Futures Analysis

Podcast: Critical technology

This is the second installment of a special three-part series looking at key trends influencing the future strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific....

Demography, digitisation and China’s race against time for effective policy

In considering the next two decades of Indo-Pacific security, there are two trends that stand out; the trajectory of China’s economic...

Podcast: The grey zone, hybrid war, and minilateralism

This is the first of a special three-part series looking at key trends influencing the future strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific. Published...

Expectations disrupted: lessons for Australia’s Indo-Pacific future

Australia and the Indo-Pacific have thrived with an open trading system and with liberal economic regimes encouraging international competitiveness....

The regional economic order: four scenarios

What will the economic order in the Indo-Pacific region look like twenty years from now? What are the major trends shaping it, and how are they...

The Indo-Pacific regional order: elusive equilibrium

Neither US-China rivalry nor unbridled Chinese hegemony is suited to a region made for multipolarity and middle players; neither is it what regional...

The new face of an old problem: technology and the security dilemma

A technology security dilemma is emerging between the United States and China. The problems wrought by this dilemma will draw in the...

Minilaterals and their impact on Indo-Pacific security

The Indo-Pacific has emerged as a new regional construct and a theatre for a thriving activity of regional grouping, mainly through minilaterals....

Shaping a techno-democratic future

One of the most pressing national security challenges that Australia, the United States, and other like-minded partners face in the Indo-Pacific is...

Navigating a geoeconomic minefield: lessons from Taiwan

The escalation of US-China rivalry has normalised the use of economic means for the pursuit of security goals, with far ranging...

Mutual distrust: fostering cooperation in tech competition

In the last few years, the world has witnessed the technological cooperation and competition that defines the virtues of global innovation which may...

Trends in Indo-Pacific regional multilateralism: scenarios for ASEAN

Longstanding debates about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) often revolve around the organisation’s importance and value to...

Partial-freedom in a protectionist economy

This article is part of the Futures Forecasting series. We’ve asked experts to identify crucial trends – from a shortlist of categories – that...

Technological determinism

Do we determine the influence of technology in society or does technology shape us in ways that we don’t anticipate? With technology — and...

A competitive post-carbon world

This article is part of the Futures Forecasting series. We’ve asked experts to identify crucial trends – from a shortlist of categories – that...

Interconnectivity and crisis contagion

Politics will be inward looking and authoritarian, but the global economy will remain deeply interconnected with crises likely to cascade...

The splintering of digital democracy

As younger generations enter the digital world, they are gravitating less to the “traditional” platforms — such as Facebook — and...

A path to climate consensus

Staring down the risk of mutually assured climate-destruction, and increasingly dissatisfied populations, by 2035 the world will experience a...

Liberia: the canary in the social media coal mine?

To understand how the toxic information ecosystems of the future will inflame political divides and undermine democracy, Prue Clarke looks to how a...

The laundering of crazy and the future of democracy

Reduction in professional journalism in the digital age allows alternative truths and paranoid theories to take hold. What this means for the future...

Instability in the Middle East

Whilst the regions authoritarian leaders are likely to use COVID-19 as cover for increased control, environmental impacts are likely to cause greater...

Network competition and the threat to liberal democracies

New technologies will become an element of geopolitical and social tension as society and industry adopt platforms outside of the view and reach of...

Citizen decision-making in a contested information environment

Until people can tangibly understand and conceptualise how influences on their decision-making at a micro level occurs, their ability to comprehend...

Politics across the globe: a scenario

Social and technology trends will ensure that political governance will become more chaotic and dramatic, yet this need not result in poor governance...

The Futures Forecasting series

The goal of our Futures Forecasting series is to publish a range of plausible and realistic scenarios, based on current trends, that challenge our...

Why reducing global vulnerability is paramount

Without a shift from current trends that focus vulnerability on segments of society, the impact of conflating natural hazards will overwhelm the...

The coming era of big government

We are entering an era of ‘big government’ — governments around the world will have more power and control over markets and...

Australia faces a struggling Southeast Asia

Economic growth in Southeast Asia will taper off, regional integration will stagnate, and governments will move closer to...

The problem of hedonic adaption

The problem of hedonic adaption must be confronted, because not doing so will see democracy at risk of being replaced by technocracy in...

Asia’s increasingly volatile role in international order

Asia will go from being a global centre of economic growth and political stability, to a centre of economic power but political instability....