran and the United States have significantly improved – though they remain very fragile. To explain why, most analysts…