Ben Scott

Nov 19, 2024 | lowyinstitute.org | Ben Scott

Australia did relatively well last time around. After a tumultuous start with Malcolm Turnbull over a “dumb deal” refugee swap that ran contrary to all Trump’s political instincts, Australia was exempted from Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium and Trump subsequently hosted Scott Morrison for a state dinner equivalent. Meanwhile, Australian officials cooperated closely with their US counterparts on issues that Trump knew or cared little about, including Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

Oct 3, 2024 | mdpi.com | Ben Scott |Michael Johnstone

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Sep 9, 2024 | lowyinstitute.org | Ben Scott

If Trump’s first-term foreign policy was unpredictable, it’s not because his worldview was unknown. He’d been telling us about it since the 1980s and his views haven’t changed much since in that time. Trump understands America’s relationships with the rest of the world only in bilateral, transactional and, usually, personal terms. He reduces America’s economic relationships to balance sheets of bilateral trade surpluses (good) and deficits (bad).

Aug 14, 2024 | lowyinstitute.org | Ben Scott

The government has warned that terrorist attacks in Australia are once again “probable”. The threat level was lowered to “possible” in November 2022 but had otherwise sat at “probable” since at least November 2015, when the current advisory system was established. The elevated warning raises questions about how ASIO is going to juggle its workload.

Aug 1, 2024 | lawfaremedia.org | Daniel Byman |Ben Scott

Countries in the Five Eyes intelligence partnership (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) are increasing their use of intelligence to influence their friends and foes. Although this practice is hardly novel, it has accelerated since early 2022, when the United States and the United Kingdom lowered the classification of (“downgraded”) secret intelligence relating to Russia’s impending invasion of Ukraine.