The United States Studies Centre prides itself on providing independent analysis in the form of research reports and briefs, academic publications, books and commentary. All USSC publications are viewable free of charge.
Filtered by: Commentary
Let us suppose the Washington groupthink on the 2020 election – that US President Trump is cooked – is wrong. And Donald Trump wins a second term.
The belief that Trump may well...
USSC senior fellow Charles Edel and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) Siddharth Mohandas write that even though US allies in the Indo-Pacific are essential to meeting...
While China is tightening its coercive campaign against Australia, now targeting the coal industry, its ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, last week led a protest of 26 nations against economic coercion...
Occasionally the mask of American officialdom drops to reveal what it really thinks of Australia.
During a discussion in Washington some years ago with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser to president...
The foiled plot by right-wing domestic terrorists to kidnap one of the United States’ most prominent governors should sound an alert for Australia. After months of crises, the tearing apart of America's social...
The President is on steroids, but we are way beyond mere October Surprises. No, America is now into shock therapy to jolt American voters into retiring Trump – and the lightning bolts keep...
The prevailing wisdom says that vice-presidential debates are merely sideshows to the presidential campaign and the face-to-face encounters between the two presidential candidates. People vote for the first name on the ticket, rarely...
In many ways, a vice president’s most important constitutional duty is simply to stay alive. Beyond breaking ties in the US Senate, the vice president essentially has no real constitutional duties beyond replacing...
As the 2020 US presidential election draws near, close to 209,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 7.3 million have tested positive to the virus, including President Donald Trump.
The announcement of...
It was the same shock as when US president Ronald Reagan was shot in March 1981: "Oh my God, it's the president, is he going to be OK? Who is in charge in...
Ninety minutes is a lifetime in politics these days – and Wednesday's reality TV show let us know that it was 90 minutes of our lifetimes we will never get back. A horrible...
It is now an article of faith that coronavirus has intensified existing strategic trends in world politics.
Chief among these has been the "return" of nationalism.
The globe’s most urgent issue is being...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the most respected and revered US Supreme Court justices in recent decades, has died, leaving an immense void in the lives of untold millions of Americans who were...
As the two sides in US politics begin jockeying for position following the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the similarities to the 2016 presidential election are striking.
That year, the...
Now that the Australia-China relationship has hit a new low, the timing is right for charting a way out of the current impasse.
Australia’s post-pandemic economic recovery over the next generation – not...
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in the bulk of opinion polls, with just 50 days until the November election.
But poll-based forecasts were widely maligned after the 2016 election, and...
With less than two months until the US presidential election, Democratic nominee Joe Biden leads incumbent Donald Trump in the bulk of opinion polls.
But poll-based election forecasts have proved problematic before. The...
A recurring question for Trivial Pursuit at gatherings of the Chester A. Arthur Society, comprising Australian tragics of American politics, used to be this:
"What was the name of the cosmetic that Vice-President...
News that two Australian journalists in China have had to leave the country over fears for their personal safety comes as yet another hammer blow to a relationship trapped in a downward spiral...
In May 2020, as COVID-19 subsumed the Democratic primaries and Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign, Joe Biden moved to shore up party support by setting up “Unity Task Teams”. These included an...
