As we enter US President Barack Obama’s second term, one of the key strategic questions for Australia is what happens to America’s ‘pivot’ towards the Asia–Pacific. Announced in late 2011, it signalled a renewed US …
Like so many people with very little firsthand experience of creating and using defence capability at any sophisticated level, Nic Stuart has effortlessly come up with yet another answer to the financial problems of Defence—Reserve …
On 5 September 1952, Richard Casey, the Minister for External Affairs, provided the Australian House of Representatives with a report on the first meeting of the ANZUS Council in Honolulu about a month earlier. The …
In my previous post I discussed the broad utility of an amphibious capability and noted how its popularity has waxed and waned over the past century or so. Narrowing our gaze down to Australia, we …
The world should be thinking twice about lauding Myanmar’s nascent reforms. Recent air strikes directed at Kachin rebels in Shan state by the Myanmar government exacerbate one of the longest-standing civil wars in the country’s …
The conflict in Mali that has been making headlines this week has been brewing for many months now. As I pointed out back in October last year, all signs were that an Economic Community of …
The next White Paper’s conclusions on the overall force balance will be closely studied. While whether current or future wars receive priority and the numbers of wars to be fought concurrently might be big strategic …
One of the things I like most about the summer break is the opportunity to catch up on some reading. This time around one of the items on my reading list was a revisit of …
In a recent post on force structure, Peter Layton dramatically highlighted the continuing tension between future capabilities and existing requirements. The problem is, of course, (as Andrew Davies likes to say) that there are a …
Happy 2013 to all our Strategist readers! Welcome back for another round of new articles and links in the security, strategy and defence world. Mali Mali is heating up with the deployment of French troops …
Australia is right to use its seat on the UN Security Council to push for a tough response to North Korea’s most recent act of military provocation. Pyongyang’s successful launch of the Unha-3 rocket on 12 …
Later this month Perth will host the fifth meeting of AUKMIN, the annual gathering of Foreign and Defence ministers from Australia and the United Kingdom. It will be a curious gathering, overshadowed by a doubt …