Michaela Rana and Faran Rana | Image sourced from Marc Coenen via Pexels . Climate change is increasingly recognised as a threat multiplier that exacerbates existing geopolitical tensions, security and defence challenges across the Indo-Pacific. To preserve its regional credibility and influence as a middle power, Australia could further integrate climate into its defence and climate agendas. One key opportunity is to weave climate-security into the nation’s core security policy and defence...

Federico Canas Velasco | Latin America Fellow Image sourced from Kevin Payravi via Wikimedia Commons . The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize  for Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado did not celebrate democracy; it sanctioned a new era of foreign intervention in Latin America. Machado, the face of democratic resistance in Venezuela, immediately dedicated  the prize to President Donald Trump, a man who campaigned against Venezuelan migrants, actively lobbied for the same award, and is...

Lachie Macfarlan | Europe and Eurasia Fellow Image sourced from the White House via Wikimedia Commons . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced Europe’s neutral states to confront the limits of a posture long treated as immutable. Finland and Sweden, after decades of military non-alignment, concluded within months that neutrality no longer deterred Russian coercion. Finland formally joined  NATO in April 2023 and Sweden followed in March 2024. Their shift has intensified scrutiny of Europe’s...