One of General Petraeus’ trademarks, both as a military leader and during his relatively brief tenure as Director of the CIA, was his openness and accessibility for the press. As long as the boundaries of …
Debate: "General"
President Obama’s decision to visit Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia later this week is a surprising but welcome affirmation of the US’s continuing commitment to its Asian ‘pivot’. It’s surprising because Americans will overwhelmingly think that …
Reporting from Jakarta, I’m kicking off today’s ASPI round-up of reports and events on strategy, defence and security with an Indonesia acquisition story. Indonesia has moved one step closer to the purchase of German tanks …
I gave a talk today on the subject of ‘the defence maritime budget and industry opportunities and impacts’ at the Maritime Environment Working Group here in Canberra. In this case, it was hard to know …
Statements of mutual appreciation are never far from centre stage at an Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) meeting. In 2002, both sides agreed that the meeting came at a time “when the bilateral security alliance …
When US officials of the calibre of Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Locklear and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell say they are worried about Australian defence spending, you can take it as read that they …
Last week, with the Asian Century White Paper, it was all about Australia’s relationship to Asia. This week it will be all about our security relationship with the US as the 2012 AUSMIN meets in …
This week’s graphs illustrate the importance of data in settling some historical debates. I was fortunate recently to have a chat with US military historian Williamson Murray. We got talking about some of his early …
Military organisations have a formalism for describing capability that involves a number of factors but there’s distressing tendency to focus on equipment and systems at the expense of some of the others. This focus is …
Here’s our weekly round-up of articles, reports and events in the strategy, defence and security world. The latest issue of Foreign Affairs sports a Linda Robinson piece on the future of special operations. Back in …
Our Antarctic claim is about the size of Australia, minus Queensland. So it’s pleasing to see that the new Asian Century White Paper gave a decent acknowledgement to the cold continent (p. 248): The development …
Strategist reader Linsday Dorman, an associate at Future Directions International, has submitted this comment: I enjoyed the report by Peter Jennings of 1 November. However, I note that he stresses ‘that our primary focus should …