In the viral outbreak of prognosticating about what the future beyond coronavirus should look like, there’s virtual unanimity about the need for countries to have supplies of essential items at the ready for crises. To …
Articles by: "Marcus Hellyer"
In my previous article, I looked at classic deterrence theory, which distinguishes between deterrence by punishment and deterrence by denial. The latter is more direct and arguably more effective when the measure of effectiveness is …
Last year, as part of the broader discussion about a Plan B for Australia’s defence strategy, I started a series looking at Australia’s options to project military power in an age in which we could …
The title of the latest issue of Australian Foreign Affairs asks, ‘Can we trust America?’ The case of the MQ-4C Triton unmanned aerial system would suggest the answer is no. The 2016 defence white paper …
In the first part of this series, I noted that Australia’s Department of Defence spends a relatively small percentage of its budget on national support tasks (less than 0.2%), but around 40% of its capabilities …
The Australian Defence Force has performed valuable services in the 2019–20 bushfire emergency. More than 5,000 personnel have been involved in a wide range of tasks, both on the front line and in logistics and …
Two questions are frequently raised about the process that selected Australia’s preferred partner for the design and build of the future submarine. The first is why the Defence Department didn’t pursue a ‘son of Collins’, …
The Australian National Audit Office has just released its latest report on Australia’s $80 billion future submarine capability. It set itself the task of examining ‘the effectiveness of Defence’s administration of the Future Submarine Program …
Originally published 5 November 2019. We’ve known for a while that SEA 1000, the Defence Department’s future submarine program, is going to cost a lot of money—we just haven’t known exactly how much. But as …
We seem to have been both naughty and nice this year. The Australian National Audit Office isn’t going to put its much-anticipated report on the future submarine program in our stocking before Christmas and we’ll …
If this year’s bushfire season is anything like the new normal, then Australia certainly needs to think about adopting a new normal for the way it fights bushfires. I agree with Peter Layton’s recent Strategist …
It’s commonplace in commentary about the Australian Defence Force to say that its force structure looks today a lot like it did 30, 40 or 50 years ago. The structure remains largely the same, while …