The Obama interregnum is drawing to a close and eight years of follies, shrunken influence and impotence with it. So, will it be Hillary Clinton who mires the Oval Office in more of the impotent same, plus legal woes and scandals? Or is it the candidate who has torn up the campaign rule book?

Alone among US presidential hopefuls, Donald Trump has pledged to scuttle the gold-plated boondoggle that is the F-35, the irregularly airborne essence of everything that is wrong with defence procurement in both the US and Australia. The other candidates? They've all been bought and paid for

Julie Bishop has been met with a frosty reception in Beijing, where she raised the thorny matter of new bases on the Spratly Islands. As the foreign minister endures the snubs, she might find distraction in the ironic consequence of China's expansionist policies, which make it make more vulnerable, not less

The very same defence establishment that produced Australian of the Year David Morrison is besotted with another turkey: the fighter that isn't really a fighter and, according to the latest Pentagon appraisal, kills its own pilots, women most of all

It makes little sense to squander a $250,000 missile on a simple truck, but that is how the US and its allies have been conducting their war against ISIS. There is a better and cheaper to rid the world of jihadis, plus a simple strategy to make sure they turn up for their execution

The Middle Kingdom's economy is slipping and, if things go from bad to much worse, the Beijing elite's grip on power with it. What better way to distract and unite a restive populace than a showdown with the rest of the world?

There are moments when it can seem the modern world is a dreadful place and growing worse by the day, what with terrorism and a political class terrified of offending with blunt truths those who richly deserve to be offended. But there is hope, genuine hope. Make no mistake about it

The iron-ore boom is over and the industry's shakeout gathering strength. With what should have been enduring gains squandered, look to Western Australia's jobless to reflect the first, harsh symptoms -- and don't imagine that pain won't spread

For civilisation to continue in the civilised parts of the world, we have to seal off the Middle East and the pestilence it nurtures. The sooner we start that process, the better.  The latest barbarities in Paris are a good enough excuse