“Zero, Four-one. Contact, wait out.” These six words, spoken over a radio, bring an acute focus to all who hear them. Everything else stops. Everything else is suddenly less important. Focus now shifts to ‘Four-one’, the call sign representing a small unit of soldiers who are suddenly engaged in a fire fight — firing their weapons in anger and likely fighting for their lives. More importantly, until the contact is resolved, everybody else stays quiet — and waits. What they are waiting for is called a contact report. The contact report is designed to be a clear, concise, and precise response to an event. It is designed to get the essential information to those who need to know. It is in this spirit of precision, concision, and clarity that the CIDP launched “the Contact Report”. This blog is designed to be a venue for our Fellows to provide their learned opinions on the contacts of the day, in this case international and defence policy-related events. It is designed to do so in a timely but accurate and thoughtful manner that enables us to leverage the knowledge of our researchers to inform the debates that ensue.