by Michael Shoebridge | Apr 24, 2023 | China, Defence Budget, Strategy & Capability, Uncategorized
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....
by Michael Shoebridge | Dec 1, 2023 | Defence Budget, Featured, Policy, Strategy & Capability
A defence force has to have three things work well to be effective: it has to recruit and retain the skilled people it needs, it has to choose the equipment a military needs to succeed in conflict, and it has to operate and support that equipment. On all three...
by Marcus Hellyer | Nov 25, 2023 | Defence Budget, Featured, Strategy & Capability
Finally there is some good news in the defence shipbuilding space. On Thursday 24 November, the Australian Government announced that the West Australian shipbuilder Austal would build the Army’s new medium landing craft designed by NSW shipbuilder, Birdon. That’s good...
by Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge | Nov 20, 2023 | AUKUS, Featured, Podcasts, Policy, Strategy & Capability
AUKUS own goals – Australia’s new draft export controls | RSS.com “It looks like Australia just gave up its sovereignty and got nothing for it” – Bill Greenwalt (intergalactic expert on US export control laws): This episode focuses on the...
by Michael Shoebridge | Nov 18, 2023 | China, Featured, Indo Pacific, Strategy & Capability
At APEC in San Fransisco, Mr Albanese told us this about his meeting there with Xi Jinping “I also had an opportunity to meet with President Xi and to thank him for the welcome and the discussions that we had in my visit to China recently.” He added: On ‘breakthroughs...
by Peter Jennings | Nov 17, 2023 | Featured, Indo Pacific, Policy, Strategy & Capability
In a brief media doorstop after arriving in San Francisco, Anthony Albanese used the word “important” 11 times to describe his visit and the necessity of attending APEC. He said seven times that he was “catching up” with various leaders, from presidents Joe Biden and...
by Michael Shoebridge | Nov 15, 2023 | AUKUS, Defence Budget, Featured, Policy, Strategy & Capability
After the release of the damning – self-written – summary of the Defence leadership’s failed advice to the government on the $45 billion Hunter frigate, no one can have any confidence that other key decisions on military capability are any better. In their own words,...
by Anthony Bergin | Nov 13, 2023 | Featured, Policy
Penny Wong has called on Israel to stop “the attacking of hospitals” in Gaza. Australia was “particularly concerned with what is happening with medical facilities … I would make this point in relation to hospitals and medical facilities – international...
by Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge | Nov 13, 2023 | AUKUS, Defence Budget, Featured, Podcasts, South Pacific, Strategy & Capability
The Travel and Accountability Edition: Tuvalu, leadership failure & the Hunter frigates, and the B-21 | RSS.com Australian PM Albanese’s world tour ends with a bright spot in the South Pacific. On the $45 billion Hunter frigate program, an internal review...
by Anthony Bergin and Greg Rose | Nov 12, 2023 | Featured
Israel has agreed to daily military pauses in northern Gaza for humanitarian purposes. But a wholesale Israeli ceasefire in Gaza still hangs in the balance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected this unless the 240 hostages held in Gaza are released. In...
by Michael Shoebridge | Nov 11, 2023 | China, Defence Budget, Indo Pacific, Policy, Strategy & Capability
You have to wonder what Joe Biden, Xi Jinping and Cook Islands’ Mark Brown make of prime minister Albanese’s combined visits to them in the last three weeks. Looked at individually, each visit makes sense. But the problem is that, unlike the pre-internet days, what...
