by Marcus Hellyer | Apr 25, 2025 | AUKUS, Defence Budget, Strategy & Capability
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...
by Peter Jennings | Apr 2, 2025 | AUKUS, China
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...
by Marcus Hellyer | Mar 26, 2025 | Defence Budget, Strategy & Capability
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...
by Peter Jennings | Mar 25, 2025 | China, Indo Pacific, Strategy & Capability
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...
by Peter Jennings | Mar 18, 2025 | Strategy & Capability
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...
