ARTICLES
The Travel and Accountability edition: Tuvalu, leadership failure and the Hunter frigates – and the B-21
The Travel and Accountability Edition: Tuvalu, leadership failure & the Hunter frigates, and the B-21 | RSS.com Australian PM Albanese's world tour ends with a bright spot in the South Pacific. On the $45 billion Hunter frigate program, an internal review of the...
Hoping no one joins the dots: what Mr Albanese’s three visit journey shows the world
You have to wonder what Joe Biden, Xi Jinping and Cook Islands’ Mark Brown make of prime minister Albanese’s combined visits to them in the last three weeks. Looked at individually, each visit makes sense. But the problem is that, unlike the pre-internet days, what...
Aust-US alliance is thriving in new areas, less healthy at its military core
Anthony Albanese’s visit to America has done three things. It has broadened the ambition for the alliance into new areas like critical minerals production. It’s revealed a new, deeper dependency on American ‘big tech’ for our government. And it’s highlighted the...
Despite AUKUS, the Navy’s strategic risk is growing
Eighteen months ago, I wrote in The Australian that “there are very dark clouds on the capability horizon. We are facing the strategic risk of both of the Navy’s core combat fleets ageing out before replacements arrive”. At a time of growing regional threats, the...
Pandas, lobsters and turkey talk push security to the side
It suits Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping to keep the Prime Minister’s China visit focused on symbolism rather than substance. The Communist Party-controlled Chinese media is presenting the visit as an opportunity for Australia to atone, in the words of Beijing’s...
What price has Australia paid to get Mr Albanese’s meeting with Xi Jinping?
The meeting between Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping in Beijing this week is the culmination of the Albanese government’s efforts to show it has stabilised the bilateral relationship between Australia and China. The stated goal expressed by Foreign Minister Penny Wong...
Grumpy Strategists: The Estimates Edition
The Estimates Edition: a recruitment crisis, fragile fleets & lessons from America | RSS.com In Episode 6, Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge get into why the complex, top heavy leadership structure of Defence affects performance and demotivates those below it....
We need a Defence organisation that can operate at the speed of its external environment
The Defence organisation is top heavy, over managed and under led. It has become so organisationally complex that it can’t understand or govern itself, let alone have the bandwidth or time to engage with and understand what’s happening in the world outside its...
Defence budget gloom sinks in
“Gentlemen, we have run out of money, now we have to think”, is a quote attributed both to the physicist Ernest Rutherford and to Winston Churchill. The attribution is probably erroneous in both cases, but it’s a sentiment Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles might...
Darwin Port: leaving a key strategic asset in Chinese hands is unfinished business
Yet another review has defended the absurd 2015 Northern Territory decision to lease the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years. The lease continues to dog successive federal governments and is undermining defence planning. Just weeks into replacing Tony...
In Washington, Mr Albanese must be a contributor to collective defence, not a needy bystander
Mr Albanese is visiting Washington at a time when US defence and foreign policy is focused on support to Ukraine resisting Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion and the new war between Israel and Hamas provoked by Hamas terrorists’ mass murders and hostage taking....
We should learn from Israel that strategic shocks can happen here too
Israel’s intelligence services and military were clearly surprised by the Hamas attack but an equal mystery understanding what strategic goal Hamas was trying to achieve. Achieving surprise delivered Hamas a brief tactical advantage and a propaganda coup but the...
Breaking cyber’s endless loop
New ideas, structural reform are needed - not just more money. The 2023-2030 Australian Government cyber strategy looks likely to be announced soon. It’s unlikely to be backed by substantial new funding. Across the board, in the defence and national security...
Battlefield helicopters: the ghost of failed capability transitions yet to come?
The ghost of Christmas yet to come scared the bejesus out of old Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol with its vision of Scrooge’s miserable future. The Australian Army’s failed utility helicopter transition is scaring the bejesus out of me because...
The Israel-Hamas war, deterrence failures & hostage diplomacy Beijing style
The Israel-Hamas war, deterrence failures & hostage diplomacy Beijing style | RSS.com In this episode, Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge discuss the implications of Hamas' mass murders, and what Ukraine and Hamas mean for strategies of deterrence against other...
Hamas’ attack: failures of deterrence and imagination are lessons beyond Israel
Hamas’ murderous attack into Israel used a combination of high tech and low tech tools and weapons. The planners banked on Israeli security forces seeing the rocket and missile barrage launched by Hamas as the main attack – and also relied on Israelis assuming...
Hamas murderers’ plans won’t play out as they hope
Hamas terrorists entered Israel on Saturday with two goals: to kill as many Israelis as possible and to abduct large numbers to be used as hostages, human shields and victims of later atrocities. The death toll so far from this is over 900 Israelis and over 600...
Old trends & weak signals may herald shifts in warfare
We are in a febrile period of transition in terms of global politics, as well as the development and deployment of technologies, and ways of bringing effects to bear, whether in economics, warfare, or politics. Just when defence ministries were starting to refocus on...
Podcast: Army shape shifting, helicopter troubles & Mr Albanese goes to Washington & Beijing
Army shape shifting, helicopter troubles & Mr Albanese goes to Washington & Beijing | RSS.com In Episode 4 the Grumpy Strategists cover the restructuring of the Australian Army in the aftermath of the Defence Strategic Review, as well as setting out the lessons and...
Australian government consulting and best laid plans – 38 versus 19,000 doesn’t compute
That government has a consulting problem is old news. The focus so far has largely been on PwC; the other consultancies are mostly keeping their heads down, with an air of ‘there but for the grace of god’. Little attention has been paid as to how the public...
Solomons plus Beijing-Timor ties signals critical moment in our region’s security
There was a touch of Fidel Castro in Manasseh Sogavare’s speech at the UN last week. In a collarless Mao suit the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare delivered an ardent tirade against the “toxic mix of geopolitical power politics” afflicting the Pacific. Barring...
AUKUS is still a toddler with a long way to go
15 September 2021 seems a long time ago in AUKUS land. That’s when Scott Morrison (‘that fella down under’ as Joe Biden memorably called him) stood with Boris Johnson and Joe Biden to announce the birth of this new defence technology partnership that is all...
Triton drones: Defence is on autopilot, with Ministers along for the ride
The Department of Defence has convinced Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and the PM-chaired National Security Committee of Cabinet to proceed with buying a fourth Triton long range UAV from America’s Northrop Grumman corporation, likely adding some $350 million to...
Sevastopol, $200 million Triton drones and Australian industry
Sevastopol, $200 million Triton drones and Australian industry | RSS.com Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge discuss what the Ukrainian military's attack on Sevasotopol says about navies & denial. This, along with lessons from Australia's 25 year journey of...
How to stop underestimating Australian industry’s capacity for our defence
Australian defence exports have been in the news, with reports that Australian equipment is having an impact in Ukraine’s struggle to evict Russian invaders. These include Thales Australia’s Bushmaster protected mobility vehicle, Droneshield’s counter-drone systems,...
Seabed mining rules lapse is window for Pacific regulations
In late July, after weeks of fierce debate at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) meeting in Jamaica, deep-sea mining proponents failed to get an agreement for the immediate licensing of deep-sea mining operations. The ISA has issued more than 30 exploration...
Podcast: Naval shipbuilding without ships & a Navy review about what?
Naval Shipbuilding without ships & a Navy review about what? | RSS.com The second Grumpy Strategists Production looks at 'continuous shipbuilding' and the Navy. 6 years on, the National Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise hasn't delivered any ships. Meanwhile, the ANZAC...
Australia & Triton: a user’s guide for what not to do with UAVs
One element of President Biden’s FY2024 defense budget that has not attracted much attention here in Australia is one that has direct implications for us - and some very practical lessons about how Defence does capability planning, acquisitions and thinks about the...
Australia can’t be a bystander as Washington’s submarine debate grows
Two years on from the AUKUS announcement in September 2021 and only 6 months from Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Anthony Albanese giving us the ‘optimal pathway’, risks are already emerging that need our attention – and require some immediate big shifts in Australian...
Defence & Australian industry: from low trust & distant to direct partnership for delivery
"Australia’s defence industry is looking for two things: the first is an opportunity to participate in the strategic level thinking needed to bring clarity to a situation of increasing policy disorder. The Government, Parliament and Defence need to create mechanisms...