Current conflicts have overturned how air power is applied. Air forces should no longer be built solely around crewed aircraft. A different balance is required. The use of drones in very large numbers in the …
Articles by: "Peter Layton"
Australia’s defence thinking is based on outdated grand strategies. Adopting a complex interdependence grand strategy could create robust connections with many countries, enhancing national resilience to strategic, economic, technological and societal shocks. Specifically, Defence would …
In a military context, the word ‘reserve’ is usually understood as meaning some group on standby for use as field commanders decide. However, in today’s Australian Defence Force it now generally refers to individuals. This …
There’s a global arms race under way to work out how best to use artificial intelligence for military purposes. The Gaza and Ukraine wars are now accelerating this. These conflicts might inform Australia and others …
Iran knows a thing or two about robust supplies of guided munitions. Australia should learn from it. Under the new National Defence Strategy, Australia now plans to create a domestic industry to make guided weapons …
The world is again a dangerous place. A very real war is underway in Europe, while in the Indo-Pacific China is undertaking a rapid arms build-up, the political leadership in Beijing is making bellicose statements …
Artificial intelligence is a general-purpose technology that is steadily becoming pervasive across global society. AI is now beginning to interest the world’s defence forces, but the military comes late to the game. Given this, defence …
For Australia, China looms large, but the reverse is not necessarily true. The Chinese Communist Party has many pressing issues domestically in managing 1.3 billion people and the world’s second largest economy, and internationally with …
There’s a constant in Australian defence: not enough people. In peacetime, the defence organisation’s difficulties with recruitment are an ongoing saga, occasionally surfacing in headlines like ‘Sailor shortage strands Australian warship HMAS Perth in dry …
A month on from my earlier post on bringing the Australian Defence Force into the global warming fight, a lot has changed. Responding to the national bushfire catastrophe, the government has deployed more than 6,000 …
It’s time to structure the Australian Defence Force for this long, hot century. That doesn’t mean making it better suited to engaging in offshore climate-change-related activities, as the 2016 defence white paper discusses. Instead, it’s …
As geostrategic circumstances darken, there’s new interest in military mobilisation. For Australia, that involves moving the Australian Defence Force beyond its normal peacetime rate of effort. It can be an all-of-nation mobilisation for the ‘big’ …