Michael O’Hanlon from Brookings has some ideas on how the US might spend its defence dollars given current fiscal constraints in his book Healing the Wounded Giant, including cutting ground forces, buying half of the …
The political settlement that Fiji’s New Order regime is preparing to impose on its subdued society and decimated polity is a lousy outcome after 13 years of struggle and schism. Yet Australia, New Zealand and …
What’s China up to in our near neighbourhood? That’s an important question at a time when Australia has just declared that we’ll structure the ADF around just two of our Principal Tasks (PDF), the second …
Mark Thompson writes: Imagine how the White Paper would have read if it had begun with the recognition—brutal yet surely accurate—that our security ultimately depends on the geopolitical balance in our part of the world …
I’m an old Defence-of-Australia hand, so I’ll offer a perspective which looks at the 2013 Defence White Paper through that prism, and then draw some conclusions. There are four overall principles that have characterised Defence …
Thankfully, Minister Smith has delivered the sort of Defence White Paper you hope for when you really don’t need a White Paper and there isn’t enough money to pay for the current plans, let alone …
The Australian and Swedish Defence Ministers produced a joint communique today on the subject of intellectual property rights for submarine design and technology. That mightn’t sound like a ‘tear down the front page’ story, but …
For the first time, the most recent Defence White paper contained multiple references to Africa, illustrating Australia’s growing interest and engagement with the continent. Australia is playing an active role in making Africa more secure …
Former foreign minister Hayden said, “As Labor came to office in 1972 ‘China’ had become a symbol of a broad judgment of the need for change in many areas”. Stephen FitzGerald recalled of the atmosphere …
Mark Thomson is squirreled away producing his usual tour de force budget analysis (on the streets May 30) so readers of The Strategist will have to make do with my first take on the Defence budget. Let’s …
Mark Thomson is widely quoted this morning as saying that the defence budget outcome is better than many observers hoped. Saved by the government’s decision to keep the overall budget in deficit, Defence was not …
The Defence White Paper signals full-steam ahead for Australia’s most expensive defence project ever: the design and construction, in Australia, of 12 conventionally-powered submarines. With A$200m committed to funding initial designs, however, the enormity of …