For over 15 years now, there’s been an ASPI presentation on the defence budget at the Australian Defence Magazine’s annual defence industry conference. Mark Thomson did the lion’s share of them, but I’ve been the …
Articles by: "Andrew Davies"
Originally published 9 August 2017. With President Trump’s latest comments that North Korea is facing a response of ‘fire and fury’ if it endangers the US, it’s clear that the US president is at least …
Originally published 26 October 2017. This post is adapted from a presentation to the Australian Naval Institute’s 2017 Goldrick seminar. Let me start with something nice and uncontroversial. Submarines might be obsolete by the middle …
As our readers well know, The Strategist is a serious publication. We are not given to ‘silly season’ fluff pieces about baby animals or prone to shamelessly repackaging already-published material under the banner of retrospection. …
The organisational reforms to defence acquisition that followed the First Principles Review were extensive. Cassandras that we are, at the time we worried about the risk of a ‘perfect storm’ of deteriorating external strategic circumstances, …
Paul Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith recently opined that our strategic situation has changed for the worse and that the warning time clock is ticking. I think they’re right. We were able to cruise through the …
There’s been a lot of press in the past few years about the potential impact of quantum technologies. The casual observer exposed to the more breathless sort of reporting could be forgiven for thinking that …
Earlier this week I finished drafting a paper on the Korean peninsula crisis for a talk in Japan next week. I concluded, somewhat glumly, that the prospect of a deal between the US and the …
A press briefing on the Australian future submarine (FSM) program by Jean-Michel Billig, the Australian program director for Naval Group (formerly DCNS), at the PACIFIC 2017 international maritime expo a few weeks ago set some …
This post is adapted from a presentation to the Australian Naval Institute’s 2017 Goldrick seminar. Let me start with something nice and uncontroversial. Submarines might be obsolete by the middle of the century. It’s possible …
The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade is running an inquiry into the desirability of a long-term defence agreement. The idea is that the core components of defence policy (such as the …
My previous post on the future submarines talked about having a Plan B in case the project runs into insurmountable problems. In his response, Jon Stanford seconded the need for an insurance policy. So on …