ARTICLES
PM’s precarious US-China juggling is about to reach its use by date
Anthony Albanese described his dialogue with Xi Jinping in Brazil last Monday as “crucial” and his personal engagement with the Chinese leader as steering a “patient, calibrated and deliberate approach (that) created many thousands of new jobs in Australia” The two...
Australia is struggling to address national security challenges posed by critical seabed infrastructure
This week a 1200m undersea fibre-optic cable linking Finland and Germany was severed. The two countries said in a joint statement that they were investigating the incident, which “immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage”. Europe’s security is...
Where’s the defence dollar going? Not to Australian medium and small companies
Australian defence industry is struggling through a period of cognitive dissonance. The Albanese government keeps declaring that it is spending unprecedented amounts on defence capability, yet Australian medium and small defence firms are struggling, with many on life...
Australian government increasingly anti-Israel
As a child growing up in Melbourne, I remember lining up outside the huge display windows of Myer at Christmas, wide-eyed in wonder at the snowy dioramas. This year anti-Israel agitators announced their intent to disrupt the Christmas windows launch scheduled for...
Rudd dilemma should’ve been resolved long ago — it’s too late now
Our relationship with the US is too important to put on hold while we debate Kevin Rudd’s lengthy record of insulting president-elect Donald Trump. Consider the strategic issues we should be discussing with the incoming administration. On defence, how do we deter...
Episode 29: Washington cyber hygiene. Military shrinks, plans proliferate. Marles keeps balls in the air
Episode 29: Washington cyber hygiene. Military shr | RSS.com In Episode 29, the Grumpy Strategists answer the call from Australia's Embassy in Washington. They search for meaning in Defence's new religious texts - the Strategic Review and Defence Strategy - amongst...
Australia’s defence: Trump will notice our grand words aren’t matched by actions
Many people are saying many things about what a second Donald Trump term in the White House might look like. It’s a mug’s game to speculate in areas where we can’t know much. However, on defence budgets and Trump’s expectations for even the closest of US allies,...
PM’s secret think tank review: minimising discomfort for ministers & mandarins?
It’s time for the government to spill a secret: whatever happened to its ‘independent review’ of think tanks and universities, and what’s the future for any organisation looking for government funding to continue this work? Back in February, the government appointed...
Australian defence policy under a Trump world order
Most commentary thus far has been on how the Australian government will handle a Trump Administration. More will emerge on the implications for Australia, from Trump’s tariff policies to the likely continued decoupling from China, and Trump’s transactional nature. As...
The Hulk is back, and he won’t like our defence weakness
During the 2016 presidential election I wrote that the United States desperately needed Captain America but instead got the Incredible Hulk. Now the Hulk is back and even stronger. That’s because he – Donald Trump that is – won both houses of congress. Sequels are...
Reality Bites: Senate Estimates issues for Defence November 2024
Questions for the 2024-25 Defence portfolio supplementary budget estimates hearings Senate estimates hearings will be held on the Defence portfolio on Wednesday 6 November. Here are some questions we at Strategic Analysis Australia would like to hear answers to....
Episode 28: Sub schedules on fire, Deterrence by Documentation & a guided weapons go slow
Episode 28: Sub schedules on fire, deterrence by d | RSS.com With a fire in the UK's sub construction facility & US sub production slowing, the only good news is that predictions of delay are apparently ahead of schedule....Meanwhile, a new Guided Weapons plan...
Complacency & continuity in urgent times – Australia’s military power is stagnating
As we head into election season, it’s worth reviewing how well the Albanese government has performed on defence. Has it succeeded in shaping the Australian Defence Force (ADF) for what both major parties agree is the most uncertain strategic environment since World...
Defence’s recycled autonomy announcements – fool me once, shame on you…
Last week Richard Marles and Pat Conroy trumpeted Exercise Autonomous Warrior 2024 as “AUKUS Pillar II in action’. Mr Marles told us that this year’s “Exercise Autonomous Warrior is an exciting and tangible demonstration of progress being made under AUKUS Pillar II”....
What does a Canada-India spat mean for Australia?
India and Canada are engaged in a growing political battle over foreign interference. It’s not some minor squabble and it has big implications for Australia domestically and in our relationship with New Delhi. India accuses Canada of harbouring Sikh separatists and...
The war in Gaza is not over … but we are nearing the beginning of the end
With Yahya Sinwar’s death, Israel is stronger, Hamas is on the way out, and Hezbollah and the Houthis with them. Iran is in deep trouble ... but highly dangerous. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar didn’t find his death hiding in a tunnel. He was caught above ground by an...
Warfare and competition from 2024 on
Warfare has changed fundamentally. Rather than seeing it as a linear progression—or adapted regression, depending on your perspective—we should understand it as increasing entanglement between the three strategic domains of conventional warfare, nuclear warfare, and...
What Arab states know – and we don’t
There’s an open secret across Middle Eastern governments that is a background driver of their approaches to the war between Israel and Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis: they all welcome a weakened Iran and the dismantling of its...
A Defence Force that meets Australia’s strategic requirements: Paper 2 in A Blueprint for the Next Government
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) and its strategic outlook are in crisis and urgent action is needed. The key recommendation of this report is that, following the next election, the government must take urgent steps to boost Australian production of weapons,...
Israel must be supported in using force against foes
Speaking on Monday at Israel’s embassy in Canberra at the commemoration of the Hamas attack on 7 October, Senator Dave Sharma said we should “affirm the profound attachment of the people of Israel to life, to living, and to go on living, despite everything. To...
Tolerating these street protests has incubated extremism
It shouldn’t have happened this way. In 12 months of political ineptitude and strategic blindness, the Albanese government let domestic sympathy for terrorist groups grow to the point that Australia risks violence and breaking our social fabric. Such stupidity from...
Woolly-minded PM without the right words, let alone actions, on war
Anthony Albanese gave what was probably an unwitting insight into his thinking on the war in the Middle East when he said “overwhelmingly, it’s not front of mind of where Australians are at”. Judging on his statements about the war in the Middle East across...
Pagers & proportionality – what the rules say about Israeli strikes
Michael Walzer’s book, Just and Unjust Wars, is arguably the most influential modern work on the laws of war. Last week Walzer argued in the New York Times that the attacks on Hezbollah’s handheld devices were “very likely war crimes’...
Our enemies could put a digital stranglehold on us during a conflict
Defence and security agencies around the world – the smart ones – are rethinking their vulnerabilities after Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah. Even terrorist organisations are vulnerable to global supply chain warfare. What does this mean for the...
The Hunter-class frigate program: delivering less, costing more, taking longer
The Commonwealth has entered into contract for the construction of the first three Hunter-class frigates under project SEA 5000. Defence can’t sign a contract unless the Government has approved a budget that it can actually spend. This approval is known as second...
Episode 26: Acceleration – that word doesn’t mean what you think it means
Episode 26: Acceleration - that word doesn't mean | RSS.com The Grumpy Strategists discuss what Acceleration means inside the walls of Australia's Defence organisation. Defence Science 'accelerates' - with a bold plan to deliver by 2034 what it had committed to...
Attacks on Trump must sound warning bells in Australia
The assassination attempts on former president Donald Trump point to continuity rather than a shockingly unexpected turn in American politics. The US has a long history of political violence from which repeated themes emerge. Next year, on April 14, will be the 160th...
Accidental honesty: The Quad IS all about deterring an aggressive China
It’s great that US President Biden started the Quad Leaders meetings and that there have been four since the first in March 2021. But this meeting has not produced much in substance. It looks more like a farewell meeting for Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister...
The Defence of Australia: A Blueprint for The Next Government – Paper 1: National Security and Australia’s Northern Defence
The Strategic Analysis Australia team is delighted to be working on a joint project with the Institute of Public Affairs developing a blueprint for the Australian government on defence policy. Our aim is to identify actionable policy recommendations designed to...
With exploding pagers, deterrence gets personal
3000 pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, injuring hundreds of Hezbollah leaders and others carrying their pagers, and paralysing the terrorist organisation’s command system. This happened because Israel has to re-establish its power to deter its...