ARTICLES
Are we building the wrong defence industry?
In the recent years, Australian Governments have made repeated announcements about building/rebuilding a viable, sustainable and innovative domestic industry for defence. The most recent example is that of Defence Minister Marles promising $262 million to get...
When Karens take power; building a hedge of frigates & missile maths
When Karens take power; building a hedge of frigat | RSS.com In Episode 32, the Grumpy Strategists apply science to the Australian government's early engagement with the Trump Administration. Insights from prey species threatened by a predator help. They look at...
Implementing defence industry policy – what you see, and what you don’t
This month marks the first anniversary of the release of the government’s 2024 Defence Industry Development Strategy. At that time, the Strategy attracted little attention besides some pretty critical reviews. Not much has changed since—despite the document dealing...
AUKUS: from strategic partnership to a deal kept on the road by Aussie cash
No one should take any comfort from the recent engagement that Defence Minister Richard Marles had with newly-appointed Pentagon chief, Pete Hesgeth in Washington last week. Instead, we should prepare for the obvious demand Donald Trump will make of Australia and...
Our hospitals won’t cope with a mass-casualty event
In January, a caravan was found in Sydney packed with explosives with a note in the vehicle listing Jewish addresses, including a synagogue. Places of worship have long been terrorist targets because of their symbolic value and limited security...
Trump’s Gaza gambit
President Trump’s instinct to disrupt established pathways and his lack of deep engagement in international affairs is what allows the idea that “the US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too”. In his first term, Trump stunned the foreign...
AUKUS Grifter Watch—Beware breathless claims of economic benefits
Last year I warned about the proliferation of unsubstantiated claims about the economic benefits to Australia of AUKUS and the domestic construction of nuclear submarines. Such claims are nonsense. All economists will tell you that defence spending simply transfers...
Australia is a coin toss away from a mass casualty attack
A caravan packed with explosives is the means. A note in the vehicle with Jewish addresses including a synagogue is the motive. Taken together these facts tell me that there is a growing risk of a mass casualty attack in Australia, most likely directed against Jews....
Episode 31: Biden valedictory, Trump 2.0 prelude, & Bad Santa’s little Canberra helpers release more reviews
Episiode 31- Biden valedictory, Trump 2.0 prelude | RSS.com Marcus and Michael are back after a luxurious break to assess what Joe Biden ever did for us, what Trump 2.0 looks like as the rollercoaster starts, and what the unsleeping Australian Govt elves got up to...
The Varghese review: protecting business as usual by ensuring ‘contestability’ is just a fluffy lap dog
Everybody says they want policy contestability because it tests ideas and can bring new insights and rigour to policy and decision making. But there’s one thing my years conducting contestability on Australia’s defence and strategic policy from positions inside and...
Transparency essential if rebuilding is to be of Gaza, not Hamas
Speaking from Israel on Friday, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was asked what Australia’s contribution to Gaza’s reconstruction should be. He avoided a direct answer, saying it was clear there needed to be a large international effort with no role for Hamas....
Trump 2.0: new deals on AUKUS and defence spending
In his second incarnation as US President, Donald Trump will be more certain of his own instincts and much more demanding than the Trump we saw between 2016 and 2020. That is big news for Australia, particularly because of President Trump’s approach to alliances...
Mark Dreyfus visit to Israel is no gimmick, but it must go beyond Labor PR
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, a prominent Jewish member of cabinet, is visiting Israel for about a week to help mend relations between the two countries. Dreyfus had a trip to Israel scheduled for the one-year anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks. It was...
Funding the Defence of Australia in 2025: 6 recommendations for urgent change
No-one wants war, but the risk of conflict in our region is substantially growing, and we could well find ourselves in war whether we want it or not. The challenge now is to rapidly strengthen the Australian Defence Force with the goal that our efforts, along with our...
This will be a year of living with danger
If you thought 2024 was hard for defence and security, the outlook at the beginning of 2025 suggests this year will be even riskier. From 2020, all Australian defence ministers have said the strategic outlook has never been more challenging than since the end of World...
‘More of the same’ politics is a recipe for political death
If 2024 was the year of global elections, 2025 is the year voters want experimentation in politics and government – and they’re willing to elect risky people to deliver it. 2024 set a clear pattern: incumbent governments were punished by being chronically weakened or...
Abandoning Israel comes with high price in Indo-Pacific
The Middle East is experiencing game-changing developments with consequences that extend well beyond the region. Intensifying superpower competition, China’s expanding presence, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House are redefining global power dynamics....
Drug lords’ long range narco subs show what Australian Navy needs
‘Narco-subs’ are semi-submersible vessels drug lords have used for at least a decade to smuggle drugs to Europe or across the Caribbean. They sit just below the water with small chunks of the vessel above it. One intercepted by the Colombian Navy in late 2024 shows...
The PM plays spectator as the terrorism threat grows
Investigations into the terror attack on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans continue to move fast, with the emerging picture about the assailant, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, becoming more complex. On Friday morning 3 January AEDT, an FBI spokesman told a...
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...