ARTICLES
Not alert and not alarmed: our complacency puts us at risk, politically and socially
[Note to SAA readers: This article appeared in The Australian on 03 January 2025. Overnight the FBI investigation of the attack concluded that Shamsud-Din Jabbar probably planted two IEDs in the vicinity of Bourbon Street himself, before engaging in his vehicle...
Job done for China’s ambassador — but 2025 will be much harder
China’s ambassador Xiao Qian has replaced wolf warrior language with silken tofu. According to his interview with this newspaper’s defence correspondent, Ben Packham, the bilateral relationship has achieved a “full turnaround” from the bad days when Canberra...
Scandalous US warship program would be a shining success here in Australia
A troubled US Navy frigate program looks like a humming top of efficiency and value compared to our Department of Defence’s $27 billion program to get 3 Hunter class frigates for our Navy. The bad news is the Australian Government isn't doing anything to change...
Varghese review will kill off fair, open policy debate
It seems the Albanese government is happy with, but not proud of, Peter Varghese’s “Independent Review of Commonwealth funding for strategic policy work”, known in Canberra as the “Kill ASPI” review. The government is happy because it got what it asked for – a way to...
Labor must explain why it’s trashed a historic friendship
In her recent Hawke Oration delivered on Monday night, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said we expect both Russia and China to abide by international law and expect Israel to do the same She has never specified whether Israel is not complying with the law or what law is...
Fall of Assad triggers momentous shift in Middle East power plays
For more than a decade Syria has been a patchwork of contesting tribal loyalties overlaid with the geopolitical ambitions of neighbours and great powers. With the help of Russia and Iran, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad controlled the capital, Damascus, its western...
18 Ways To Leave Your Lover: a big tech view of the Pentagon
Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar has put out a compelling diagnosis of Pentagon capability acquisition and the resulting US defence industry structure. It's called 18 Theses. Don't be put off by the grandiose title echoing Luther's battle against the Catholic Church. This is...
Defence’s disappointing Annual Report & Hypersonic Hyperbole meets Houthi hard work
Defence's disappointing Annual Report & Hypersoni | RSS.com In Episode 30, Marcus and Michael look at what the numbers in Defence's Annual Report tell us about Defence's 'fasttracked' work on missiles, helicopters & ships. The numbers show systemic...
Right Here Right Now: Unleashing Australian know-how to grow military power fast
This is the third report in the IPA-SAA Blueprint for Defence series that provides an action plan for reforming Defence. This new report focuses on what needs to change in how Defence acquires weapons and systems. It sets out how the Government in office after next...
Australia’s Ghost Fleet—The strange saga of the Arafura-class Offshore Patrol Vessels
Last year the US Navy’s Ghost Fleet visited Australia. This squadron consists of uncrewed surface vessels that are capable of long-range autonomous operations, a capability the Royal Australian Navy doesn’t yet have. But Australia does have its own ghost fleet: the...
Another Brick in the Wall: Education, not control can help young Australians with social media
The Labor government’s mis- and disinformation bill died in the Senate this week and rightly so. The bill was a power grab for information control, giving bureaucrats oversight over how social media platforms would find and fix information “reasonably verifiable as...
When free trade ain’t free: Xi Jinping plays pretend with our enthusiastic prime minister
Back in 2017, early into Donald Trump’s first term as US President, China’s Communist Party leader Xi Jinping turned up to the Davos world economic forum and told the assembled corporate heavyweights and global leaders that China embraced globalisation and was...
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...