Australian hospitals are running short of medical gear and those shortages will worsen. Masks, gloves, gowns, cleaning equipment and ventilators are just the obvious ones. We need to get creative urgently, and we can. In …
Articles by: "Michael Shoebridge"
It’s time to upend the idea of a ‘balanced force’ in Australian defence policy. Defence leaders have talked for decades about the 60,000-person ADF as a balanced force, with a little bit of something to …
The new national cabinet the prime minister has formed with state premiers and territory chief ministers will need to grow quickly in reach, speed of action and composition to get ahead of the rapidly unfolding …
Across many countries, an important strategy to counter Covid-19 is to ‘flatten the curve’. That strategy involves a deliberate attempt to slow transmission of the virus in order to allow the demand for medical services …
Australian governments at all levels have learned a lot between the onset of the bushfire season and the first stages of the novel coronavirus pandemic. There’s a clear understanding that national crises require coherent national …
Australia’s review of defence strategy and the capabilities that flow from it is almost complete. From the outside, the strategic assessment has to be that China’s power and military reach have grown faster than expected, …
Globalisation was ill. Coronavirus is killing both it and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’. That’s big news for Australia’s economy and security. Globalisation led people to believe that companies could build supply chains wherever there was …
A long time ago—back in September 2019—Defence Minister Linda Reynolds announced that the government was reviewing Australia’s defence strategy and capabilities. This was because the 2016 defence white paper underestimated the speed at which major …
Editors’ picks for 2019: ‘AI and autonomous systems are urgent priorities for today’s defence force’
Originally published 29 April 2019. The 2016 defence white paper and the decades-long integrated investment program will deliver a future force that includes 72 joint strike fighters, several hundred infantry fighting vehicles, nine new frigates …
The rise of China as a high-technology competitor to the US is one of the underlying drivers of the return to great-power strategic and economic competition. It’s a phenomenon that has enormous implications for the …
Countries’ 5G networks have become the subject of intense debate—and the Australian government can take some of the credit for that. Its decision to exclude high-risk vendors in August 2018 was marked by a refreshing …
Given the global rise of authoritarian powers with very active repressive security and intelligence regimes that, as the European Commission noted in March this year, pose a systemic challenge to the liberal democratic model, it’s …