ARTICLES
Tug-of-war existence between Taiwan and China
I stood on Cihu beach, on the Taiwanese island of Kinmen, contemplating the hazy silhouettes of Xiamen skyscrapers only three kilometres away on the Chinese mainland. My travelling companion’s phone pinged. The message from Vodafone said: “Welcome to China”. The...
Breaking the suspended animation of defence innovation
As policy advisors and decision makers consider the problem of defence innovation, the video of the SpaceX Starship launch of 20 April 2023 should be required viewing. When they watch it, they should note the audacity of the vision, the engineering, and the global...
Forget transparent seas. What’s the plan to deal with crowded oceans?
Eight Australian nuclear submarines operating sometime in the 2050s is a long way off. Even Australia operating its first Virginia Class submarine, all things going well, by 2033 is a decade and $60bn away. Well before then, Australia’s waters (our large...
A ready reserve of nation’s civilian fleet makes sense for the RAN
Recent revelations that China has launched multiple new civilian ferries that could be used as amphibious assault ships against Taiwan have caused consternation among some strategic analysts. Some analysts see mobilised civilian assets such as roll-on, roll-off...
Do we have a viable military strategy?
With the Albanese government’s adoption of the Defence Strategic Review, Australia’s defence strategy has become more focused. Instead of maintaining a defence force that can do a bit of everything, the focus is now squarely on deterring potential Chinese aggression...
12 questions on the 2023-24 Defence budget
Australia needs to mobilise in order to address the strategic challenges it is facing. The Defence Strategic Review (DSR) proposes ways to do that. However, the 2023-24 Defence Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS) does not yet incorporate the recommendations of the DSR....
G7 de-risks on China and supports Ukraine. Australia re-risks and shuffles feet.
Australia’s attendance at the G7 and Quad leaders meetings in Japan helps Anthony Albanese back home. It portrays him as a respected, influential international leader. But the price of sitting at these tables isn’t smiling and participating in photo opportunities,...
Vacuous Quad joint statement sets off warning bells
The best that can be said of the statements, declarations, compacts and media transcripts from Anthony Albanese’s meetings in Hiroshima is that they make a thin gruel. We now have a Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact with the US, which...
Emergency training program would help plug ADF gap
The Defence Strategic Review recommended our fighting forces be released from most of their domestic disaster-response role to concentrate on deterring wars, and winning them if deterrence fails. The DSR found that the increasing use of the military for disaster...
Modi goes to PNG – why it matters to the region and Australia
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Papua New Guinea early next week and then go on to Australia, despite the cancellation of the Quad Leaders’ summit. Fortunately, Prime Minister Modi’s visit to PNG wasn’t linked to US President Biden’s cancelled visit to...
Biden skipping Sydney Quad meeting’s bad, but our underwhelming Strategic Review is worse
US President Joe Biden’s decision not to attend a summit of the Quad countries in Sydney is disappointing but not unexpected. Given the perilous negotiations in Washington to avert a default on government debt, it is more surprising that Biden is still intending...
Climate changes the role of Australian police in the Pacific
The Defence Strategic Review points out that if climate change accelerates over coming decades it has the potential to significantly increase risk in our region. As affirmed by the 2018 Boe Declaration, climate change “remains the single greatest threat to the...
Defence Budget 2023-24: Living in the past
The bottom line up front: The Albanese government’s May Defence budget is disconnected from its own Defence Strategic Review. Defence funding and the plan for spending is business as usual when instead we need urgent action. Simply committing to the now seven-year-old...
Unpacking the DSR dollars
Like all big policy statements, the public version of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR), released on 24 April this year, is a mix of the good, the bad and ugly. Of course, depending on your point of view, a piece of information (or its absence) could fall into any...
Cyber and the seven questions posed by the Defence Strategic Review
In an age of fast evolving, disruptive digital tools, including emerging forms of AI, how can we reimagine the Australian Defence organisation, including the military, and its functions? What are the concepts of work, financial frameworks, governance, resourcing...
A slow Capability Accelerator is unacceptable
One proven way for organisations to deal with uncomfortable recommendations from external reviews is to accept what they recommend and then implement them in ways that are business as usual, but with new paint. The Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA)...
The unclassified Defence Strategic Review: a shortened ambition?
Rapidly shifting contexts drive tough decisions. For Australia, that context is a more entitled China, a disrupted, multipolar environment driven by technological competition, and with the conflict in Europe, a possible return to an age of blood and iron—and...
What we’ve learned from the Defence Strategic Review
While there’s only a single paragraph devoted to it down on page 23, it’s clear that the Defence Strategic Review and the billions of dollars the government will spend on Defence over the next ten years is all about grappling with Chinese power in the Indo Pacific....
Saltwater Strategists Podcast: AUKUS, DSR and Australia’s Maritime Capability
In this Australian Naval Institute Saltwater Strategists podcast, Dr Marcus Hellyer, Head of Research at Strategic Analysis Australia, examines many of the key issues around maritime capability and the Defence Strategic Review. In a wide-ranging discussion Marcus...
Unpacking the cost of our nuclear-powered submarine program
The government has said that the cost of buying and operating our eight nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) will be between $268 billion and $368 billion ‘over the life of the program’. But what does that staggeringly large number mean? The government has suggested we...
AUKUS pillar two needs more than Defence
Amidst recent speculation over the Defence Strategic Review and budget funding, it’s far from clear the promises of AUKUS are to be met. While pillar one of AUKUS, the nuclear-powered submarines, has garnered most attention, it is AUKUS pillar two that’s more...
Critics and cheerleading aside, Albanese’s defence strategy has Australia in good company
The first big national security decision prime minister Albanese has taken is on how Australia will work with the US and UK to build and operate 8 nuclear submarines. That’s a huge decision with long term commitments, challenges and expense. But it’s by no means the...
Strategic Review must be more than catalogue shopping and internal cuts
There’s a hole in the middle of the discussion about defence, AUKUS and nuclear submarines. And that hole is what will be done to deter conflict involving China between now and 2030. The good news is the hole can be filled and the Albanese government’s decisions on...
Defence should hand over David Peever Review for AUKUS or fail on ambitions
The media headlines were all about submarines but innovation will be the productive core of the AUKUS agreement. This presents a huge stretch target for Defence and industry. Standing with US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in San Diego,...
Taiwan: four big reasons it matters to Australians
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is meeting with US House Speaker McCarthy before travelling on to Latin America, and European states like the Czech Republic, Lithuania and the United Kingdom are continuing to deepen political engagement with Taiwan. At the same time,...
It’s time to return fire against AUKUS naysayers
The AUKUS pathway for Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines is barely 10 days old. Already it is clear that the biggest threat to the plan is not the opposition, which is embracing bipartisan support, or China’s absurd attempts to distract from its own military...
Twelve steps towards delivering a successful defence program
Given the world’s tough economic outlook and the eroding geo-strategic situation, Anthony Albanese may not have a more positive day in office than he had last Monday in San Diego, California, at the announcement of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pathway. Now...
Subs “optimal pathway” sacrifices simplicity for speed, while digital tech cooperation lags
President Biden, prime minister Albanese and UK prime minister Sunak have now told the world what the ‘optimal pathway’ for Australia to get 8 nuclear powered submarines looks like. At a cost of between $268 billion and $368 billion, Australia seems likely to get 3 of...
Nation’s challenge: how to deliver on AUKUS
Next week in the US, Anthony Albanese will make the most consequential national security announcement of his prime ministership – revealing the agreed pathway for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The Prime Minister might puzzle at the twists and turns...
Rethinking Australian airpower in an age of ‘impactful projection’
There’s a deeply held view that underpins our defence industry policy, namely that as an island girt by sea Australia has to build its warships here. Which is rather odd when you think about it because we are also an island girt by air, yet very few people insist we...