ARTICLES
Attention Deficit disorder debuts as global foreign policy, while muddy siloes contrast with Golden Domes.
Attention Deficit disorder debuts as global foreig | RSS.com The Grumpy Strategists road test Incat's latest product, the 130m electric ship "China Zorrilla", while assessing the whiplash shifts in American engagement with the Middle East. They contrast the ambitious...
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 Labor government...
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 comes from the...
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 then, the...
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 release has shifted the...
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 spending slowly to 2.4...
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 ten is a much needed...
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 Russia building a...
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 to deal with a US...
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 in Washington DC....
Penny Wong can’t support Gazan protest and oppose a ceasefire with Israel at the same time
Gaza has been witnessing the largest ever protests against Hamas. Open opposition highlights how residents want the terror organisation to leave. At least some Palestinians are so fed up with Hamas that they’re brave enough to risk their lives to be heard. Palestinian...
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 that Australian...
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 health and system...
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 trenches again. There’s...
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 is in a much more...
China’s maritime misbehaviour: common ground impossible while China remains a bad faith actor
In a recent article published by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Edward Chan points out that Australian governments have been hesitant to engage too closely with China on maritime security issues. He argues that must change: Australia should be...
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 consistently...
Australia’s defence needs more than hot air
We are in an age of upheaval. President Donald Trump’s actions are accelerating many of the strategic drivers that were already at work. These changes are not beneficial to Australia. While the mantra of ADF leaders has been “we’ll never fight alone”, even...
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 not only...
Episode 35: Australian ‘wombat resistance’ to Trump begins, the masterplan for zero tariffs and debates swirl on “Plan B’ for security
Episode 35: Australian 'wombat resistance' to Trum | RSS.com Marcus and Michael explore the Government's confused position on disaster relief and the military. They assess the nuances in wombat-based pushback on US policies & set out the merits of the Government's...
The ‘5 Eyes’ & Trump: problems of trust & mistrust
The 5 Eyes intelligence partnership between Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand and the UK is uniquely deep. It has operated for decades, including as governments of various political hues and persuasions ruled in each of the five nations. The power of the pooled...
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 to deploy...
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 targets found with the...
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 leader – besides...
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 Defence officials'...
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 illnesses and give...
DOGE and American military power – there’s a tsunami coming
Elon Musk has the goal of saving $US1 trillion dollars from the US Federal Government’s expenditure by 30 September 2025. He has to find cuts of $4 billion every day until then. The sheer numbers mean Pentagon and US military power will be in the frame...
Donald Trump shows strong hand, but do we still hold AUKUS ace?
President Donald Trump delivered a strong speech to the US Congress, departing from his script only occasionally to needle unhappy Democratic Party members in his audience. The speech was a mix of longstanding Trump themes: strengthening borders; deporting...
Islamophobia & anti-semitism: different problems that must each be understood
This week a 16-year-old boy in Western Australia was arrested following an alleged online threat to a Sydney mosque that referenced the 2019 attack in Christchurch, where more than fifty worshippers were murdered. The prime minister condemns the alleged threat,...
The 2025 Defence budget update: still sleeping walking to disaster
The Government recently released the 2024-25 Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements (PAES) which are meant to report on how departments are going at delivering on the policy goals and spending plans set out in the Portfolio Budget Statements (PBS). This year’s...