This report provides an in-depth strategic assessment of a world where the pace of change appears to be accelerating.

The relative slippage in US power, and the broader decline of Western influence, portend an era of fraying global leadership.

The assessment suggests Australia will have to worry about two strategic problems over the next ten to twenty years: the shifting great-power relationships in Asia, and the growing capacity of non-state actors to pose strategic-level threats to states. Moreover, those concerns will likely unfold against a backdrop of wider national security worries—over everything from bushfires to pandemics, transnational crime to energy security, and water resources to possible climate change.