If we learn more from losses than wins, then the Canberra system has much to gain from examining its lousy performance in the processes that took Australia to war in Vietnam and Iraq. For Australia, …
Cooperation and military interoperability come easily to the United States and Australia. The extraordinary level attained reflects our compatible national attitudes and common traits of confidence, ingenuity, optimism and initiative. Interoperability is too frequently associated …
With all the ‘Days of Our Lives’ action in parliament a new Defence White Paper seems so far down the list of political priorities as to seem almost irrelevant. Prime Minister Gillard announced the election date …
Earlier this week, the RUSI ACT asked Ben Schreer and myself to talk about the next Defence White Paper. This is a challenge because we’re going to get a new Defence White Paper (DWP) in …
It’s uncommon for the US Defense Department to be moved by North Korean rhetoric and war-mongering, but the recent escalation of threats has succeeded in eliciting a response from the Pentagon. The US announced over …
The battle in the Southern Ocean this year has been going on both at sea and in the courts. The Antarctic whaling conflict between activists and whalers worsened last month, with collisions and damage as …
In every relationship, personal, professional and diplomatic, negotiations and their subsequent compromises take place every day. Advantages are leveraged and exploited continuously. Some situations see small concessions or trade offs for mutual satisfaction while others …
President Obama’s recent comments in an interview with an Israeli TV show about the Iranian nuclear program are a timely reminder that the issue hasn’t gone away. In the interview, which aired on 14 March, …
For a sovereign democratic nation, Andrew Davies’ contribution ‘The who, what, where, and why of the future submarine’ posits some alarming notions. The first relates to an assumption that irrespective of a direct threat to …
What of the issue of nuclear deterrence in the US–Australia alliance, and more generally in the western Pacific region? For some, in America as well as Australia and elsewhere, this is chiefly a matter of …
As the military modernisation the Asia Pacific continues, Taiwan is now looking at whether it can build its own submarine fleet. If you’ve seen the movie Argo—the Hollywood version of the rescue of six US …
In my last blog post I explored how the New York Times hacking incident had raised the stakes in the cyber domain to an unprecedented degree. Having had time to reflect on this statement, I’ve …