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Grumpy Strategists Popes and Prime Ministers edition – Episode 40
Grumpy Strategists Popes and Prime Ministers editi | RSS.com YouTube version available here. Marcus beams in from the Vatican after running the numbers for Pope Bob, while Michael fights his way through the clouds of smug spilling from the re-elected...
Our shrinking, self-bankrupting military – getting less for more
Australia is spending more and more taxpayers’ dollars equipping our Defence Force, but it is buying less and less. We’re in a spiralling affordability crisis leading to a shrinking Australian military and a bankrupt Defence organisation. The problem...
The Coalition’s defence funding by the numbers – breaking the permafrost
Last week the Liberal Party released its defence policy (slightly) ahead of Saturday’s federal election. The initial announcement focused on the goal of growing the defence budget to 2.5% over the next five years and to 3.0% over the decade. Since...
Grumpy Strategists Episode 39: Elections, defence, cash, chainsaws and long bonnet syndrome.
Episode 39 of the Grumpies is available as a video podcast here on YouTube or here as an audio version. Marcus and Michael go through the -sparse - highlights of Australia's election campaign from a defence perspective - the Coalition's policy...
Peter Dutton fires a late salvo and declares war on defence drift
At last we have a measurable and important policy difference between Labor and the Coalition with Peter Dutton’s plan to lift defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP across five years and to 3 per cent by 2035. Labor’s plan is to lift defence...
The Coalition’s defence funding: new dollars can hedge strategic risks
The Coalition’s announcement that it will increase defence spending is a long overdue acknowledgement that business as usual in national security is not a valid option. It’s intent to hit 2.5% of GDP over the next five years and 3.0% over the next...
Dutton’s defence policy must buy increased military power, fast
It’s been an extraordinary gap in the debate around our federal election that no one has got to grips with the need to make Australia more secure fast. We’ve watched Chinese warships sail around our country firing their weapons. And we’re seeing...
Grumpy Strategists’ first video podcast: Defence Dollars & Decisions edition
Watch the video podcast here on YouTube The Grumpies Marcus and Michael are joined by SAA co-founder Peter Jennings to talk through SAA's new report: Defence 2025: Dollars and decisions available here. They cover the big changes Australia must make...
Defence 2025: Dollars and decisions
This report comes at an unusual moment for Australian security. We’re in the middle of a federal election campaign and it’s at a time of great global upheaval, dominated for now by big new uncertainties flowing rapidly out of the Trump administration...
The Grumpies’ Heard Island Edition: a risky America, determined penguins – & Australians see nothing happening.
The Grumpy Heard Island Edition: a risky America, | RSS.com The Grumpy Strategists visit Trump tariffs' Ground Zero on Heard Island. While President Trump's shifting global moves are creating uncertainty about working with America, the good news is...
In a long peace, a sleepy military is ideal. Time to wake it up.
In a long peace, the ideal military is a sleepy one. An outfit and bunch of people that resemble stewards looking after a creature put into cryogenic hibernation, with vital systems barely ticking over. The stewards in charge do routine...
Navy needs to take stronger action on China ‘research ship’
In March the Chinese “research ship” Tan Suo Yi Hao worked with New Zealand scientists to send a miniature submarine 6km down to the bottom of the Pusegur Trench, collecting samples from the seabed. “I really hope they come back and look at the...
Episode 36: A Grumpy Strategist meets a Wise Owl: caught between China & the US, Australia fixates on a 2040 Fantasy Force
Episode 36: A Grumpy Strategist meets a Wise Owl: | RSS.com Grumpy Strategist Marcus Hellyer talks with co-founder Peter Jennings in SAA's secure bunker deep in the Brindabella ranges. They discuss the puzzle of the Canberra consensus that Australia...
Australia’s 2025-26 Defence Budget: $59 billion, but the Government’s still missing its moment
Cometh the moment, cometh the man goes the old saying. And the moment has certainly come. We have seen an unbroken string of destabilising and threatening international events over the past decade. Their impact on Australia’s security has been...
If Ukraine, Israel & Taiwan don’t matter, who’s got our back?
The seven-front war against Israel is heating up once again and the intensity of fighting in Ukraine shows we are a long way away from a sustainable peace. China meanwhile, in the words of Admiral Samuel J. Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, is...
Forget Collins, these should be our defence priorities
The plan to upgrade the Collins-class submarines with a life-of-type extension is the single most important, and the highest risk, of Defence’s equipment projects. If the project can’t proceed or is too slow, we lose our ability...
Role of crime in anti-Semitic attacks is a complicating factor, not a cleansing one
It was all a criminal hoax. That was the headline from this week’s police admission that the explosives-packed caravan found in January at Dural in Sydney’s northwest was never going to cause a mass casualty event. What about the list of Jewish...
Dealing with Trump is a team sport, not an individual one
Anthony Albanese is being criticised for not getting a one-on-one meeting with US President Donald Trump as fast as he can. That criticism is louder in the wake of Australia getting no exemption from US aluminium and steel tariffs. But every other...
Walk This Way: Grumpies & ADM cover Defence hit ‘Slowrollin’ & try the new Coke Zero flavour of US alliances
Walk This Way: Grumpies & ADM cover Defence hit Sl | RSS.com Not since Run DMC & Aerosmith did "Walk This Way" has there been a collaboration like this, except on.....defence stuff.... Marcus & Michael join the AustDefMagazine Crew to assess...
No Higher Priority – urgent actions on defence for Australia’s next government
This is unbelievable: FINALLY, the book you have all been waiting for 'No Higher Priority'. One title, 3 authors, 6 chapters, 36 recommendations. It's all here in a thriller-like adventure story that can cure the Australian military's debilitating...
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