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 …
Articles by: "Peter Layton"
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’ …
It’s time to start paying attention. The US–China spat is doubling down. The hardline speeches given by Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe and then acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue …
Most now agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election, using social media manipulation to support its preferred candidate. In Australia, China has been engaging in old-fashioned influence operations. To address concerns about …
Worry abounds. There are calls for radically new defence policies, a defence Plan B, a doubling of defence spending, a nuclear deterrent, a conventional one and, most recently, a national security strategy. However, before jumping …
In war, there’s a constant to and fro. At times defence dominates, at other times offence. Technologies arise and fall. Disruption rules. This is noticeably so in today’s arcane world of air superiority. While much …
The future of the ADF is ‘fifth generation’, or at least the Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force think so. It might’ve been just a passing fad, given that the term originated as a …
Australia has been part of America’s long war against terrorism since the war began in 2001. In the first stage (2001–02), al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was badly mauled in a quick special forces and airpower campaign. …
The world has moved on but most South China Sea strategies are stuck in the past. For example, Australia’s policies have changed very little from 2011 to today. So instead, let’s think about strategies for …