by Peter Jennings | Sep 27, 2023 | China, Defence Budget, South Pacific
There was a touch of Fidel Castro in Manasseh Sogavare’s speech at the UN last week. In a collarless Mao suit the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare delivered an ardent tirade against the “toxic mix of geopolitical power politics” afflicting the Pacific. Barring...
by Michael Shoebridge | Sep 20, 2023 | AUKUS, Strategy & Capability
15 September 2021 seems a long time ago in AUKUS land. That’s when Scott Morrison (‘that fella down under’ as Joe Biden memorably called him) stood with Boris Johnson and Joe Biden to announce the birth of this new defence technology partnership that is all...
by Michael Shoebridge | Jul 24, 2023 | AUKUS, Strategy & Capability
US Republicans in Congress are pushing the Biden Administration to put more funding into US submarine production before Congress agrees to transfer any Virginia Class submarines to Australia. Resolved, this won’t damage but will help the AUKUS deal. But it...
by Michael Shoebridge | Jul 11, 2023 | China, Strategy & Capability, Ukraine
Anthony Albanese faces a testing trip to the NATO meeting in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, this week. And it shouldn’t be like this. Australia has been included in recent NATO meetings because it has provided much-needed military supplies to Ukraine and...
by Michael Shoebridge | Jun 19, 2023 | Strategy & Capability
How trusting of Deputy Prime Minister Marles to receive a scathing report about how broken the Defence bureaucracy is and to then turn to that same bureaucracy to heal itself. And how important for Australia’s security that he reconsiders and changes course. That’s...
