FEATURED ARTICLES
Defence Budget 2026-27: By the Numbers
This post has an embedded version of Marcus Hellyer's Defence budget Powerpoint slides. The slides tell a disturbing story about Australian military priorities, and the consequences of slowly building a small fleet of expensive warships and...
Oz Budgets: the Unhappy meet the Disappointed. Big Defence numbers get small. And the cage fight in Beijing.
Oz Budgets: the Unhappy meet the Disappointed. Big | RSS.com Michael and Marcus argue furiously over the merits and messages in the Albanese Govt budget versus Opposition leader Angus Taylor's response. Only one of them is right....Then Marcus...
Australia’s Defence budget 2026-27: The $14 billion disappearing act
The 2026-27 Defence Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) are a very strange document. In fact, we’ve never seen anything quite like it. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is the paradox that in an age of increasing defence budgets,...
No Asian Century – instead, a century of multiple of Asias
The Australia in the Asian Century white paper zoomed across the Canberra policy radar with the appointment of Meghan Quinn as secretary of the Defence Department. Quinn was head of the secretariat that produced the 312-page Asian century report....
Australia’s 2026 National Defence Strategy – by the numbers you will know it
The Albanese Government has released its second National Defence Strategy (NDS) along with a supporting Defence Integrated Investment Program (IIP). This follows the 2024 version. That was the first in a new approach to defence strategic policy...
Zen and the Art of Defence investment: big numbers for everyone – Episode 70
Zen and the Art of Defence investment: big numbers | RSS.com A Zen temple helps Marcus seek balance between the contradictions in Australia's defence Strategy, while Michael struggles with a noisy kettle in the bunker. Australia's new Defence...
Bondi Royal Commission: Bell’s first test
Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell faces her first test on Thursday with the reception of her interim report on the horrific Bondi shootings. It’ll have been a rushed effort to get the core information needed to deliver this first report by the April...
Is United States submarine production speeding up? Not according to US Navy data
Unlike the Australian Department of Defence, the United States’ Department of Defense (or War, depending on where you stand in the whole culture wars thing) publishes real data that allows Congress and the public to assess the Department’s...
Behind the hoopla, the Government is leaving our military badly under-equipped in the drone era
We’re meant to be celebrating the Albanese Government’s amazing new plan to adapt the Australian military to the drone era, with Minister Pat Conroy telling us yesterday about an apparent $7 billion the government is investing in counter drone...
Deterrence Without Resilience: Australia’s strategic risk gets real
Australia’s strategic environment has deteriorated faster than its defence posture has adapted. The issue is no longer simply whether Australia is spending enough on defence, it is whether it is investing in the capabilities required to withstand the...
Australia’s brand new, but old, Defence plan: a strategy of denial – that the world has changed
The Grumpy Strategists cover Australia's new defen | RSS.com The Grumpy Strategists respond to Australia's defence minister, Richard Marles, discussing and releasing the 'new' 2026 Defence Strategy and investment plan. Marcus sees the spirit of Hiroo...
Australia’s National Defence Strategy: Canberra is yet to have its Carney moment
There’s something very familiar about the Albanese government’s new 2026 National Defence Strategy, launched yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles. It continues the trajectory first set out in the previous Coalition...
The 2026 National Defence Strategy & investment plan: The world has changed – but Australia’s defence plans haven’t
Having read the 215 pages of the Australian Government's revised strategy and investment plan, two things stand out as particularly important. The first is the almost complete absence of engagement with the changed America that is now our major...
Trump’s FY27 budget: $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon, $33bn for the State Department. Peace through missiles?
Since my planned birdwatching trip to western New South Wales was cancelled due the current fuel crisis temporary supply uncertainties caused by unpatriotic Australians panic buying and I didn’t want to spend Easter solely doomscrolling conducting...
America’s wartime defense budget: $1.5 trillion to deliver a military able to fight everyone – except China…..
America's wartime defense budget: $1.5 trillion to | RSS.com Back in the SAA Bunker deep in the Brindabellas, Marcus & Michael declare energy independence (okay, thanks to government subsidies) and ponder the details of the Trump Administration's...
The Gulf collective defence exercise: a war no one admits to fighting
The Gulf collective defence exercise: a war no one | RSS.com Marcus calls into the Grumpy Strategists' Brindabella bunker with unwelcome news on more diesel supplies. After this disappointment, the Grumpies ponder the mystery of the Gulf War - a war...
Tired of winning: US government shows how to lose an industry & hurt its friends
We’re told the Trump Administration is playing 16-dimensional chess in its reshaping of the world economy to make America great again. But the chess moves we’ve seen so far in the key auto manufacturing sector are damaging own goals that hurt...
Our Kentucky Colonel masters deflection, the War & AUKUS sub outcomes – magical thinking meets US & UK partner realities
Our Kentucky Colonel masters deflection, the War & | RSS.com Well, despite the great news from Energy Minister Chris Bowen that Australia faces no energy crisis other than silly unwashed Australians panicking, the Iran War has already created a...
AUKUS submarines: US and UK partners show the realities facing Australia’s small fleet
In 2056, 30 years from now, when Australia has eight nuclear powered submarines (SSNs), we will have two deployable submarines consistently available. That’s assuming all goes well with AUKUS’ “optimal pathway” and we do in fact have eight SSNs in...
Sea lanes, straits & subs: How many nuclear subs to open Hormuz?
The war between the US, Israel and Iran is now entering its fourth week, and despite the loss of many senior figures, the Iranian regime survives. It is very difficult to bomb people into democracy. And so this war risks becoming a trial of...
SPONSORS
Contact Strategic Analysis Australia to discuss options for sponsoring this page and other aspects of our work.