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’ …
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 …