In my first post, I argued while there are very good historical reasons Australia should stay close to the United States, there are a number of factors for Defence White Paper writers to consider. Here, …
Debate: "Defence White Paper 2013"
Paul Monk initiated a valuable debate on these pages about the role of risk in defence planning. As it happens, I’ve been thinking along similar lines for sometime myself. So here’s my take on the …
This post is the second on demystifying grand strategy; it looks at how we can influence others. Grand strategy involves interacting with others in a way that will change them to our advantage. Grand strategy …
There’s a conundrum facing the writers of the Defence White Paper 2013. On one hand, Australia’s geography places it at the southern end of East Asia and its economy places it in a strong trading …
Hugh White nicely joins the fray in focusing on the key difference between risks and threats: time. That is, a risk can turn into a threat over time, and vice versa. As Hugh says, risk …
Paul Monk raises an important issue about that slippery word ‘threat’ and its place in defence policy. I don’t think he quite gets it right, but nor do I agree completely with Rod Lyon’s objections. …
Grand strategy is a big idea back in fashion as a useful way to think about and address important issues. But many grand strategic schemes advocated are complicated, incomplete, inappropriate and use arcane terms that …
I want to decline Paul Monk’s offer to see Australian defence policy as an insurance policy. I think there are three good reasons for doing so. The first has to do with the nature of …
There’s one consistent thread to Australian Defence White Papers that didn’t really come out in Peter Jennings’ article—the notion of self-reliance. Of course, we didn’t come to that notion by accident—it was pretty much forced …
When the subject of defence spending surfaces in public debate, there are inevitable and regrettable exchanges about whether Australia faces a ‘threat’ that justifies the expenditure. This is understandable, given the psychology of warfare, but …
Defence white papers are usually hailed as definitive statements of policy, and we can expect the 2013 one to be no exception. The phrase has an air of the laboratory about it—of boffins toiling to …