With the RAAF’s first two operational joint strike fighters arriving in early December, long-time critics have launched a fresh wave of claims that the aircraft is a disaster. Early in September, a writer in a …
Articles by: "Brendan Nicholson"
New army chief Rick Burr encourages his troops to embrace a new sport with a deadly serious purpose: drone racing. Various types of small ‘copters and fixed-wing aircraft blast around obstacle courses and through rugged …
The conference rooms scattered through Lockheed Martin Australia’s headquarters in Canberra are each named after high-achieving scientists and other thinkers and doers—and they’re all Australians. That was done deliberately to highlight the fact that the …
The overwhelming speed of technological development means armed forces must change their approach to everything from who they recruit and train to how targets are attacked and how a nation defends itself. The warning was …
In his last week as chief of the Australian Army, Angus Campbell delivered a speech hosted by ASPI at the Australian War Memorial in which he described General John Monash’s planning for the Battle of …
Welcome to The Strategist Six, a feature providing a glimpse into the thinking of prominent academics, government officials, military officers, reporters and interesting individuals from around the world. The freeing of most of Iraq and Syria, …
As Defence embarks on a series of massive and complex building programs, the department’s secretary, Greg Moriarty, has warned that it needs to become more effective at managing projects. ‘A lot of very good work …
Allegations of appalling behaviour by a small number of Australian special forces soldiers accused of killing unarmed prisoners in Afghanistan were serious enough to prompt commanders to question whether it would be safe to deploy …
The company building the Navy’s 12 new submarines says they’ll be the world’s first conventional boats big enough to effectively use the company’s pump jet propulsion system. French Naval Group Australia says that its propulsor will …
Australia, the United States and other democracies must stand up to autocratic and increasingly aggressive nations such as Russia and China and protect their institutions against all attempts to undermine them, former American Ambassador to …
When the commander of the US Army in the Pacific met senior Chinese military chiefs, he came away noting that ‘while they still respect us, they no longer fear us’. In a speech to the …
The hard part of running the Defence organisation is the trade-offs—lining up capability, strategy and resources to work out what can and can’t be done, says Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty. ‘A challenge I’ve …