In response to Nic Stuart’s recent post on strategic airpower, Strategist reader Sven Ortmann brought to our attention his thoughts on the topic. He suggests that the application of air power should be tailored to …
Debate: "General"
I read Katherine Ziesing’s recent piece on The Strategist, with interest. Unfortunately, as a[n economic] ‘dry’ approaching Thatcher-esque levels, I must disagree with some of her points. My big concerns with the Future Submarine project …
Andrew Davies’ graph of the week about the elderly USAF tactical fighter fleet raises several issues. But before that it is worthwhile looking at the big US Defense budget picture below. The two big peaks …
As I mentioned in last week’s ‘ASPI suggests’, there’s a useful paper from CSIS Jakarta researcher Evan Laksmana that looks at the history of US military assistance to the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) and the …
This week’s graph is a case of a picture that is worth $200 billion. Produced by the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 2009, it shows the number of tactical aircraft procured by the US …
As Andrew Davies noted here recently, the debate at the 2012 Submarine Institute of Australia (SIA) wasn’t over whether submarines should be built in Australia—that’s a forgone conclusion. Speeches from both sides of politics (both …
In our Mind the gap paper earlier this year, Mark Thomson and I made the comment that a successful program to extend the life of the Collins class submarines would give the future submarine program …
Welcome back for the second round-up of news and articles in the defence and strategy world, coming to you from Jakarta. Being in Indonesia, I’ve been naturally thinking a lot about reform of the Indonesian …
During a recent Telstra-ASPI luncheon speech, Robert D. Kaplan took the audience on a tour of the ‘hot spots’ of insecurity around the globe. The crux of Kaplan’s presentation (and his new book The Revenge …
The shale gas revolution might be upon us. Interest in shale gas has grown sharply due to the success of American producers, with the fuel now providing the U.S. with a third of its natural …
Beyond domestic concerns, which I wrote about last week, the second term Obama administration has to address a number of challenging international issues. High on the list of serious problems is Iran’s continuing effort to …
Cam Hawker asserted here recently that if conflict broke out between the United States and China, Australia would automatically be at war since we host US Joint Facilities on Australian soil. Cam is right to …