ARTICLES
Accountability is king, but no one is responsible. The tragedy of Australian Defence leaders forced to waste their time & our money
Accountability is king, but no one is responsible. | RSS.com In Episode 76, the Grumpy Strategists ponder revelations of $29 billion of waste in just some of Australia's big defence projects from Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy. His answer: bold reform that...
Australia needs a new strategy for a new world
In January 2026, and again in March, the world changed dramatically and fundamentally. Since then, changes have since been occurring on an almost daily basis. Actions taken by the United States administration under President Trump have highlighted the flaws in the...
Paperwork v. missiles: Australia, China & neighbourhood security
Right now, unfortunately, Australia is writing security cheques for itself and the South Pacific it can’t cash. That’s the real message behind two major security developments in the Pacific this week. On the day that Australian diplomats were celebrating getting...
Australia’s zombie defence industry policy is rewarmed – the 2026 DIDS reinforces failure.
So, Minister Pat Conroy has released the Australian government’s "new" 2026 Defence Industry Development Strategy, after giving us the highly unsuccessful 2024 version.Unfortunately, the 2026 strategy is a rehash of the 2024 approach, which Mr Conroy has never...
I’m a defence reporter. This is what we’ve already lost to pay for AUKUS
In a recent article, I argued that whilst nuclear-powered submarines are powerful platforms, there are many important things they can’t do, like shoot down drones or remove sea mines (which Iran used to close the strait of Hormuz). SSNs are extremely expensive tools...
Hedging against America, ordering in a time of disorder
The mail arrives, yet the world spins awry. The global rules-based order, which has underpinned Australia’s security and prosperity for decades, is in transition. The end state is difficult to predict. While there will be elements of continuity, the coming decade will...
A tiny fleet of nuclear subs comes at the cost of a weaker Australian military
Three months ago, I asked how many American nuclear-powered submarines it would take to open the Strait of Hormuz. For the record, the US has around 52. Some called this question ridiculous. It seems the point flew over their heads. Of course the question is...
Unaccountable rises: A Defence leadership Trifecta performs at Parliament, while China shifts the ground on AUKUS
Unaccountable rises: A Defence leadership Trifecta | RSS.com Marcus and Michael each pick their three stand out takeaways from Australian Defence officials testimony about delivery and performance to the Parliament. It's hard to pick winners in a field like this, but...
America in Asia: a very different Hegesth to 2025 & regional ordering amongst disorder
America in Asia: a very different Hegesth to 2025 | RSS.com In Grumpy Strategists episode 74, Marcus talks to SAA's man in Singapore, Graeme Dobell, about the dynamics and developments on show at the annual Defence ministers' gathering in Singapore's Shangri-La hotel....
Asia ponders the mystery of our time
“The situation of our time Surrounds us like a baffling crime. There lies the body half-undressed, Until the mystery is solved And under lock and key the cause That makes a nonsense of our laws.” W.H.Auden, January 1, 1940 A mystery of our time is what the United...
What a Taiwan war would mean – missiles, chips & global damage
“The Asia-Pacific can no longer be classified as fully at peace.” from IISS' Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2026 That Asia is no longer fully at peace is the first sentence in the annual security report by the International Institute...
Retreat from Singapore: Richard Marles succeeds in getting all used subs from America. The new ones are rubbish.
Retreat from Singapore: Richard Marles succeeds in | RSS.com In history, a retreat from Singapore can have hairs all over it, but Richard Marles has turned that around, as the Grumpy Strategists unpack the events at Singapore's Shangri-La dialogue. There, Mr Marles...
At sea amid ships, cables & drones – policy announceables from Shangri-La
Maritime matters sailed through the heart of the Shangri-La dialogue, run by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but the announceables were all at sea. Call it the horror-of-Hormuz effect: when normal ocean traffic is cut, normal life on land suffers....
Submarine plan U-turns: why public trust on AUKUS is falling
Black is white and up is down. There’s a reason Australians are losing trust in their government and in public officials, and it’s been on display in the unhappy land of submarines and our Defence department. In just a few weeks, we’ve had two major U-turns on what...
Hegseth’s Shangri-La: US allies – friends but freeloaders
Australia has just been touched by an old alliance habit—the kick from Washington for being a military freeloader. The free rider whack was one of only two references to Australia made by the US Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, on stage at Singapore’s Shangri-La...
Defence Senate Estimates 2026: 13 questions for reluctant officials
Strategic Analysis Australia is publishing a baker’s dozen sets of questions on the Defence portfolio that we’d like to know the answers to. Hopefully senators have similar interests and will seek some answers from traditionally reluctant Defence officials. ...
A decade of Collins subs mismanagement results in promotions all round, but alarm bells for AUKUS
Speaking last week, Defence Minister Richard Marles called the Collins class submarines “Australia’s most important military platform”. So it’s more than disturbing to read the ANAO Audit report on the Defence leadership’s disastrous management of the Collins fleet’s...
Australia’s Collins subs life extension scandal: 10 years of failure covered up until the Auditors came – & the UK’s 1st Sea Lord takes truth serum
Australia's Collins subs life extension scandal: 1 | RSS.com Marcus and Michael go through the scandalous revelations about 10 years of failed planning on extending the operational life of the only submarines Australia has - the 6 Collins class - while AUKUS subs...
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 nuclear-powered submarines....
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 burrows deep into...
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, funding actually goes...
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. Seldom has a policy...
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 planning which was...
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 Secretary takes over the...
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 30 deadline. That’s...
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 performance in spending the...
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 systems. But...
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 kind of conflict...
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 Onoda, second...
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 government’s 2020...