For many observers Australia’s approach to the threat of nuclear proliferation under the government of Prime Minister John Howard (1996–2007) was simply the product of its steadfast alignment of Australian foreign policy with that of the United States in the post-9/11 context. The Howard government’s enthusiastic support for the 2003 US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ invasion of Iraq on the basis of Baghdad’s alleged possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ (WMD) is taken as the most egregious example of this tendency. Yet this assumption ignores that the potential threat of nuclear proliferation had been an abiding concern for the government since it had entered office. This paper argues that there was an enduring dynamic in Australian foreign and strategic policy of perceiving a direct link between the fate of the prevailing international system and that of Australia’s own national security. To this end, the Howard government’s perception of the threat of nuclear proliferation was sensitive to trends at the global level, most particularly the strategic posture and preferences of its alliance partner, the United States. The paper demonstrates, however, that this weakened the Howard government’s ability to maintain fidelity with what had become Australia’s traditional activist diplomacy within the non-proliferation regime.

The advent of the World Wide Web created new digital worlds consisting of networked blogs, websites, chatrooms and forums for every topic under the sun (or in the shadows). An unintended side effect of such digital communities is that they have enabled individuals with extreme beliefs to find others to validate their grievances and encourage them to action. One of the largest and most notable of these communities is known as the ‘Manosphere’, an anti-women digital world that foments extreme misogyny, dehumanising women and, at its deepest levels, advocating for violence against all things feminist. This chapter will lay out the contours of the Manosphere and illuminate the major threats arising from this online space.

ABSTRACT A new group of socio-political actors has emerged from the depths of the internet. Thriving in the online Manosphere, the involuntary celibates, or “Incels,” are men who feel they have been victimized by feminism. Initially just another misogynist social group online, this article argues that Incels are moving beyond social commentary to become a political movement. This article demonstrates that Incels have begun to craft a particularly violent political ideology drawing on a unique form of misogyny rooted in the construction of a counternarrative to hegemonic masculinity. Using critical narrative analysis, this article assesses the discourse and narratives used by the Incels to create their unique worldview and identifies core components of their emerging political ideology to understand how this group may justify the use of political violence as part of their political movement.

Military personnel are required to undertake rigorous physical training to meet the unique demands of combat, often leading to high levels of physiological stress. Inappropriate recovery periods with these high levels of physical stress may result in sub-optimal training and increased risk of injury in military personnel. However, no reviews have attempted to examine the magnitude of training-induced stress following military training activities. The aim of this systematic review was to assess the magnitude of physiological stress (physical, hormonal, and immunological) following task-specific training activities in military personnel. An extensive literature search was conducted within CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus, SportDiscus, and Web of Science databases with 7,220 records extracted and a total of 14 studies eligible for inclusion and evaluation. Study appraisal was conducted using the Kmet scale. Meta-analysis was conducted via forest plots, with standard mean difference (SMD, effect size) and inter-trial heterogeneity (I2) calculated between before (preactivity) and after (12-96 hours postactivity) military-specific activities for biomarkers of physiological stress (muscle damage, inflammation, and hormonal) and physical performance (muscular strength and power). Military training activities resulted in significant levels of muscle damage (SMD = -1.28; P = .003) and significant impairments in strength and power (SMD = 0.91; P = .008) and testosterone levels (SMD = 1.48; P = .05) up to 96 hours postactivity. There were no significant differences in inflammation (SMD = -0.70; P = .11), cortisol (SMD = -0.18; P = .81), or insulin-like growth factor 1 (SMD = 0.65; P = .07) when compared to preactivity measures. These findings indicate that assessments of muscle damage, anabolic hormones like testosterone, strength, and power are effective for determining the level of acute stress following military-specific activities. With regular monitoring of these measures, appropriate recovery periods may be implemented to optimize training adaptations and occupational performance, with minimal adverse training responses in military personnel.

This chapter explores the evolution of what could be termed the “historical repertoire” of American foreign policy and grand strategy through an examination of the interaction between systemic change and American political culture from the Founding of the Republic to the Polk administration (1844–1849). In particular, this chapter highlights the early dominance of “exemplarist” traditions of statecraft (particularly those associated with Washington and Jefferson) from the Founding to the middle of the nineteenth century. I argue that the core policy preferences of “exemplarist” statecraft (e.g. aloofness from the great power politics of Europe, claims to hegemony in the western hemisphere, and rhetorical championing of republicanism) were not sui generis but were the product of efforts to mediate between the systemic realities confronting the new republic—notably geographic isolation/insularity and the threat posed by British hegemony—and the Whig anti-statism and republicanism that had guided the Revolution and the construction of the Republic’s architecture of limited government.

This chapter provides an analysis of the transition away from the “exemplarist” statecraft of the Founders’ era toward the “progressive imperialism” of the late nineteenth century. It identifies the consolidation of the power of the federal government and westward expansion at the expense of both Native Americans and the territorial claims of number of European powers (e.g. Spain, Britain) as major contributing factors in the development of “vindicationist” forms of statecraft that posited crucial linkages between domestic political and economic stability and well-being and geopolitical dynamics beyond the Western hemisphere. By the first decade of the twentieth century the ascent of such vindicationism embedded the notion in elite discourse that American prosperity and national security required that it be actively engaged in core regions of the globe.