I’ve been a keen follower of the Lockheed Blackbird family since the headline ‘We have Mach 3 plane, says US’ appeared above a short item in London’s Daily Express in March 1964. The coolest thing …
Debate: "General"
As much as the federal budget needs fixing, shifting more disaster risk onto Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia would be the wrong way to do it. These jurisdictions already carry some of the …
Welcome to the latest edition of ASPI’s Fault Lines. Every fortnight, ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program monitors the actions and developments shaping the regional order and Australia’s security. This edition covers the period from 18 September to 1 October …
With China posing a threat to Indonesia’s interests in the South China Sea, Indonesia needs a clear maritime cooperation strategy. It should itself set the cooperation agenda with China, insist that joint activity complies with …
Australia’s sovereignty debate can sometimes get tied up in knots. Sovereignty does not mean isolated self-sufficiency. Rather, it means preserving our strategic options and our agency to make decisions in our national interest. That might …
Australia is accepting significant risk in mine countermeasures, a capability once seen as essential. While investing heavily in submarines and warships, Australia has allowed its dedicated mine countermeasures force to decline from six Huon-class minehunters …
‘There are weeks when decades happen’ has been a stock phrase to remember this summer. The missile wars between Ukraine and Russia and between Iran and the United States (and its nervous Middle Eastern allies) …
Australia’s rare-earths industry has made substantial progress. After years of project development, government investment and efforts to diversify supply chains away from China, a new generation of Australian projects is moving towards production. Several of …
The Australian Army’s workforce is more educated, technically proficient and connected to emerging technology than any previous generation. Its people challenge assumptions, experiment with new capabilities and increasingly recognise learning as a warfighting function. The …
AI weapons systems that are designed to learn and adapt could become increasingly difficult for humans to predict, explain and control. This creates an accountability gap that existing oversight mechanisms may not be equipped to …
China’s leading tech companies are no longer the copycats of yesteryear. Contrary to many perceptions in the West, they are increasingly innovative and are challenging the West for drones, robotics, electric vehicles (EVs), advanced manufacturing, …
Potential Japanese acquisition of nuclear weapons is an under-appreciated deterrent to a Chinese attempt at seizing Taiwan. If China took Taiwan, Japan would surely activate what we must presume to be well-established plans to rapidly …